Los Angeles Chinese Massacre of 1871

One of the largest mass lynchings in U.S. history occurred in the original Chinese Quarter of Los Angeles on October 24, 1871, and left at least 18 Chinese immigrants dead at the hands of a largely white and Latino mob. Although it was one of the most severe incidents of racist violence in U.S. history and one of the largest massacres of Asian people on U.S. soil, the incident was deliberately covered up and largely unacknowledged until the 21st century. See also list of race riots and massacres in the United States.

Background

In the mid-1800s California was a place of rapid growth, as the territory gained statehood in 1850. The California gold rush that began in 1848 brought hundreds of thousands of new residents to the California territory, many of whom settled in southern California after their gold-tinged dreams failed to pan out. About the same time, the development of the railroads increased the demand for manual laborers, spurring an influx of immigration from China and an accompanying rise in xenophobia. A serious crop failure in southern China in 1852 prompted thousands of people to immigrate that year, and racial tensions continued to grow. In 1854 institutional racism was reaffirmed when the California Supreme Court, in People v. Hall, overturned a murder conviction that had been based on the testimony of Chinese witnesses. As a result, the state prohibited the use of Chinese individuals’ testimony in cases against white defendants, placing Chinese immigrants alongside Native Americans and African Americans, groups that were already barred from testifying against white people. Furthermore, most Chinese immigrants at that time were deemed as “aliens ineligible for citizenship” and thus could not vote or claim other civil rights.

Diverse and unruly, Los Angeles was also rapidly expanding in the mid-1800s. Lynchings and vigilantism were commonplace, and the city employed only a handful of police officers. In 1870 the U.S. Census Bureau counted just over 5,700 residents in the city, including 172 Chinese immigrants and their descendants. Most of the Chinese population lived in the Chinese Quarter in a row of homes along Calle de los Negros. “Negro Alley,” named for dark-skinned Spaniards who once owned property there, was also an established vice district with a number of gambling parlors, brothels, and saloons. Local race relations between non-Hispanic white people, Latinos, and the Chinese community had been relatively quiet in the preceding decades, but tensions began to rise in the late 1860s as the Chinese immigrants were increasingly seen as being labor competitors. Beginning in the late 1860s local newspapers increasingly published racist editorials against Chinese people and their continued immigration, and racially motivated harassment and physical attacks against the Chinese community likewise grew.

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The massacre

In October 1871 two rival huignan (neighborhood associations for Chinese immigrants) had been engaged in hostilities for several days, allegedly concerning a young woman who may have been kidnapped. This culminated on October 24 in a shootout on Calle de los Negros between the opposing groups. Two policemen, Jesus Bilderrain and Adolfo Celis, and at least one deputized civilian—a popular former saloon owner named Robert Thompson—responded to the disturbance; Bilderrain was shot and wounded, Thompson was killed.

Word of the shooting quickly spread, and a mob of some 500 people—about 9 percent of the city’s population at the time—quickly formed outside the Coronel Building, where some of the Chinese shooters were thought to have taken refuge. Several vigilantes eventually broke through the roof of the building, and any Chinese men found inside were dragged out. The mob immediately set upon them, beating and shooting several of them in the street. Others were lynched from nearby upturned wagons or taken to the Tomlinson Corral, a frequent lynching spot. Several men were also hung from the porch of a wagon shop owned by John Goller, who bitterly protested the violence but was silenced at gunpoint. Another onlooker, Robert Widney (one of the founders of the University of Southern California and, interestingly, a known supporter of extralegal lynchings), managed to save four or five Chinese people by threatening their attackers with a pistol. Chinese property was also looted and destroyed. The mob eventually dispersed, having murdered at least 18 Chinese men—10 percent of the Chinese population of Los Angeles at that time—including a beloved doctor and several teenagers. It is believed that only one of these victims had actually been involved in the original gunfight.

Aftermath

As news of the massacre reached the outside world—one of the first times Los Angeles made national headlines—the reaction in the eastern United States was one of horror and broad condemnation. The dregs of society were blamed for the violence, and people wondered at the apparent lawlessness of the West Coast. The Methodist Conference even began fundraising for missionary work in “godless” Los Angeles. The situation was a public-relations nightmare for the burgeoning city.

Despite the outrage garnered out of state, the victims in Los Angeles never received justice. The wounded police officer Bilderrain was known for his corruption, and evidence suggests that he and possibly Thompson were shot that day because they had paid ties with one of the rival huignan bands. Chinese witnesses could not, however, testify against the police officer and only hinted at his involvement. Although the massacre had been carried out in front of hundreds of people, police officers and non-Chinese witnesses repeatedly failed to identify any members of the mob. Eventually 25 indictments for murder were issued, and, ultimately, fewer than 10 men were convicted of manslaughter. Those convictions were soon overturned on technicalities, however, and no one ever served more than a few months of prison time. The massacre was, however, perhaps the last lynching in Los Angeles.

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As the incident faded from the public mind, anti-Chinese legislation continued to proliferate, this time at the federal level. The Page Act (1875) essentially prohibited Chinese women from entering the United States, and in 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act prohibited nearly all Chinese immigration and officially declared the Chinese ineligible for citizenship. In Los Angeles an offensively named organization was formed in 1876 with the goal of discouraging Chinese immigration and integration within the city limits.

Public officials in Los Angeles continued to work on the stain on the city’s public image and ultimately physically erased the old Chinese Quarter. The Calle de los Negros was torn up to build Union Station, and the pristine China City—a tourist destination created by Los Angeles socialite Christine Sterling—was unveiled nearby in the late 1930s. The incident was officially unrecognized until 2001, when a modest plaque was dedicated at the site of the massacre. In 2023, however, the city announced plans for a proper memorial designed by a team consisting of artist Sze Tsung Nicolás Leong and writer Judy Chui-Hua Chung, which had been selected from six finalists. The memorial is to consist of 18 slender tree trunk statues and green space, with a planned date of completion in 2026.