The Trial of the Anti-Chinese Conspirators
A federal judge clarifies the legal bounds of anti-Chinese intimidation in King County, 1886.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The court states that if two or more persons in any state or territory conspire to go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another for the purpose of depriving any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws, each such person shall be punished. The indictment charges in substance that the defendants conspired unlawfully, by force and intimidation, to drive out of this county certain Chinese persons residing within it and prevent them from living therein in security as to their persons and property. This is a conspiracy to effect, by certain specified means—namely, force and intimidation—a certain specified purpose, that is to say, unlawfully driving out the Chinese. If the evidence shows that the defendants combined together for the purpose of unlawfully driving out the Chinese, or for the purpose of unlawfully interfering with their pursuits, by any one or more of the means which the indictment alleges, then the offense is proved. The Chinese in this country are entitled to the protection of the laws and all privileges and immunities under them equally with all white persons. This protection and these privileges and immunities belong to all Chinese, whether subjects of the Chinese Empire or not, but they are to those of the Chinese subjects secured by solemn and explicit treaty stipulations.
“The shield which the arms of our National Government holds at all times over black, yellow, and red in all its broad domain wherever they may go.”
This text provides a chilling, primary-source account of the 1886 anti-Chinese expulsion efforts in Seattle. It captures the moment the federal government attempted to enforce constitutional protections against a tide of local organized bigotry, a struggle that remains a painful, foundational chapter of Seattle's civic history.
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