The Massacre of the Chinese at Rock Springs wood cut by Thure de Thulstrup, Harpers Weekly Sept. 26, 1885
Rock Springs, Wyoming September 2, 1885 ―The bosses of Union Pacific Railroad didn’t care about what a worker’s skin color or culture was as long as they made them money. Obviously not a personal way, because the bosses were as racist as any White anyone else but as a worker they loved the Chinese.
The Chinese laborer was not likely to speak out about unsafe condition, working hours or pay, if they did get paid. No matter what the situation was in most cases it was still better than the conditions in China. There the Taiping Rebellion had left millions of people dead, destroyed cities and created warlord situations. Along with this cultural situation there was famine from floods and droughts. So almost any conditions where they got paid was better than being in China.
Of course, the White miner didn’t care about this when it effected their lives. The Union Pacific mine camps and rail construction towns were “Company Towns” so the rent all miners paid was to their employer, and all the goods they bought were also from the employer. Sp it was almost impossible to get ahead.
The White miners were fed up with these conditions and created a new union the Knights of Labor, which was growing in the coal camps of the west. They had already struck in 1884, and gained a small wage increase, that within months disappeared and Union Pacific had sent word to all managers to only hire the Chinese.
Racism and hate toward the Chinese was as much of a fact in the Western United States as the Racism against the African American in the South. There were moments of dramatic violence in San Francisco and other West Coast cities. Politicians had made laws limiting where they Chinese could live and in 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed stopping new immigration from China.
Tension was high in Rock Springs. The White miners felt the Chinese were taking their jobs and keeping wages low. The feeling was that without this population of ready low wage workers the Whites were being held back. In Rock Springs the population of the Bitter Creek Chinatown north of Rock Springs proper was double that of the White population.
Conditions were primed for an explosion of violence and on Sept 2nd and into the morning of September 3rd the explosion happened. It began with a fight at the No. 6 mine when Chinese quarreled with White miners and the White miners used mining equipment to injure the Chinese. Forman sent the White miner's home and the wounded workers home for healing. The resentment of the White miners though had come to a head and they gathered on the line to the No. 6 and talked about whipping out the Chinese.
The White miners gathered together with tools and guns and moved into the Chinatown across Bitter Creek and started beating people they saw and burning the Chinese homes, businesses and randomly beating them, the beatings became killings.
The Chinese really couldn’t fight back, they were unprepared for the level of violence. By the end of the afternoon 28 Chinese laid dead in the streets, 14 others were badly wounded. Perhaps the worst of all was that 800 hovels and tents were burned to the ground.
Wyoming Territorial Governor Francis Warren was notified in Cheyanne of the massacre. He ordered the fastest train and he and Union Pacific corporate officers left Cheyanne for Rock Springs. By the morning of the 3rd they arrived to witness the still burning Chinatown and bodies laying in the streets.
Warren immediately sent a telegram to Washington D.C. requesting Federal troops from President Grover Cleveland. Warren felt this was the only way to restore order and he was afraid that the atrocity might spread to other towns like Evanston with greater populations of both Whites and Chinese. In fact J.J. LeCain was trying to get miners to return to their homes. The sheriff telegrammed Warren asking for additional federal troops to protect his city.
Warren could not guarantee this, but he did deputize 20 men and took the train to Evanston. While not an army this display apparently to hold off another assault on the Chinese. Warren also had arranged for Union Pacific to run trains 30 miles out from Rock Springs and Evanston to collect the Chinese who had run away after the two attacks.
Federal troops arrived in Rock Springs on the Fifth of September and on this day trains carrying the wandering Chinese from picking them up from Rock Springs and 30 miles around. The Chinese had not wanted to come back and had been told they were going to be taken to the West Coach. They were lied to and on their return still just had to bury their dead and try and rebuild.
Conditions remained bad. The troops who arrived over the week kept the peace, they also had to build Fort Pilot Butte because this was not a short relocation of troops. The army ended up staying in Rock Springs for the next 13 years.
While promises were made by Warren and Cleveland and Union Pacific to both the Chinese workers and diplomates in San Francisco and Washington. Eventually congress passed a resolution granting restitution for losses when homes and businesses were burned. White miners were not granted anything. No back pay was given to any worker. Union Pacific gave orders to both Chinese and White miners that if they were not back to work by September 28 they would be fired.
Riots and massacres against the Chinese increased in the next few years. There was the Tacoma expulsion when all Chinese were forced from the city. There was the riot in which Denver’s Chinatown was destroyed and never rebuilt. Across the west there were more than 200 events between 1885 and 1910 where Whites killed Chinese or voted for laws forcing the Chinese out of their communities.
Francis Warren went on to serve in the U.S. Senate for 43 years and became on of the most powerful men in the United States and he frequently used that power to protect the railroads, especially the Union Pacific.
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