According to Hsu (2000:29-30,32) it is difficult to find accurate figures for nineteenth-century Chinese migration to the United States. As restrictions increased many Chinese miners and laborers entered the country illegally and avoided contact with official agencies. As a result federal records,
custom agencies records and census records tend to undercount them. Three Chinese sailors were recorded coming to what was to become California between 1820 and 1830. During and after Chinese Immigrants mostly enteredCalifornia through the San Francisco Customs house. They numbered 2,716 in 1851, 20,0026 in 1852, 4,270 in 1853, and 16,084 in 1854. By 1860, 73,890 Chinese had officially entered through this custom house.
The Chinese came to America mainlto earn a living (Chan 1991:25). At first they came to mine for gold. After gold became difficult to find and mine they went into work in common local and national industries and trades. By the 1870’s, the Chinese had moved into the areas of truck gardening, shoe and cigar manufacturing, fishing, reclaiming swamp land, harvesting and processing wheat, row crops, fruit and nut orchard crops, domestic service, importing and selling Chinese goods, restaurant and laundry work. Many of these ways of making a living were pursued by the Chinese in Oroville and the surrounding areas. Mining was still a major economic concern. Later census lists testified that the number of Chinese miners were working gravel near south of Oroville and the many tributaries of the Feather River from 1870 to 1880 and beyond.
California did not count the Chinese in its first official census in 1850 (Jiobu 1988:32,33). However, they are known to have been present in Butte County in the early 1850s. In 1852 a large Chinese population was mining in a bluff below Ophir at a place called Bagdad (Mansfield 1918:119). Early mining was an enriching positive outcome in the many tributaries of the Feather River, the Yuba River, and in the Siskyous.
Data from the federal censuses (1860 through 1910) show that the California’s Chinese population fluctuated considerably, increasing from 34,000 in 1860, to 75,000 in 1880, and thereafter decreasing to 36,000 in 1910 (Jiobu 1988:33). Political pressures and immigration laws were mainly responsible for the decline of the Chinese population in the state. The Chinese population of Butte County in 1910 was reportedly 572 (Mansfield 1918:391). (Mansfield’s publication was prone to heresay, complementing white male superiority and rendering embellishment. He used mostly newspaper reporting that was often discriminatory and sensation seeking).
The Chinese who came to Oroville and its environs began their journey in San Francisco and secured boat crossing San Francisco Bay or San Pablo Bay to either Benicia or Martinez, both located on opposite banks at the mouth of the Sacramento/San Joaquin River (Chan 1986:96). They then would proceed up the river to Sacramento City before sailing onward to Marysville in Yuba County and Oroville in Butte County. This journey took approximately seven days and cost sixteen dollars. Boats in the early days rarely went farther than Red Bluff; the Feather and Sacramento Rivers were shallow many years.
Mansfield (1918:68,69) indicates that larger groups of Chinese lived in what is now southeastern Butte County at Ophir (Oroville), the Lava Beds (south and west of Ophir), named Bagdad at the time (later mines would bear the name Lava Beds) two miles south Oroville, and Columbus, a renamed Konkow Indian rancheria at Hamilton (an early county seat located on the west side of the Feather River across from Oroville near Thermalito). The Chinese were drawn to this area following the discovery of gold at many places, Rich Bar, Missouri Bar, Bidwell Bar and Ophir (later changed to Oroville). (See Dame Shirley)
Chinese Miners
Chinese comprised 1 percent of the California miners in 1850 (Jiobu 1988:34). Bancroft (1888:335) says that this year’s total was 787 Chinese miners in California. Monaco (1986:52) on the other hand says there were about 2,700 Chinese miners in the state. (Differences quoted here are quite acute). Bancroft (1888:335) indicates that the total of Chinese miners in the state increased to 7,512 in 1852 and was 18,026 eight months later. By 1860 Chinese miners were up to 29 percent of all who were mining. (Jiobu 1988:34). Monaco suggests 1,500 in Butte County (Manaco 1986:52). During the 1870s the Chinese comprised more than 5 percent of the California miners (Jiobu 1988:34,36) and were 25 percent of the labor force. The percentage of the Chinese who were working as miners decreased down to about one-third (Chan 1984:286) as of 1865. They had branched out into other jobs and industries. Thousands of Chinese men had been recruited out of south China and the Pearl River delta to work on the Central Pacific Railway in the Midwest reaching into Utah territory and from California into Utah territory near Ogden. Others came from the new territories that became the States of Oregon and Washington. When it was complete (1869) many returned to California or journeyed home or went back to other territories where they were recruited. The population of the San Francisco Chinatown increased many fold.
The Chinese residents of Oroville and environs numbered almost 1,000 in 1860 (Chan 1986:96). Most of the Chinese resided in two mining areas, a mining camp named Bagdad located south and west respectively of the city. Not much is known about this early camp although there are some eyewitness accounts. (Lava Beds gold camp was in this same township and range but more gold bearing gravel was discovered much later in the 1870’s). The news of the Bagdad discovery came in the 1850’s. The March 20, 1857 issue of the North Californian noted that 1,500 Chinese were mining at the Rancheria between Hamilton and Oroville below “Henry Bird’s place” in Thermalito (Dunn). They were washing dirt in their rockers after packing the water from the river several hundred yards away. The workers were awaiting the delivery of a steam engine to supply themselves with water. Newspaper accounts confirm this.
Butte County was taking in about $24,000 a year from taxing the Chinese by 1861 (Monaco 1986:54-55). However, during the 1860s over 600 Chinese left Butte County to work on railways. Bancroft (1888:335) indicates that by about 1876 there were 116,000 Chinese men and 6,000 Chinese women in California. In Butte County there were hundreds maybe thousands of Chinese still mining during spring and summers from 1870 until 1882. (Lava Beds).
The Mining and Scientific Press, April 13, mentioned the formation of Chinese mining companies for the purpose of a new method called hydraulicking. In the period between 1867-1880 in the California counties of Butte, Calaveras, Nevada, Placer, Sierra, Siskiyou, and Yuba hydraulic mining crew became the preferred method. Later dredging became a popular and financially rewarding mining method that first started around Oroville.
Ophir/Oroville Miners
According to Mansfield (1918:270,271) an estimated five thousand Chinese were engaged in mining operations at Oroville especially in the Lava Beds in 1873. The Chinese were even being transported to Oroville from Marysville and Sacramento by special trains in 1874. Police officials would meet the trains and march them to the courthouse square where their poll tax was collected and then they were freed to go where they wanted or where their contracts specified. Of the ten thousand Chinese estimated by E. W. Fogg to be about Oroville in 1874, seven thousand of them were working in the Lava Bed mines and three thousand were “hangers-on and parasites.” Mansfield (1918:271) notes that in April 1876 four to five hundred Chinese participated in a fight over a mining lease.
The Oroville Post Office was established in 1854 and the town was incorporated in 1856 (Dunn) 1998:288-289). Oroville’s original name was Ophir City. There are hundreds of deed and tax entries listed that mention a Chinatown existing on land just around a big bend of the Feather River. By 1863 a temple had been built on this land attracting many more Chinese workers to Oroville.
More to come.
Lava Bed Miners
The Lava Beds are shown on the Butte County Map in 1877 (Dunn 1977). The Lava Beds were worked between 1872-1880 with peak production in 1874-1875. The Lava Beds settlement in 1872 was declared the largest Chinese camp in the state. According to the March 15, 1873 issue of the Butte Record the Chinese were building shanties all over the Lava Beds Chinese miners working at the Lava Beds by 1878 had decreased to two thousand. The Chinese were mining the Lava Beds almost exclusively by the mid to late 1870s (Chan 1986:96). They were a large and ready market for the produce grown by the Chinese truck gardens of Oroville and importers of Chinese foodstuffs, and medicines.
A Marysville (1895) 30’ quadrangle shows a place called the Lava Beds located 2.5 miles northwest of Palermo at or near the present Pacific Heights. It was a large community of Chinese miners (Durham 1998:289). Randall Rohe, a geography professor at the University of Wisconsin, has studied this mining site. He published his work …..
Bagdad Miners (1850s)
“Bagdad” was located two miles below Oroville probably at the present location of Pacific Heights, T19N, R3E, Section 36 (Dunn 1977) According to Durham (1998:288-289) Bagdad was situated on a high bluff along the Feather River below Oroville. A. G. Simpson discovered gold at Bagdad and named the site. This rugged area was later called the Lava Beds. (See above).
Modoc Claims
This place was just another name for “Bagdad” and “Lava Beds” south of Oroville on the east side of the river. It is unclear where this name came from. Speculation at the time suggested the name was adopted because of the Modoc war that was headlined in the national newspapers (1872 to 1874) and was somehow connected or looked like lava rock. Perhaps evoking the Modoc County Lava beds and caves. (More later)
Rialto Miners
Butte County map of 1877 shows Rialto ( as best as we can guess) as being located on the W1/2 of Section 30, T19N, and R4E south of the Chinese cemetery (Dunn 1977:91). The October 14, 1879 issue of the Mercury notes that six stages ran between Rialto and Oroville at the peak of its occupation carrying miners to the site and millions of dollars in gold dust out. Rialto had a temple/worship house, stores, a theatre, and gambling and opium houses, prostitution.
Rancheria MinersIn 1877 three hundred Chinese engaged in mining on the Thermalito side of the river (Mansfield 1918:271). There had been a history of thieves knocking on the tent doors, and at the point of gun, taking all the gold dust in the cabin. The Chinese, tired of this routine, met one group, on December 7, 1877, with a flurry of shots from inside the cabins. The robbers left on the run. We are aware of the name Rancheria …..mor
In 1879 an ordinance was passed in San Francisco that authorized wardens to cut off queues worn by Chinese men (Chan 1991:46). These pigtails were required by their Manchu rulers. The mayor of San Francisco vetoed the ordinance and it was not implemented there. However, it was implemented in
Oroville
A Chinatown had been established in Oroville (at first known as Ophir City) by 1852 located along three full blocks on Broderick Street (Chan 1986:96). We are still not certain of of the dates surrounding the evolution of this enclave of safety. Sanborn Fire Maps or other geographical representation of 1852 Ophir do not exist. The first Fire map of Oroville we could find was 1884. According to Mansfield (1918:66,288,320,378), Oroville’s Chinatown was ravaged by fire at least four times and the temporary town in the Lava Beds at least once. The first fire in the Oroville Chinatown was noted as occurring in July of 1858. This fire burned the entire Chinatown consisting of over one hundred homes (Mansfield 1918:66). Later the Butte Record in December of 1873 described the Oroville Chinatown Buildings were built back were constructed of two and three story brick with circular porches. A second fire that burned half of this Chinatown occurred in August of 1876 (1918:288). The Oroville Mercury noted that many people considered the Chinatown “the very seat of iniquity and the lowest of the low.” Tom Jeffries, the keeper of an establishment in the district, berated the firemen for not saving his property. In a scuffle that followed Jeffries fired his double-barreled shotgun into the crowd and was promptly arrested. A third fire in the Oroville Chinatown was recorded by Mansfield as occurring in September of 1880 (1918:320). This fire again consumed the entire Chinatown but it was immediately rebuilt. Mansfield (1918:378) described a fourth fire as occurring on August 23, 1905. The fire started on the north side of Montgomery Street between Huntoon and Lincoln Streets, then moving down Lincoln into what was then Chinatown and the tenderloin section. Mansfield (1918:288) notes that forty buildings (cabins and stores) in the Lava Beds Chinatown were destroyed by fire in September of 1877.
Estimated loss from this the Lava Beds fire was twenty thousand dollars. The Chinese in large numbers were leaving Oroville by June of 1880 (Mansfield 1918:320). The Lava beds had played out by 1880. (Railroad construction in British Columbia and work in the stone quarries of Niles drew them away).
Chinese Truck Gardens
In 1854 a “China Garden” was established east of the Oroville Chinatown; size was slightly more than two acres (Chan 1986:96). The plot had been purchased by Ah Jim and Company from Jack Wesson, who also operated a garden in this area. The purchase price was $700. This garden plot was in use for more than fifty years. Today, the plot is a city park in a residential neighborhood. (The park is located several blocks from the present-day temple). Chinese truck gardeners usually operated with two partners, but in the valley towns larger partnerships were the rule. To much work for one person in a long Sacramento Valley growing season. The 1880s saw a boycott instigated against the Chinese vegetable peddlers in Oroville (Mansfield 1918:305). Italian gardeners were suggested to replace them.
Chinese Laundries
There was a Chinese washhouse located on Montgomery Street on July 6, 1857 (Oroville). A fire started there and then spread (Mansfield 1918:66) to many parts of what is now downtown. Only eight buildings were left standing from the head of Montgomery Street all the way to Oak Street. The burned out area extended north of Montgomery Street to the burned district of Chinatown.
Chinese Landowners
Butte County listed 2,177 Chinese in the 1860 census (Jiobu 1988:34). At this time, the Chinese comprised 29 percent of the total of California miners. In 1860 over 70 percent of the Chinese in California were working as miners (Chan 1984:286).
Personal and Real Property held by Chinese in the northern mining region (includes Butte County) in 1860 as follows:
| Personal Property | Real Property | |
| Miners | 127 | 2 |
| Truck Gardeners | 51 | 1 |
| Merchants and Grocers | 177 | 18 |
| Physicians and Druggests | 26 | 2 |
| Laundrymen | 27 | 0 |
| Other Persons | 34 | 0 |
| —- | —- | |
| Total | 439 | 23 |
Source: Compiled and computed from U.S. National Archives, Record Group 29, “Census of U.S. Population” (manuscript), 1860. (Chan 1986:152)
Personal and Real Property held by Chinese in the northern mining region (includes Butte County) for 1870 was as follows:
| Personal Property | Real Property | |
| Miners | 481 | 2 |
| Truck Gardeners | 24 | 1 |
| Merchants and Grocers | 132 | 18 |
| Physicians and Druggests | 26 | 2 |
| Laundrymen | 18 | 0 |
| Other Persons | 232 | 0 |
| —- | —- | |
| Total | 913 | 274 |
Source: Compiled and computed from U.S. National Archives, Record Group 29, “Census of U.S. Population” (manuscript), 1870. (Chan 1986:155)
SOCIALORGANIZATIONs
The Chinese immigrant communities established in Oroville, as in other places in northern California, were not different than those they had left behind in China (Chan 1991:63). Most of the inhabitants were men in their prime working years, many of whom led a migratory existence. Few of the inhabitants were women, children or older people The Oroville Chinese relied on a network of organizations to maintain social cohesion among themselves. Leadership was provided by individuals who had learned to deal with the host society that had a different culture and used a different language. Exclusionary laws (Page Act 1875) prevented women from coming to the community. The Qing dynasty ruling China did not approve of women leaving their homes. In America the lack of marital and social life lasted for many years. Often young men would leave wives and children alone in China; perhaps never to see them again. According to Chan (1991:63-67) the Chinese were known to have established a wide array of community organizations in their Chinatowns. These organizations were made up of 1) people who came from the same districts, called huiguan; 2) family or clan associations; and 3) those grouped together by common interests.
District Associations
According to Chan (1991:63-64) the district associations were the most important organization in an American Chinatown. The first two established in California were called the Sanyi Huiguan (Sam Yup Association, sometimes called the Canton Company) and the Siyi Huiguan (Sze Yup Association). In 1851, they both were formed in San Francisco. Hsu (2000:30) calls the Siyi Huiguan the Szeyup Benevolent Association and indicates that it had a membership of more than 10,000 men by 1853. Another association was formed by 3,000 Taishanese in 1852 (Hsu 2000:30-31). It was known as the Ning Yung Benevolent Association (Ningyang haiguan) and was for Taishanese alone, men immigrating from Taishan County, China. Membership in this association was estimated to be between 70,000 to 75,000 by 1876. In 1900, money was collected from 500 clan members in the United States to build a clan school back in Taishan County (Hsu 2000:45). A second school, the Chengwu Elementary School in Duanfen, was built by American clan members donations in 1905.
Family or Clan Associations
Leadership positions in the family associations were occupied almost exclusively by the elite families in America (Chan 1991:66). Kinship ties continually assisted family members migrating to the United States. More to cone
Common Interest.
Chinese with common interest grouped together forming sworn brotherhoods, trade guilds, and political parties. Sworn Brotherhoods like the tang (tong), which simply means “hall,” was one of the most important associations in the Americas (Chan 1991:67). Many went by a series of names and function. Western scholars often refer to them as Triads. These associations cut across common geographic origins or kinship. The tong was a fraternal organization (men only) in the Americas and elsewhere. Binding them together through secret initiation rites and sworn brotherhood. More than a dozen fraternal organizations existed among the Chinese in the Americas, the best known one was the Zhigongtang (Chee Kung Tong). The Chee Kung Tong was sometimes called by Euro-Americans the “Chinese Freemason but this was a misnomer. What officials called Chinese Freemasons began paying taxes on their property in the Oroville Chinatown in —- (Butte County Tax Records, Ophir Township or Oroville School district 18.
Trade Guilds. The Chinese set up guilds to protect their economic interests, especially for laundrymen, shoemakers, and cigarmakers.
CHINESE WOMEN
The shortage of woman among the American Chinese left the men with few attractive and available marriage partners (Hsu 2000:101). American born Chinese women were few in number and tended to accept men with wealth for husbands. By 1920 there were 695 Chinese men to every 100 woman. In Oroville, as the 1920 census reveals, hardly any women were still in Chinatown. More …..Laws also prohibited Chinese men from looking outside the Chinese community for brides. A California statute prohibiting marriages between whites and blacks had been in place since 1872 and was amended in 1906 to include the Chinese. It was not until 1948 that this law would be repealed. Additionally, any woman marrying a Chinese man without U.S. citizenship after 1921 would be stripped of her own citizenship. Hsu (2000:97, Table 8) shows the number of Chinese Women immigrants admitted to the United States between the years of 1900 and 1932. The numbers admitted in the years between 1900 and 1910 were as follows: 1900 – 9; 1901-39; 1902 – 42; 1903 – 40; 1904 – 118; 1905 – 88; 1906 – 88; 1907 – 64; 1908 – 86; 1909 – 135; and 1910 – 172. Table 9 (Hsu 2000:99) lists the number married men living as bachelors in the United States, 1890-1940. Also listed were the number of married women. The numbers for 1890, 1900 and 1910 were as follows:
| Year | Married Women | Husbands Living as Bachelors |
| 1890 | 1,951 | 24,769 |
| 1900 | 2,157 | 29,637 |
| 1910 | 2,016 | 24,433 |
Chinese men considered women born in China as better potential wives. They thought them to be more virtuous than woman born in the United States (Hsu 200:102-103)
American-born women were assumed to be of uncertain character and moral values.
DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE CHINESE
The first of many anti-Chinese Exclusion acts were passed by Congress in 1882. These acts would prohibit all but a few carefully specified classes of Chinese from entering the United States. The Chinese were barred from acquiring U.S. citizenship by naturalization and required certificates of residency.
Three men were hung at Bangor in 1857 for crimes commited against Chinese miners, robbery and murder, in Oroville and Bangor (Mansfield 1918:150). Chinese miners were subjected to physical violence from white miners and tax collectors from the 1850s on (Chan 1986:155). (Some vigilante justice was administered early on.) Chinese gardners experienced less harassment because they were viewed as not removing natural wealth of the land believed by some as belonging only to white people. The December 1, 1855 issue of the Northern California of Oroville and the Butte Record, August 29, 1856, gives glimpses of justice as it was not administered for the Chinese many times. When a Chinese was murdered in cold blood no inquiry concerning the matter was conducted by an officer of the law consistently.
The Northern Californian of December 8, 1855 noted that three hundred Chinese were involved in a pitched battle over gambling in the streets of the Oroville Chinatown. One person was killed and six or seven were injured. Also, there could be trouble over collection of foreign miners’ license tax. There was a proliferation of tax collector fraud. Groups would approach Chinese miners, order the tax amount and pocket the cash.
Anti-coolie societies were organized in Oroville, Chico and other places in the county. (Mansfield 1918:251). Other members of the community objected to the Chinese living habits, Chinatown “filth”, personal hygiene, mode of burial, working for less money, morality (concubines, whores, prostitution), religion, marriage, intermarriage, their assumed non assimilation into a “superior” white society, and the practice of disinterring bodies at the Chinese burying ground in the western side of the town of Oroville (Mansfield 1918:252). Newspaper publishers seem to lead the assault on immigrant Chinese. There are hundreds of descriptions of how terrible the Chinese were in the local news rags. Their readers lapped up the sensationalism.
Flood of 1907
The Feather River flooded its banks on March 18, 1907 (Mansfield 1918:376,377). This was the highest point in its recorded history and was running four feet deep in Montgomery Street. The Feather River Bridge was also taken out in the flood. Ten people were known to have drowned in a little settlement of dredging employees known as Dredgerville that was located south of Thermalito. (Mansfield needs to be taken with caution). There is no collaboration of these deaths we could find.
REFERENCES CITED
Bancroft, Hubert Howe
1888 Works. Volume XXIV. The History Company, San Francisco, California.
Chan, Sucheng
1984 Chinese Livelihood in Rural California: The Impact of Economic Pacific Historical Review 53(3):273-307.
1991 Asian Americans, An Interpretive History. Twayne Publishers, Boston.
Coate, Bill
- Portraits of the Valley: Millennium Milestones of Madera County, Volume I,
Madera Method Foundation Press, Madera, California
Dunn, Forrest D.
1977 Collection of Places in Butte County California. Association of Northern California Records and Research, Chico, California.
Hsu, Madeline Y.
2000 Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California
Jiobu, Robert M.
1988 Ethnicity and Assimilation. State University of New York Press, Albany, New York.
Mansfield, George C.
1918 History of Butte County California. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles,
California. Mansfield wrote the county history from newspaper accounts, whites money, and hearsay.
Monaco, James Edward
1986 Changing Ethic Character of a California Gold Mining Community: Butte County 1848 to 1880 Unpublished Masters Thesis, Geography Department, California State University, Chico.
Townley
1994
Orovillechicochinese 