Organized Pressure Campaign to Expel Chinese Residents
A report on the growing anti-Chinese labor movement across the Pacific Slope and the violent expulsion of workers from Seattle and Tacoma.
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The Chinese question in this country is different in character from any previous one. It is apparently ruled by a more judicious and less excitable spirit, and its uncontrolled and more influential leaders are in favor of eschewing violence as much as possible and of accomplishing the end in view by wholly legitimate means. Many communities have served formal notice to the Chinese of the prevailing desire that they should withdraw from industrial competition with the masses of the country, and in almost every case they have obeyed this warning. A marked feature of the movement is the alacrity with which the people in general in every part of the State of California and throughout the rest of the Pacific slope have fallen into line with this policy. In Seattle, the people began in the latter part of September to hold meetings for the purpose of devising means of getting rid of the hateful Mongolian. It was decided that riot must be the inevitable result if the Chinese were not by peaceable means expelled. The Chinese laborers were all discharged from the mines near Seattle, and white men were employed in their places. In Tacoma, November 3rd was fixed upon as the day when all the Chinese must leave the city. They quietly packed up their effects and departed. But on the preceding day, Old Tacoma, which constituted the Chinese quarter, was burned to the ground.
“It was decided that riot must be the inevitable result if the Chinese were not by peaceable means expelled.”
This article documents the localized, state-sanctioned violence that led to the expulsion of Seattle's Chinese population in 1885-1886. Today, these events are remembered as a dark chapter in Seattle's history, serving as a reminder of how labor insecurity is often weaponized against immigrant communities to scapegoat larger economic anxieties.
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