Anti-Chinese Violence
in the United States, 1850-1910
When the first Chinese immigrants arrived in large numbers in the United States during the California Gold Rush, they found not only abundant economic opportunity, but also violent racial hatred. Racism, nativism, and perceptions of economic tensions combined to produce a complex system of racial violence that spanned the region and the nation and culminated with lynchings, forced removals, and massacres.
This project seeks to document anti-Chinese violence in the United States for the purpose of furthering education and scholarly research on the subject. The goal of this project is to document as many instances of anti-Chinese racial violence as possible, drawing from both primary and secondary sources and focusing on the six decades between 1850 and 1910. Scroll down and check out the links below to learn more and to explore this site's databases of known cases.
Contact: antichineseviolence@gmail.com
Explore the Site
Click the links below to navigate.
Nativist mobs lynched and murdered hundreds of Chinese immigrants across the country throughout the 19th century. Visit this page to visit the site's database of known lethal cases.
Many Chinese immigrants faced violent expulsions and forced removals that culminated with federal immigration restriction and exclusion. View the site's nonlethal physical violence here.
(Under construction - coming soon!)
(Work in progress - view cases of anti-Chinese violence on a historical map of the U.S.)
View the secondary literature that went into the making of this site, including full citations for all of the abbreviated sources listed in the databases.
