A Short History of the Chinese in the California Gold Rush

by Sarah Lunsford

During the early days of the California Gold Rush the world’s most adventurous,
entrepreneurial and daring, rode in on dreams of gold and the unimaginable wealth that
reports had said lay in stream beds just for the taking.
Immigrants from a multitude of countries were bound together with this common thread,
and a micro-culture sprung up that was woven through with the sound of different
languages, the aroma of foods containing a wealth of spices that simmered in the air of
the newly formed sections of towns like Columbia that sprang up virtually overnight and
were divided by national origins.
Although the differing nationalities tended to make camp with those from their same
homelands, the immigrants, along with those that came from the Eastern United States,
all tasted the freedom that came from living without the constraints of civilized society
and its demands.
Chinese immigrants, some with mining experience like their Cornish and Irish immigrant
brethren, came to pursue wealth that they could then use to make a better life for
themselves by escaping a country with a harsh economic climate.
A little before the mid-1800’s, the loss of the Opium War and the subsequent signing of
the Treaty of Nanjing opened what had been a highly regulated and closed China to the
West, right before gold was discovered in California. This series of events left China,
who was unable to transition effectively, in dire straits economically. With high
unemployment and economic uncertainty in their homeland, the wealth promised by the
shout heard around the world of gold in California was a beacon to the Chinese.
No strangers to mining, coal mines were prevalent in China (it is still the largest coal
producing country in the world), Chinese immigrants who had been involved with mining
in their homeland had the skills necessary to mine in the gold fields of the West.
Yet, mining wasn’t the only economic venture they participated in when they came to the
foothills to follow their dreams of economic vitality.
The first Chinese immigrant in Sonora was reported to be Ah Chi, who opened up one of
the first restaurants in that area , “ and kept the best and most fashionable eating house of
the day” according to the “Annuals of Tuolumne County” by Thomas Robertson Stoddart
and edited and annotated by Carlo M. De Ferrari.
Chinese miners often worked area’s that other miners had given up on, and through sheer
diligence united with perseverance made some of those areas produce the gold that
other’s thought was nonexistent.
“They did not venture to assert equal rights so far as to take up any claim which other
miners would think it worth while to work; but in such places as yielded them a dollar or
two a day they were allowed to scratch away unmolested. Had they happened to strike a
rich lead, they would have been driven off their claim immediately,” wrote J.D.
Borthwick, in “Three Years in California.”
Mining was a tough existence with long hours, hard work and the depressing and
sometimes devastating reality that the gold was not just laying around the way that many
of them thought it would be.
Because of this reality many miners who would never have thought of indulging in
gambling, drinking and going to fandango’s to dance with the dancing girls at home, did
so in their new environment.
“People who never gambled in their lives needed the social interaction. They bet on
anything and everything,” said Linda Teigland Clark historian, living history presenter as
Hardluck Lin and author of “The Small Window, The Story of Hardluck’s Beginnings.”
Unlike back East, gaming in the West was a very integrated activity during this time. It
was not uncommon to see every imaginable immigrant along with the occasional woman
side by side in the gaming houses and saloons, and Chinese immigrants indulged in the
entertainment of gambling just like any of the other miners.
The Chinese likely played games of chance from their homeland like Mah-jongg in their
own gambling halls.
This game is basically a tile game in which four players draw hands of 13 tiles out of 152
possible tiles with the objective of getting rid of and claiming tiles to form combinations,
until all of the tiles fit a certain pattern.
Betting on the outcome of a hand usually takes place at the beginning of each of the 16
rounds of the game and, like other gambling games, who pays is determined by the
outcome of the round.
But, this period of immigration and integration only lasted as long as there was enough
gold for everyone.
“In 1848 there seemed to be gold enough in California for all who had the will and
physical stamina to dig for it…. Nor was there any anti-foreign feeling in 1848. Except
for the native Californians, everyone was spiritually a foreigner,” wrote Dale A. Morgan
and James R. Scobie in the introduction to “William Perkins’ Journal of Life at Sonora,
1849-1852.”
That all changed when the gold became scarce and a nationalistic sentiment began to take
hold in the Gold Country, first manifesting itself in the miner’s claiming certain sections
of earth to ply gold out of, then as the gold became more and more scarce turning on
miners of foreign birth in order to try and ply them off the land in the form of the first
Foreign Miners Tax.
The first version of the tax of $20 per person per month was aimed at non-European
immigrants was put into effect on June 1, 1850.
Although California was only annexed to the United States and not yet admitted into the
union, the California State Legislature enacted the tax because of the ever increasing
mindset that foreign miners were taking mining profits away from legal citizens.
In rode to collect, local sheriff’s or state officials accompanied by local authorities rode
to the camps of foreign miners making them pay the tax on the spot, which they usually
did with gold pieces, gold dust or coin, anything that would equal the exorbitant amount.
There was such a public outcry against the tax that it was repealed, but because it was
such a money maker, both for local and state coffers, it was reenacted on May 4, 1852 for
the second time. This time, it required $3 a month from foreign miners who were
ineligible for citizenship.
Later after many revisions, it would settle in at $4 a month, with both the foreign miners
along with those who employing them, paying the tax. This was at a time when miners
were making an average of about $6 a month.
The Chinese stayed in the area in greater numbers than other non-European immigrants
after the Foreign Mining Tax revamp of 1852, and still did well according to Shannon
Van Zant, Calaveras county Archivist.
“We think it’s because they were willing to pay the tax and work hard,” Van Zant said.
The numbers of Chinese who stayed in the area dipped again, after the Federal
Government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
This Act excluded Chinese laborers and those employed in mining in their native China
from entering the U.S. as well as prohibiting those already in the U.S. from becoming
citizens. The effects of this lasted for the next ten years barring Chinese immigrants from
coming into the U.S. as well as those who were already residents from becoming citizens.
After this act passed, the Chinese population in the Southern Mines diminished
dramatically.
Although the Foreign Miners Tax was ultimately repealed, it had an undeniable affect on
the Mother Lode down through time, even to how it looks today.
In 1860 a large group of Latin American and Chinese immigrants were recorded to have
lived in Sonora but only a “remnant” of that population remained in 1880 according to
Andrew Edward Caldwell, author of “The Changing Demographics of the Southern
Mother Lode: Columbia and Sonora After the California Gold Rush 1860 – 1880”.
Although there was only a remnant left in the Mother Lode, those of Chinese descent,
like Dr. Yee Fung Cheung of Fiddletown, certainly had an impact on the face of the
Mother Lode.
Dr. Yee Fung Cheung, a herbal doctor, was a descendent of Yee Fung Shen, an “eminent
counselor during the Song Dynasty (420-479 AD).” and learned the practice from his
own father, according to David Yee, in his article “CAMSIG Fiddletown Story.”
The lure of gold drew him to the Fiddletown area, but he soon began treating Chinese
miners in the adobe earth store in 1851 that he had built, which still stands in Fiddletown
and is known as the Chew Kee Store.
It is thought that he is also the Yee in Yee Fung & Co. that obtained the deed to the
gambling hall across the road from the store, according to the Fiddletown Preservation
society. That Chinese Gambling Hall is still in existence and process of restoration.
Dr. Yee Fung Cheung ended up moving on from the area and opening other herbal stores
in Sacramento and Virginia City, Nevada. He went on to treat Governor Leland
Stanford’s wife, Jane, and was credited with saving her life, before he ultimately went
back to China were he lived out the rest of his life.
He left an amazing legacy behind not only in the form of his personal accomplishments,
but also in the buildings that still stand in Fiddletown as a tangible link to the Chinese
thread of contributions to the tapestry of the Mother Lode.