Rock Springs Sweetwater Wyoming United States

Chinese immigration to the United States at this time is neither uniform nor widespread.

The vast majority of the nearly one hundred thousand Chinese immigrants reside within the American West: California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington Territory, as stated by the U.S. Minister to China, George Seward, in Scribner's Magazine ("Seward's 'Chinese Immigration'," Scribner's Monthly, April, 1881, no. 6.)

The first jobs Chinese laborers had taken in Wyoming were on the railroad, working for the Union Pacific company (UP) as maintenance-of-way workers.

Chinese workers had soon become an asset to Union Pacific and work along UP lines and in UP coal mines from Laramie to Evanston.

Most Chinese workers in Wyoming end up working in Sweetwater County, but a large number settle in Carbon County and Uinta counties.

Most Chinese people in the area are men working in the mine.

Racism against Chinese immigrants is widespread and largely uncontroversial at this time.

In 1874–75, after labor unrest had disrupted coal production, the Union Pacific Coal Department had hired Chinese laborers to work in their coal mines throughout southern Wyoming.

Even so, Chinese population had risen slowly at first; however, where there are Chinese immigrants, they are generally concentrated in one area.

At Red Desert, a remote section camp in Sweetwater County, there are 20 inhabitants, of whom 12 are Chinese.

All 12 are laborers who work under an American foreman.

To the east of Red Desert is another remote section camp, Washakie.

An American section foreman lives there among 23 others, including 13 Chinese laborers and an Irish crew foreman.

In the various section camps along the main line of the Union Pacific Railroad, Chinese workers far outnumber any other nationality.

Though the 79 Chinese in Sweetwater County in 1870 represented only 4% of the total population, they were, again, concentrated.

In Rock Springs and Green River, the largest towns along the UP line, there were no Chinese residents reported in 1870.

Throughout the 1870s, the Chinese population in Sweetwater County and all of Wyoming had steadily increased.

During the decade, Wyoming's total population had risen from nine thousand one hundred and eighteen to twenty thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.

In the 1870 U.S. Census, what the government today calls "Asian and Pacific Islander" had represented only one hundred and forty-three members of the population of Wyoming.

The increase during the 1870s is the largest percentage increase in the Asian population of Wyoming of any decade since; the increase represents a five hundred and thirty-nine percent jump in the Asian population.

By 1880, most Chinese residents in Sweetwater County lived in Rock Springs.

At this time, Wyoming is home to mine hundred and fourteen "Asians”.

Although most Chinese workers in 1880 are employed in the coal mines around Wyoming and Sweetwater County, the Chinese in Rock Springs work mostly in occupations outside of mining.

In addition to Chinese laborers and miners, a professional gambler, a priest, a cook, and a barber reside in the city.

In Green River, Wyoming, there is a Chinese doctor.

Chinese servants and waiters find work in Green River and in Fort Washakie.

In Atlantic City, Miner's Delight, and Red Canyon, Wyoming, Chinese gold miners are employed.

However, the majority of the one hundred and ninety-three Chinese residing in Sweetwater County by 1880 work in the coal mines or on the railroad.

Bitterness from the white miners in Rock Springs has increased as more Chinese arrive.

By 1883, when a "Whitemen's Town" is established in Rock Springs, the Knights of Labor have organized a chapter here.

The Knights are one of the major groups which spearhead opposition to Chinese labor during the 1880s; in 1882, the Knights had worked for the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

The white miners at Rock Springs, being mostly Cornish, Irish, Swedish, and Welsh immigrants, believe lower-paid Chinese laborers drive down their wages.

The Chinese at Rock Springs are aware of the animosity and rising racial tension with white miners, but have not taken any precautions, as no prior events had indicated there would be any race riots.

Underlying the coming outbreak of violence are racism and resentment of the policies of the Union Pacific Coal Department.

Until 1875, the mines in Rock Springs had been worked by whites; in that year, a strike had occurred, and the strikers had been replaced with Chinese strikebreakers less than two weeks after the strike began.

The company had resumed mining with fifty white miners and one hundred and fifty Chinese miners in its employ.

Notices had been posted from Evanston to Rock Springs in August 1885, demanding the expulsion of Chinese immigrants, and on the evening of September 1, 1885, white miners in Rock Springs hold a meeting regarding the Chinese immigrants.

It will be rumored that threats had been made that night against the Chinese, according to immigrants then residing here.

Ten white men, in ordinary garb and miner's uniforms, arrive at coal pit number six at the Rock Springs mine at 7:00 a.m. on September 2, 1885.

They declare that the Chinese laborers have no right to work in a particularly desirable "room" in the mine; miners are paid by the ton, thus location is important to the miners.

A fight breaks out, and two Chinese workers at pit number six are badly beaten.

One of the Chinese workers later dies due to his injuries.

The white miners, most of whom are members of the Knights of Labor, walk out of the mine.

After the work stoppage at pit number six, more white miners assemble near the town.

They march to Rock Springs by way of the railroad, carrying firearms.

At about 10:00 a.m., the bell in the Knights of Labor meeting hall tolls, and the miners inside the building join the already large group.

There are white miners who opt to go to saloons instead of joining the gathering mob, but by 2:00 p.m., the saloons and grocers are persuaded by a Union Pacific official to close.

With the saloons and grocers closed, about one hundred and fifty men, armed with Winchester rifles, move toward Chinatown in Rock Springs in two groups and enter Chinatown by crossing separate bridges.

The larger group enters by way of the railroad bridge and is divided into squads, a few of which remain standing on the opposite side of the bridge outside Chinatown.

The smaller group enters by way of the town's plank bridge.

Squads from the larger group break off and move up the hill toward coal pit number three.

One squad takes up a position at the pit number three coal shed; another, at the pump house.

A warning party is sent ahead of the squads into Chinatown.

They warn the Chinese they have one hour to pack up and leave town.

After only thirty minutes the first gunshots are fired by the squad at the pump house, followed by a volley from those at the coal shed.

Lor Sun Kit, a Chinese laborer, is shot and falls to the ground.

As the group at coal pit number three rejoins them, the crowd presses on toward Chinatown, some men firing their weapons as they go.

The smaller group of white miners at the plank bridge divides itself into squads and surrounds Chinatown.

One squad stays at the plank bridge to cut off any Chinese escape.

As the white miners move into Chinatown, the Chinese become aware of the riot and that Leo Dye Bah and Yip Ah Marn, residents from the west and east sides of Chinatown, have already been killed.

As the news of the murders spreads, the Chinese flee in fear and confusion.

They run in every direction: up the hill behind coal pit number three; others, along the base of the hill at coal pit number four; others still, from the eastern end of town, flee across Bitter Creek to the opposite hill; and more flee the western end of Chinatown across the base of the hill to the right of coal pit number five.

The mob comes from three directions by this time, from the east and west ends of town and from the wagon road.

By 3:30 p.m. the massacre is well under way.

A group of women in Rock Springs has gathered at the plank bridge, where they stand and cheer on the rampage.

Two of the women reportedly fire shots at the Chinese.

As the riot wears on into the night, the Chinese miners scatter into the hills, lying in the grass to hide.

Between four and nine p.m., rioters set fire to the camp houses belonging to the coal company.

By nine p.m., all but one Chinese camp house is burned completely.

In all, seventy-nine Chinese homes are destroyed by fire.

Damage to Chinese-owned property is estimated at around one hundred and forty-seven thousand dollars.

Some Chinese die on the banks of Bitter Creek as they flee, others near the railroad bridge as they attempt to escape Chinatown.

The rioters throw Chinese bodies into the flames of burning buildings.

Other Chinese immigrants, who have hidden in their houses instead of fleeing, are murdered, and their bodies are burned with their houses.

Those who cannot run, including the sick, are burned alive in their camp houses.

One remaining Chinese immigrant is found dead in a laundry house in Whitemen's Town, his home demolished by rioters.

The extraordinarily violent attacks at Rock Springs reveal a long-held hatred of the victims.

Besides those who have been burned alive, Chinese miners have been scalped, mutilated, branded, decapitated, dismembered, and hanged from gutter spouts.

The events amount to racial terrorism.

There are twenty-eight confirmed deaths, and at least fifteen miners have been wounded, but various sources assert that forty to fifty fatalities might be a more accurate number, as some of those who fled were never accounted for.

The Chinese consul in New York City will compile a detailed list of the massacre's victims.

Rumors of the return of the Chinese to Rock Springs circulate immediately after the riots.

On September 3, the Rock Springs Independent publishes an editorial which confirms the rumors of "the return", as a few Chinese begin to trickle back into town to search for valuables.

The Independent says of the return of Chinese laborers to Rock Springs, "It means that Rock Springs is killed, as far as white men are concerned, if such program is carried out."

The massacre is defended in the local newspaper, and, to an extent, in other western newspapers.

In general, however, Wyoming newspapers disapprove of the acts of the massacre while supporting the cause of white miners.

Wyoming's territorial Governor Francis E. Warren visits Rock Springs on September 3, 1885, the day after the riot, to make a personal assessment.

After his trip to Rock Springs, Warren travels to Evanston, where he sends telegrams to U.S. President Grover Cleveland appealing for federal troops.

Back in Rock Springs, the riot has calmed, but the situation is still unstable.

Six companies of soldiers had arrived in Wyoming on September 9, 1885, one week after the massacre.

Four of the six companies had then escorted the Chinese back to Rock Springs.

Once back in Rock Springs, the Chinese laborers find scorched tracts of land where their homes once stood.

The mining company had buried only a few dead; others remain lying in the open, mangled, decomposing, and partially eaten by dogs, hogs, or other animals.

The situation in Rock Springs had been stabilized as early as September 15, when Warren had first requested the removal of federal troops, but the mines at Rock Springs remain closed for a time.

On September 30, 1885, white miners, mostly Finnish immigrants who are members of the Knights of Labor, walk out of mines in Carbon County, Wyoming, in protest of the company's continued use of Chinese miners.

In Rock Springs, the white miners are not back at work in late September, because the company still uses Chinese labor.

Rock Springs has steadily become quieter, and, on October 5, 1885, emergency troops, except for two companies, are removed.

However, the temporary posts of Camp Medicine Butte, established in Evanston, and of Camp Pilot Butte, in Rock Springs, will remain long after the riot.

The labor strike is unsuccessful, and the miners go back to work within a couple of months.

The national Knights of Labor organization refuses to support the Carbon strike and the hold out by white miners in Rock Springs following the Rock Springs Riot.

The organization avoids supporting the miners along the Union Pacific Railroad, because it does not want to be seen as condoning the violence at Rock Springs.

When the Union Pacific Coal Department reopens the mines, it fires forty-five white miners connected to the violence.

After the riot in Rock Springs, sixteen men had been arrested, including Isaiah Washington, a member-elect to the territorial legislature.

The men had been taken to jail in Green River, where they were held until after a Sweetwater County grand jury refused to bring indictments.

In explaining its decision, the grand jury declared that there was no cause for legal action, stating, in part: "We have diligently inquired into the occurrence at Rock Springs.... [T]hough we have examined a large number of witnesses, no one has been able to testify to a single criminal act committed by any known white person that day." (Daniels, Roger. Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States Since 1850, (Google Books), University of Washington Press, 1990. Retrieved October 22, 2012.)

Those arrested as suspects in the riot are released a little more than a month later, on October 7, 1885.

The defendants in the Rock Springs case enjoy the same broad community consent that lynch mobs often received.

No person or persons are ever convicted in the violence at Rock Springs.