Seattle's earliest Chinese residents are believed to have arrived in the early 1860s, and while welcomed at first for the role they played in the region's development, Chinese immigrants were not allowed to vote and were subjected to numerous laws that restricted their rights. In the mid-1870s and early 1880s the national economy took a downturn, increasingly leading white workers to view the Chinese as threats to the few available jobs. In 1882 the federal government passed Chinese Exclusion Act, prohibiting all Chinese labor immigration for ten years.
By the mid-1880s anti-Chinese sentiment had spread across the West. City leaders in Seattle began to advocate an orderly and legal-supported expulsion of the local Chinese, but not everyone agreed. On February 7, 1886, violence broke out as a mob began to forcibly eject most of the city's Chinese population. At least one person was killed when the mob attacked the Home Guards protecting Chinese residents. Martial law was declared and federal troops remained in Seattle until summer. Although the white population of Seattle quickly moved past these events, it would be 20 years for the Chinese population in Seattle to return to its numbers before the riots.
The newspaper pictured here, The Seattle Daily Call, was considered radical for its strong support of anti-Chinese issues. The Call was short-lived, appearing only from May 5, 1885 to May 3, 1886, when it was combined with a more reputable paper, The Seattle Daily Chronicle. An article featured in this issue of The Seattle Daily Call titled "Chinese Crisis" reports the timeline of events in the day that led to 186 Chinese people being transported from Seattle by boat, including details on who posted money to pay for their passage, and the subsequent shooting at the wharf with detailed descriptions of the injured, injuries and perpetrators. The article ends asking citizens to not rush into mob justice and let cooler heads prevail.
Caption information sources: "Anti-Chinese Activism — Seattle," by Walt Crowley, HistoryLink.org Essay 1057; "Chun Ching Hock opens the Wa Chong Company in Seattle on December 15, 1868," by Margaret Riddle, HistoryLink.org Essay 10800; and "Mobs forcibly expel most of Seattle's Chinese residents beginning on February 7, 1886," by Phil Dougherty, HistoryLink.org Essay 2745. Caption information source: "Newspapers of Washington Territory," by Edmond S. Meany, The Washington Historical Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 3 (JULY, 1923), pp. 186-200. Accessed at journals.lib.washington.edu.
