Reprint from the
Shasta Courier
Saturday, December 03, 1853
What Is To Be Done With The Chinamen?
Three years ago it was a matter of no little curiosity to the American miner,
to see a real live representative of the Celestial Empire, with his wooden shoes,
his prodigious hat of fantastical proportions, his shaven head, his long black cue
dangling at his feet, his light springy pole poised upon his shoulder, and freighted
with provisions and mining tools, as he wended his way, half walking, half pacing,
on his road to the mines. But the time has now arrived when the Chinaman begins to
be regarded with other feelings than those of mere idle curiosity. Stimulated by the
brilliant reports carried back to China by these first adventurers, and allured by
the vast fields of wealth that seemed to open before them, as well as encouraged by
the invitation of many of our own people, thousands and tens of thousands of these
sable sons of Asia have crossed the Pacific - poured into our towns, and are now
swarming in quest of gold through every part of the mines. It is a notable fact that
already, in many of the mining districts in this vicinity, the number of Chinamen is more
than double that of all the other miners put together. And yet this stream of trans-Pacific
immigration still continues to pour in upon us. Its tide is daily swollen by a perpetual
influx from all the dark and dingy tribes of the Chinese Empire - a country which boasts a
population nearly equal to that of all the world besides. A very necessary and natural
result of this rapid accumulation of Chinese in our midst, is a clashing of interests, and
consequent bickering and difficulties between them and our own citizens.
After the American miner with that spirit of courageous enterprise so peculiarly his own,
at the cost of the thousands of dollars, has explored wild mountainous and savage regions
where a Chinaman dare not set his foot - after he has toiled, prospected and found gold -
after he has encountered and overcome numberless difficulties and dangers, in the shape
of Indian pillage and Indian barbarity - after his stock has been stolen, his camp robbed,
and his life periled a thousand times - and finally, after he has settled down to work with
a partial feeling of security, in the hope of realizing at least some reward for years of
suffering and privation - what must be his feelings to find himself suddenly surrounded and
hemmed in on every side, by a motley swarm of semi-barbarians, eagers to grasp the spoils,
though they dare not share the fight? In view of all these facts, is it any wonder that we
occasionally hear the deep toned murmuring of discontent, and even threats of violence on the
part of our own citizens, towards a race of foreigners who, having no feelings or sympaties in
common with us, are rapidly overrunning our country, and appropriating to themselves these
golden fields and fertile vallies which have been bought with American blood, and rendered
productive for all our surplus population of Asia, it is high time for us to enquire what
position our Celestial bretherine are destined to hold in our body politic.
Is our golden State to be peopled, through all future time, by two separate and distinct races,
having no more affinity for each other than oil and water, and occupying the relative
position of master and servant? Or like two fountains from different sources, and converging
in their onward course finally commingle their waters in one common stream, are the American
and Chinese races destined ultimately to unite, forming one people, retaining all the leading
original features of both? If the Chinese are to live amongst us as our equals, exercising
the same political rights as American citizens, it may be well for us to pause and consider
whether we are willing that they should enact our laws, fill our judicial tribunals, set upon
our fortunes, and our liberties. And finally, are we willing that they should marry with our
sons and daughters, and people our country with a motley race of half breeds, resembling more
the native Digger than the Anglo American?
ZACK.
