San Francisco riot of 1877

Historian Theodore Hittell wrote about the developing competition between Chinese and European workers, initially in mining and then in more general work throughout the 1850s: "As a class [the Chinese] were harmless, peaceful and exceedingly industrious; but, as they were remarkably economical and spent little or none of their earnings except for the necessaries of life and this chiefly to merchants of their own nationality, they soon began to provoke the prejudice and ill-will of those who could not see any value in their labor to the country. ... By degrees they began also to branch out into occupations which interfered or were supposed to interfere with the wages of white labor. They not only hired out as servants and laborers; but they became laundrymen and turned their attention successfully to various mechanical branches of industry, which would yield them wages, and in a number of ways picked up money, which would have otherwise gone into white hands."{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/gb0e4-lf4RejkC |title=History of California |author=Hittell, Theodore H. |volume=IV |publisher=N.J. Stone & Company |date=1898 |location=San Francisco |chapter=III {{!}} Early State Administrations: Bigler |pages=89–113 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/gb0e4-lf4RejkC/page/n83/mode/1up}}{{rp|99–100}} Many of the Chinese immigrants who had come to the U.S. to work on the First transcontinental railroad were left looking for other employment after its completion in 1869; in San Francisco, Chinese workers were often hired at cheaper rates than European workers, and the Chinese immigrants were often convenient scapegoats for larger economic inequalities.{{cite news |url=https://www.kqed.org/news/10413670/draft-boomtown-history-2a |title=Boomtown, 1870s: Decade of Bonanza, Bust and Unbridled Racism |author=Brekke, Dan |date=February 11, 2015 |work=KQED |access-date=15 February 2021}}{{cite news |url=https://www.kqed.org/news/10429550/boomtown-history-2b |title=Boomtown, 1870s: 'The Chinese Must Go!' |author=Brekke, Dan |date=February 12, 2015 |work=KQED |access-date=15 February 2021}}

From 1873 through the rest of the 1870s a severe economic crisis swept the United States of America known to history as the Long Depression. Economic contraction in the eastern United States proved the motivation for many to pull up stakes and try to re-establish themselves in the West Coast. Indeed, between the years 1873 and 1875 an estimated 150,000 workers made their way to the "Golden State", many of whom settled in the state's only metropolis, San Francisco.{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/historylabourin00brangoog |first=Selig |last=Perlman |chapter=The Anti-Chinese Agitation in California |editor1=Commons, John R. |title=History of Labour in the United States |location=New York |publisher=Macmillan |year=1921 |volume=2 |pages=252–268 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/historylabourin00brangoog/page/n275/mode/2up}}{{rp|253}} By that time, San Francisco had already experienced two cycles of boom and bust: first in the 1850s, as the Gold Rush dried up, and then in the 1870s, after the Comstock Lode had been mined.

By 1877 the depression that had already long plagued the East Coast arrived on the West Coast as well, and San Francisco's unemployment rate skyrocketed{{rp|253}} to approximately 20% of adult men, coinciding with a downturn in mining stocks. There was no city or state central labor authority, no government provision for unemployed workers, and discontent was rampant.{{rp|253}}{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/historyoflabormo00cros |first=Ira |last=Cross |chapter=VII: 'The Chinese Must Go' |date=1935 |title=A History of the Labor Movement in California |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley, California |pages=88–129 |isbn=9780520026469 |access-date=14 February 2021 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/historyoflabormo00cros/page/88/mode/2up}}{{rp|88}} In San Francisco, with approximately 200,000 residents, the Chinese made up approximately 10% of the population; white and Chinese competed for the same jobs, with Chinese labor being decidedly cheaper.

File:SF City Hall.jpg); the political rally which degenerated into the 1877 San Francisco riot was held near this site.]]

On July 23, 1877, the Daily Alta California, which had been covering the Pittsburgh railroad strike of 1877, ran an article describing the clashes between striking workers and soldiers.{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770723.2.17 |title=The Great Strike. A Day of Terror at Pittsburg. |date=July 23, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=13 February 2021}} That afternoon, a meeting scheduled for 7:30 p.m. was organized by the fledgling Workingmen's Party of the United States to agitate on behalf of the needs of the labor movement and those of unemployed workers in particular.{{rp|253}}{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770724.2.9 |title=Workingmen's Meeting |date=July 24, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=13 February 2021}} City authorities granted permission for the gathering, which was to be held on vacant lots adjoining San Francisco City Hall,{{rp|253}} which was then under construction; the site is now occupied by the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library.{{cite web |url=https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Old_City_Hall_of_SF |title=Old City Hall of SF |author=Schwartzenberg, Susan |date=1998 |website=Found SF |access-date=14 February 2021}}

As the day of the scheduled mass meeting arrived, rumors were rampant in the city, including one that arson was being planned to destroy the docks of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company – the chief mode of transport of immigrant workers from China to the USA – as well as an attack on the city's Chinese quarter.{{rp|253}}{{rp|89}} On the afternoon of July 23, San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) chief Henry H. Ellis had written to Brigadier General John McComb, requesting the California state militia be mobilized and held in readiness to suppress a potential riot.{{cite book |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000055492 |title=Appendix to the Journals of the Senate and Assembly |date=1878 |volume=1 |chapter=Reports of Brigadier Generals: To Brigadier-General P. F. Walsh, Adjutant-General, California |chapter-url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.74635764&view=1up&seq=377 |author=McComb, John |publisher=State of California |location=Sacramento, California |access-date=15 February 2021}} The leaders of the Workingmen's Party promised "no threats of violence or incendiary language" would be tolerated at the rally, mollifying city officials and political leaders, who did not attempt to intervene, and the July 23 meeting proceeded as scheduled.{{rp|253}}{{rp|89}}

Nearly 8,000 people turned up for the socialist meeting at the so-called "sand-lots" in front of City Hall.{{rp|253}} It was characterized as "quiet, orderly, and good natured", marred only by a drunken man shooting wildly into the crowd without provocation.{{rp|89}}{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770724.2.11 |title=An Outrageous Case--Two Men Wantonly Shot. |date=July 24, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=14 February 2021}} Several representatives of the Workingmen's Party addressed the throng on the labor question, but none of them so much as mentioned the city's Chinese population, let alone attempted to lay blame upon them as the cause of the unemployment problem;{{rp|253}} The first speaker, Chairman James D'Arcy, explicitly stated this was not an "anti-Coolie meeting" and was meant to be a rally to support the workingmen of Pittsburgh, but was repeatedly interrupted by the crowd's shouts: "Talk about the Chinamen" and "Give us the Coolie business". Successive speakers were shouted down as well.

The Daily Alta article stated that a Dr. O'Donnell was permitted to speak on the condition that "he not slop over on his Anti Coolie hobby" and his speech was interrupted several times, first by Chairman D'Arcy to solicit donations to cover the cost of the band, then by the arrival of the Anti Coolie club from Platt's Hall, and finally by "[a] gang of some two hundred young hoodlums" who rushed from the McAllister side of the rally site up Leavenworth, "hooting and yelling in a fearful manner." As O'Donnell was concluding his speech, the gasoline-powered light failed and a fire alarm was sounded, dispersing the crowd. The Daily Alta summed up the rally as "simply a fizzle. The crowd was a good-natured one, the speakers very poor, and the result, as far as aiding their brethren goes, nil."

Riots broke out the night of July 23 in the wake of the sandlot rally, and continued over the next two nights. The ethnic violence was only halted through the combined efforts of the SFPD, the California state militia, and as many as 1,000 members of the civilian group "Committee of Safety", each armed with a hickory pickaxe handle.{{rp|253–254}} The multi-day riot collectively claimed four lives and inflicted more than $100,000 worth of property damage upon the city's Chinese immigrant population.{{rp|253}} In total, twenty Chinese-owned laundries were destroyed in the violence and San Francisco's Chinese Methodist Mission suffered smashed glass when the mob pelted it with rocks.{{cite web |first=Chris |last=Carlsson |url=http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Workingmen’s_Party_%26_The_Dennis_Kearney_Agitation |title=The Workingmen's Party and The Dennis Kearney Agitation: Historical Essay |website=Found SF |date=1995}}

The gang of hoodlums that rushed up Leavenworth at the conclusion of the first sandlot rally was blamed for starting the first riot on the night of July 23,{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770724.2.10 |title=Lawlessness Rampant. |date=July 24, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=13 February 2021}} at approximately 9 p.m.{{rp|90}} Historian Selig Perlman recounts the origin of the riot, sparked at the end of the rally:

"Everything was orderly until an anti-coolie procession pushed its way into the audience and insisted that the speakers say something about the Chinese. This was refused and thereupon the crowd which had gathered on the outskirts of the meeting attacked a passing Chinaman and started the cry, 'On to Chinatown.{{'"}}{{rp|253}}

The precipitating event may have been the arrest of one of the hoodlums (for knocking down a Chinese passer-by) and the hoodlum's subsequent rescue from the police.{{rp|90}} One of the first businesses to be destroyed was a Chinese-owned laundry in the basement of a two-story building at Leavenworth and Geary; the rioters beat the Chinese occupants and set the business on fire with oil lamps. Civilians living in the upper stories required rescue, and the rioters continued to bedevil San Francisco Fire Department (SFFD) personnel by cutting their hoses in several places. The rioters continued down Geary, stopping to destroy several more laundries and the windows of the Gibson Chinese Mission (at 916 Washington) before turning towards Chinatown; the Daily Alta said there was "no reasonable doubt that [Chinese laundry proprietors] would have been murdered had they remained." The total cost of the damage during that night was estimated at {{USD|20000|1877|round=-3}};{{rp|90}} no serious injuries were reported among the Chinese immigrant population.

File:Wasp 1877-08-18 (pg 40) - Local Chips (cropped).jpg on Aug 18, 1877, showing a "Chinese wash-house before and after the riot".]]

By this time, the police had been apprised of the mob's approach to Chinatown and took up two positions at California and Dupont (now Grant) and California and Stockton. The mob, now numbering in the thousands, marched down Sutter to Dupont and started north into Chinatown after ransacking another laundry, but were stopped by the police officers stationed at California and Dupont. The police drove the mob back to Stockton and California, where they were joined by the other group of officers, and the combined forces pushed the mob back to Market, quelling the first night's activity by 11 p.m.

On July 24, General McComb called a meeting of prominent San Francisco citizens, business leaders, and politicians including Mayor Andrew Jackson Bryant, where they formed the Committee of Safety, led by an executive committee of twenty-four civilians chartered "to preserve the peace and well-being of the city, with our money and persons." W.T. Coleman was nominated for Chairman and unanimously elected. Their stated goal was to be able to mobilize 20,000 armed civilians within twenty minutes to support smaller numbers of police (250) and state militia (1,200) in quelling another riot.{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770725.2.19 |title=Committee of Safety |date=July 25, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=13 February 2021}} Later estimates established that approximately 4,000 civilians who worked for the Committee of Safety were mustered and armed.{{rp|91}} Several of them received special 24 hour deputy officer badges.

{{quote box |align=right |width=25em |text={{pad|0.5em}}Chinatown was perfectly motionless after nightfall. Not a soul stirred in that quarter except an occasional special officer, or mounted policeman clattering down the hills. The two theatres on Jackson street were not opened. The fact is that while the streets gave no signs of life, the walls simply shut out swarms of Chinamen, sleepless, armed and sullen. Not the slightest demonstration was made in that quarter. The severe rebuff administered to the incipient mob on Monday night on Dupont street had proved a wholesome lesson to the lawless elements. |source= — Daily Alta California, July 25, 1877.}}

That night, riots broke out again in San Francisco, with gangs gathering and being dispersed by the police primarily south of Market; One group of approximately 1,000 men gathered in front of the San Francisco Mint and marched down Mission, threatening to burn the Mission Woolen Mills for employing Chinese labor, but it was well-guarded{{rp|91}} and four laundries on Mission (between Seventh and Twelfth) were sacked instead, as those businesses had been abandoned by their owners for the comparative safety of Chinatown. Two laundries (one near Howard and Twelfth; the other at 1915 Hyde){{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770725.2.21 |title=Police Arrangements. |date=July 25, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=15 February 2021}} were looted and set on fire, and police disrupted another group of looters at Bryant and Twelfth, who were about to fire the laundry. There were no reports of violence within Chinatown itself.

Across the Bay in Oakland, anti-Chinese activists held a rally, attracting a crowd of approximately 700 or 800.{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770725.2.22 |title=Agitators at work in Oakland |date=July 25, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=15 February 2021}} The Mayor of Oakland met with prominent citizens to organize a similar Committee of Safety, based on violent threats issued at the rally.{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770725.2.23 |title=Oakland Aroused |date=July 25, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=15 February 2021}}

Two Chinese men were found dead in the ruins of a Chinese laundry in the Western Addition early in the morning of July 25.{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770725.2.20 |title=More Hoodlumism |date=July 25, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=13 February 2021}} A coroner's inquest concluded that one of those killed, Wong Go, died from suffocation during the arson of the laundry. According to the testimony of the survivors, a group of white men had surrounded the building and fired shots into it, driving them out; the survivors did not notice that Wong Go had not joined them outside until the morning. Shortly after taking over the building and stealing approximately $150, the men set the building on fire.{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770726.2.5 |title=Coroner's Intelligence |date=July 26, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=13 February 2021}}

File:Wasp 1877-08-04 (pg 16) - Beale Street Fire of July 25, 1877.jpg, published in The Wasp]]

The men of the Committee of Safety were issued "clubs of the latest police pattern" (baseball bats) on July 25 in addition to any weapons they had brought.{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770726.2.34 |title=Committee of Safety |date=July 26, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=13 February 2021}} That day, rumors again spread that rioters would burn the Pacific Mail docks; the police and "pick-handle brigade" were sent to protect it, and the rioters set fire to a nearby lumberyard at the Beale Street Wharf instead that night. Losses were estimated at {{USD|200000|1877|round=-4}}.{{rp|92}}{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770726.2.33 |title=The Beale Street Wharf Fire |date=July 26, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=14 February 2021}} In the ensuing battle, four were killed and fourteen were wounded.{{rp|92}}

Also that night, an anti-Chinese meeting attended by approximately 600 was held at the San Francisco City Hall sand-lots; the night's speaker, identified as N.P. Brock was derided as "very much under the influence of liquor, and whose anti-Coolie sentiments, enunciated in very uneven terms, caused great laughter and more ribald jests."{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770726.2.32 |title=More Lawlessness |date=July 26, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=14 February 2021}} Brock declared he would lead the crowd to Chinatown; the crowd of rioters again demolished several Chinese-owned laundries, but the police and the "White Clubs" pick-handle brigade were able to disperse the rioters at Kearny and Post before they reached Chinatown.{{rp|92}} In one incident, a group of approximately 100 members of the Committee of Safety, in the process of returning criminals from the Beale Street Wharf fire, charged an equal number of rioters near Lotta's Fountain after the rioters began throwing cobblestones at them. At the same time, a police squadron came down Montgomery onto Market, pinching the rioters in between; according to the Daily Alta, "many of them fell senseless to the street under the strong blow of an officer's 'billy', or a Committeeman's staff".{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770726.2.36 |title=A Brave Charge. |date=July 26, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=15 February 2021}} The Daily Alta concluded the next day that "there are more sore heads in San Francisco today than can get well in a week."{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770726.2.35 |title=Activity of the Committee of Safety |date=July 26, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=13 February 2021}}

Oakland and San Jose remained quiet,{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770726.2.41 |title=Prompt Action in Oakland |date=July 26, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=15 February 2021}}{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770726.2.42 |title=San Jose All Right |date=July 26, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=15 February 2021}} and the United States Navy dispatched the gunboats {{ship|USS|Pensacola|1859|6}} and {{ship|USS|Lackawanna|1862|2}} to San Francisco from Vallejo as a precaution in response to a request from Mayor Bryant and Governor William Irwin.{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770726.2.43 |title=Government Aid |date=July 26, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=15 February 2021}} The night of July 26–27 was peaceful in San Francisco compared to the preceding eventful nights; just one laundry was reported to have been demolished,{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770727.2.24 |title=Law and Order. |date=July 27, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=15 February 2021}} and several fires were set.{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770727.2.35 |title=Incendiarism in the Mission. |date=July 27, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=15 February 2021}}{{cite news |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18770727.2.22 |title=Incendiary Fire at Mission Bay. |date=July 27, 1877 |newspaper=Daily Alta California |access-date=15 February 2021}}

File:Dennis Kearney.jpg

The July 1877 San Francisco riot's suppression did not mark the end of anti-Chinese activity in the city, but rather the beginning. One of those who had served in the so-called "Pick-Handle Brigade" which had helped to quell the rioting, an Irish wagon-driver named Denis Kearney, was drawn into political activity by the July events.{{rp|254}}

Kearney first applied for membership in the Workingmen's Party (later known as the Socialist Labor Party of America), but was denied on the basis of his outspoken public views on what he considered the "laziness" and "shiftlessness" of the working class.{{rp|254}} Stymied from membership in the existing opposition political party, Kearney started a new organization of his own, the Workingmen's Trade and Labor Union of San Francisco, which made use of the mobilizing slogan "The Chinamen Must Go!"{{rp|254}} This organization changed its name in October 1877 to the Workingmen's Party of California, of which Kearney served as president.{{rp|255}} The new party retained the anti-Chinese focus and slogans of the earlier organization.

Anti-Chinese sentiment spread throughout the United States, culminating in the effective termination of importation of Chinese workers through passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882.

File:Beating the Chinese 20872v.jpg, 1948), photographed by Carol M. Highsmith in 2012.]]

• Anton Refregier painted #19: "The Sand Lot Riots of 1870" (also known as "Beating the Chinese"), one of the 27 murals in the Rincon Annex Post Office collectively entitled History of San Francisco, completed in 1948. This painting depicts Chinese immigrants, who were accused of stealing jobs, being beaten by Irish workers.{{NRISref |version=2013a |dateform=mdy |access-date=15 February 2021 |refnum=79000537 |name=Rincon Annex}}{{cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/2013630300/ |title=History of San Francisco mural "Beating the Chinese" by Anton Refregier at Rincon Annex Post Office located near the Embarcadero at 101 Spear Street, San Francisco, California |author=Highsmith, Carol M. |author-link=Carol M. Highsmith |publisher=Library of Congress |date=2012 |access-date=15 February 2021}}
• A fictional version of the riots was incorporated into the ninth episode of season 2 of the television drama Warrior, first broadcast in 2020.{{cite news |url=https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/warrior-the-real-history-of-the-race-riot-that-shook-san-francisco/ |title=Warrior: The Real History of the Race Riot that Shook San Francisco |author=Ching, Gene |date=November 28, 2020 |work=Den of Geek |access-date=15 February 2021}}

{{clear}}

{{Portal|San Francisco Bay Area}}

{{div col |colwidth=25em}}

• Chinese American history
• Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States
• Chinese Exclusion Act
• Anti-Chinese violence in Oregon
• Anti-Chinese violence in California
• Anti-Chinese violence in Washington
• Chinese massacre of 1871
• Golden Dragon massacre, 1977
• Rock Springs massacre, 1885
• Attack on Squak Valley Chinese laborers, 1885
• Tacoma riot of 1885
• Seattle riot of 1886
• Hells Canyon massacre, 1887
• Pacific Coast Race Riots of 1907
• Bellingham riots of 1907
• Torreón massacre, 1911 in Mexico
• 2021 Atlanta spa shootings
• List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States

{{div col end}}

{{reflist}}

• Jerome A. Hart, In Our Second Century: From an Editor's Notebook. San Francisco: Pioneer Press, 1931.
• Neil Larry Shumsky, The Evolution of Political Protest and the Workingmen's Party of California. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1992.
• Darren A. Raspa, Bloody Bay: Grassroots Policing in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2020.

• Chris Carlsson, [http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Workingmen’s_Party_%26_The_Dennis_Kearney_Agitation "The Workingmen's Party and The Dennis Kearney Agitation: Historical Essay"]{{Snd}}Found SF, 1995, www.foundsf.org
• Jerome A. Hart, [http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist2/kearneyism.html "The Sand Lot and Kearneyism"]{{Snd}}Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco, www.sfmuseum.org
• Katie Dowd, [https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/1877-san-francisco-anti-chinese-race-riots-11302710.php "140 years ago, San Francisco was set ablaze during the city's deadliest race riots"]{{snd}}San Francisco Chronicle, www.sfgate.com

{{Anti-Chinese sentiment}}

{{Chinese American}}

{{Riots in the United States (1865–1918)}}

Category:1877 riots

Category:1877 in California

Category:1877 murders in the United States

Category:1870s in economic history

Category:July 1877

Category:19th century in San Francisco

Category:Pogroms

Category:Murdered American people of Chinese descent

Category:Racially motivated violence against Chinese Americans in California

Category:Riots and civil disorder in California

Category:Mass murder in California

Category:Chinatown, San Francisco

Category:Mass murder in 1877

Category:19th-century mass murder in the United States

Category:Crimes in San Francisco

Category:White American riots in the United States

Category:White nationalism in California