Wyoming’s Memory Revived of Massacre of Chinese Mine Workers a Century Ago

A century ago, a pick-and-shovel fight between white and Chinese workers in an underground coal mine in Rock Springs spread to the surface.

In the ensuing hours, whites killed at least 28 Chinese, sacking and burning homes throughout Rock Springs’ Asian community.

Today, only a few Chinese families live in this southwestern Wyoming city of 20,000. There is no memorial to what became known as the Rocky Springs Chinese Massacre, no evidence of what newspaper reports at the time called “the hurried exit of John Chinaman” and the burning of “Hong Kong.”

No Burial Ground

There is not even a burial ground for the massacre victims, apparently because all of the bodies were cremated and the ashes returned to China. Whites at that time generally would not allow Asians to be buried in white cemeteries.

About 600 survivors fled on foot east and west of here along the Union Pacific Railroad tracks. They carried with them whatever food, clothing and valuables they had been able to snatch from their besieged homes.

Soldiers were rushed to Rock Springs from the frontier posts of Camp Murray in the Utah Territory and Ft. Steele in the Wyoming Territory. They established Camp Pilot Butte in Rock Springs. The soldiers stayed 13 years, until the Spanish-American War.

Fourteen miners were arrested in the days after the massacre, but no one was convicted of a crime.

The massacre might well have slipped into oblivion had not two young historians at Western Wyoming College set out to revive its memory.

100th Anniversary

Staff historian A. Dudley Gardner and history instructor Chris Plant, who held a 100th anniversary ceremony on Labor Day at the college, now have raised more than $5,000 for a plaque to place in a city park. The ambassador of China has been invited to a dedication ceremony that will be held at his convenience.

Plant, originally from Rochester, N.Y., said the plaque will read:

“This riot was precipitated by a decade-long deliberate company policy of importing Chinese miners to lower wages, break strikes and neutralize efforts to organize labor unions.

“Abetting the violence and cruelty was a virulent nationwide racism that viewed the Chinese as willing slave laborers and morally degenerate.”

The plaque could help rekindle memories of the tragic event. Recently, 20 people were stopped randomly on Rock Springs streets, and not one had heard of the Rock Springs Chinese Massacre.

Taiwan Official Invited

For the Labor Day ceremony, Plant and Gardner also invited the Taiwan ambassador. A written response on behalf of Ambassador Han Xu, sent with a wreath of flowers, said Taiwan would not be able to send a representative but added: “I believe the meeting . . . will be a significant one. A review of past history will make us cherish more the advancing relationship now in progress between China and the United States.”

In the late 1800s, thousands of Chinese were brought into the United States to serve as cheap labor. Demands to halt the immigration rose in the Western states as the number of Chinese reached one in 11 residents in California in 1880.

Congress responded by passing The Act of 1882, known as the Chinese exclusion law. It halted Chinese immigration for 10 years.

The act did not diminish resentment toward the Chinese in the West, and sporadic violence continued.

In his book “Rock Springs Massacre 1885,” Dell Isham wrote that the violence benefited “political demagogues and frustrated labor organizers.”

Hatred Described

The Sept. 11, 1885, “Extra” edition of the Rock Springs Independent--published nine days after the massacre--described the hatred of Chinese that had been growing in the months before the massacre.

Editor Norman Dresser wrote in an article titled “The True Story of the Chinese Exodus”: “The feeling against them has been getting stronger all summer. The fact that the white men had been turned off the (mine) sections, and hundreds of white men were seeking in vain for work, while the Chinese were being shipped in by the carload and given work strengthened the feeling against them.

“It needed but little to incite this feeling into an active crusade against them, and that little came Wednesday morning (Sept. 2) at 6,” Dresser wrote.

On that morning, some Chinese miners reported for work to find white miners in an underground room they thought had been assigned to them. The Union Pacific Coal Co. had kept white and Chinese miners in separate rooms in an effort to avoid violence.

“High words followed, then blows. The Chinese from other rooms came rushing in, as did the whites, and a fight ensued with picks, shovels, drills and (tamping) needles for weapons,” the Independent said.

‘Four ... Badly Wounded’

“The Chinamen were worsted, four of them being badly wounded, one of whom has since died,” the article said.

Accounts said about 100 white miners and onlookers assembled in an angry mood. Bar owners, sensing the trouble ahead, closed their taverns. As the mob marched to Chinatown, stores closed so everyone could watch the exodus of the Chinese.

The mob at first gave the Chinese one hour to evacuate, but then grew restless. Some shouted that the Chinese were arming themselves and preparing to make a stand.

The mob surged forward. Accounts say at least two women were in the front lines as shots were fired and torches hurled at the Chinese homes.

Some Chinese sought shelter in their dirt basements and were burned to death. Others fled, many of them barefoot.

‘Fled Like ... Sheep’

The Independent account said: “They fled like a flock of frightened sheep, scrambling and tumbling down the steep banks of Bitter Creek, then through the sagebrush and over the railroad and up into the hills east of Burning Mountain.”

The crowd then burst through the door of Ah Lee’s laundry and a scuffle ensued. A reporter wrote that “a dead Chinaman was seen on the floor with blood and brains oozing from a terrible wound in the back of his head.”

The Extra edition said Sheriff Joe Young came over from Green River, 15 miles west of Rock Springs, that evening, but could not find volunteers to help restore order.

“All the night long the sound of rifle and revolver were heard, and the surrounding hills were lit by the glare of the burning houses,” the Independent reported.

Order was restored when the soldiers arrived. By Sept. 21, about 100 Chinese had resumed work.

Editor Indignant

The Independent was indignant at published reports and editorials about the massacre in the New York Times and other Eastern newspapers.

“We would inform the Times,” Dresser wrote, “when men have been crushed down, when their sense of right and justice has been outraged, they will rise and protest. And if the accumulated aggravations of years lead them into extremes, the blame also rests upon their employers, who so persistently ignored their complaints that the men gave up all hope of redress except by their own action.”

Dresser added: “The Chinese must go. Why, even the soldiers themselves curse the duty which compels them to sustain the Alien against the American.”

The Chinese government protested the massacre and even sent representatives to the Wyoming Territory to investigate.

Although not assuming any legal responsibility, Congress eventually authorized an indemnity of $147,748.74 to China. Henry Chadey, director of the Sweetwater County Historical Museum, believes the money was used for scholarships for Chinese students in the United States.