1886 Anti-Chinese Convention Votes To Remove All Chinese From Idaho

 

Feb. 25, 1886, Anti-Chinese sentiment in the American West was as prominent of a characteristic, perhaps even more of one than prejudice against Native Americans.

From Denver to California to Wyoming and throughout the northwest with the China Town Massacre in Denver, Rock Springs Massacre, and others. The hatred was at all levels and forced the passage of the federal Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, much of this hate originated in competition for railroad and mining jobs but it grew because of cultural differences and perceived competition for the same jobs, this perception was hyped up by the Knights of Labor, an early labor union in Idaho.

In Idaho, Chinese immigrants made up 25-35 percent of the total population. Even then they had no power to even protect themselves, Chinese residents were not permitted to testify against whites in court and acts of violence committed against the Chinese were rarely investigated or punished. Perhaps the most extreme was the taxation, each person who was Chinese had to pay $5.00 a month to live in Idaho, approximately $160 in 2023 dollars, so an almost exorbitant amount.

On this day in 1886 representatives from across the state met in Boise to discuss what could be done to push the Chinese out, similar conventions were occurring in California and Nevada on the same day. In Idaho and California the language of resolutions was as prejudiced and bigoted as anything else ever written in the United States:

          Resolved: That we regard the Chinese among us as a mental, physical, moral, and financial evil.

          Resolved the Chinese must go

In other states, there was language stating that all methods must be based on the laws of the state and the federal government, but in Idaho, it was just resolved they must go. This was after the Federal 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act had made it impossible for anyone new to immigrate from China and since this made it impossible for many Chinese to bring in their families many returned to China, while others never saw their families again.

In Idaho, there was a two-pronged assault to remove the Chinese. They made moves in the state legislature to ensure that no one who was Chinese could own property in the state, this included property they already owned, forcing them to sell often at only 10 percent of the actual value. Also, violence against the Chinese increased with beatings and threats forcing them to move. This culminated in the 1887 Hells Canyon Massacre where 7 white horse thieves killed 34 Chinese miners and stole over $5 thousand in gold. They were brought to trial and acquitted of the massacre.

By 1910 the Chinese population of Idaho had dropped from 4,000 to less than 45. Through violence and lawful intimidation the men who gathered in Boise on this day in 1886 accomplished their goal. 

The Pavonia Massacre In New Jersey The First Act Of First Nation Genocide

 

Feb 25, 1643, Many first came to the White, European settlements in the 1600s. Before it was New York the city on the Hudson River was known as New Amsterdam and the territorial governor was a man named Willem Kieft.

Willem Kieft arrived in New Netherland in 1639 appointed as Director of New Netherland, with a directive to increase profits from the port at Pavonia. He was also to hold the territory from rival powers England, France, and Sweden. As the representative of the Dutch West India Company, Kieft made a series of moves to stabilize New Amsterdam; he was allowed to have all nations to trade in New Amsterdam and use the Hudson River in exchange for an import/export tax, and encourage settlers to purchase their own land within New Amsterdam instead of just leasing from the company. He also attempted to exact tribute from the native Lenape with claims that the money would buy them protection from rival groups.

Due to war between the Algonquin and Mohican people the Lenape were also among the First Contact refugees and made camps on the western shore of the Hudson. Relations between New Amsterdam and the Lenape were not great, although there were economic dealings the natives had refused the protection tax and suffered from European diseases and livestock encroachment onto their land. occasional acts of savage killing on both sides also increased tensions.

One night, hundreds of Lenape fleeing Mohican invaders sought refuge in New Amsterdam. Kieft not only refused, but on February 25, 1643, he led a raiding party of 80 men into Pavonia, the old name for northern New Jersey, and slaughtered over a hundred unarmed Lenape of all gender and ages. This became known as the “Pavonia Massacre.”

It was reported to be brutal, a witness wrote to the 12-man advisory council in New Amsterdam: “Infants were torn from their mother’s breasts and hacked to pieces in the presence of their parents, and pieces thrown into the fire and in the water”

David De Vries, a prominent citizen in New Amsterdam and a political adversary of Governor Kieft recounted hearing the sounds of the massacre from his hearth across the Hudson River in New Amsterdam; “I heard a great shrieking, and I ran to the ramparts of the fort and looked over to Pavonia. Saw nothing but firing, and the shrieks of the natives murdered in their sleep.”

The Native Americans called this "The Slaughter of the Innocents". This attack united the Algonquian peoples in the surrounding areas, to an extent not seen before. On October 1, 1643, a force of united "tribes" attacked the White homesteads at Pavonia, most of which were burned to the ground. Many settlers were killed and those who survived were ordered to the relative safety of New Amsterdam. Pavonia was evacuated. However, the next generation of Algonquin and Iroquois would be devastated by smallpox and were no longer a military threat by the 1664 British takeover.

The place known as Pavonia is now part of the Communipaw neighborhood of Jersey City, New Jersey. Where the salt marsh led to the river itself is now cut off from the water by the New Jersey Turnpike.

In many ways, the Pavonia Massacre was the beginning of the First Nations genocide

Willhem Kieft

Sources:

https://anothertownonthehudson.com/2015/06/05/the-pavonia-massacre/

https://www.publichistoryproject.org/remembering-pavonia/#:~:text=Done%2C%20Feb%2024th%2C%201643.,night%2C%20including%20women%20and%20children.

https://untappedcities.com/2015/02/25/today-in-nyc-history-a-1643-massacre-of-the-lenape-almost-dooms-new-amsterdam/

 

Learn more about the #PAVONIA1643 project here https://www.publichistoryproject.org/remembering-pavonia/#pavonia1643

South Carolina Post Master Lynched For Being Black In a White Town

Feb 22, 1898, it isn’t an overstatement to say that just being a free Black man in the Jim Crow south was enough to cause hate and violent death.

Such was the case for Frazier Baker the Postmaster for Lake City, South Carolina. Baker was a former schoolteacher, married and father of 6 children. He was 40 years old and known to a quiet and reserved man who just attempted to be live and do his job.

President William McKinley had appointed Baker to the position in July of 1897 and it was met immediately with anger and rancor by Whites in the community.

In the short time he had been Postmaster, six months, Baker had received death threats and had been shot at twice, there was a never-ending series of petitions and letters to officials to have Baker removed.

Baker dealt with these hostilities by writing a record of the incidents and reporting it all to his superiors, Soon after his appointment Baker faced a boycott of his post office by the White population and an investigation by a district inspector, the inspector suggested shutting down the Lake City post-office but the regional need was felt to be too strong so after Whites burned down the in town post-office a new one was constructed outside of town where Baker moved with his family.

This was actually a bit pointless as shortly after the Baker family moved in the night of Feb. 22 arrived and a mob of over 200 White men surround the building that acted as both post office and family resident.

The mob began by firing their guns into the house more than 1,000 times before lighting it on fire. Baker’s wife and children ran from the house and she and one of the children were wounded. When Baker attempted to leave with his infant daughter he was shot.

The fire was extremely intense and turned the building to ash and the remains of Baker and his infant daughter Julia. News reports stated that they had basically been cremated.

Newspapers in the area and of the era were mixed in their reporting of the crime. Some such as the Yorkville Enquirer reported that Lake City was a sober and moral town and that the lynching was the fault of McKinley for promoting a Negro so high above his station, in a position no White could accept. South Carolina Senator Benjamin Tillman followed this line of thinking when he said the "proud people" of Lake City refused to receive "their mail from a nigger."

Other papers though, such as the Watchman and Southron of Sumter, South Carolina declared that Williamsburg to be stained by such an atrocious crime. The legendary journalist and lynching activist Ida B. Wells led protests in Chicago and noted that in this case the murderers didn’t even attempt to hide their murder under curtain of Southern Chivalry and an accusation of another crime.

After the coroner recovered what he could and held an inquest the county attorney did in fact compel a grand jury to hear the evidence of murder, the grand jury refused any indictments,

The McKinley administration under the direction of the President conducted a robust investigation of the murder, initially offering a $1,500 ($48,858 today) reward for the arrest and conviction of members of the mob. Despite resistance by witnesses to testifying, on 1 July 1898 Federal prosecutors indicted 7 men on the charge of murdering Baker.

There was a mistrial then, as the all whit jury of ten men was evenly divided 5 ruling guilty and 5 ruling acquittal. Even with eye witness testimony of Baker’s wife and statements of some of the suspects, the prosecution did not seek a new trial.

Today a historical marker stands on the spot of the murder.

 

Sources:

https://www.newspapers.com/image/529153516/?terms=%22Frazier%20Baker%22&match=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/339335036/?terms=%22Frazier%20Baker%22&match=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/668571583/?terms=%22Frazier%20Baker%22&match=1

 

History Snapshot: The Assassination Of Malcolm X

El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz was better known by his public name Malcolm X

On February 21, 1965, he was assassinated by three gunmen at an Organization of Afro-American Unity rally in the Audubon Ballroom in New York City.

Though it was initially believed that the three assassins were members of the Nation of Islam and were affiliated with religious leader Louis Farrakhan, the killing remains controversial, and no consensus exists on who the killer(s) were.

In 2021, Muhammad Aziz was exonerated after being convicted in 1966 for the killing along with Khalil Islam and Mujahid Abdul Halim. Halim, who admitted to the shooting but later said Aziz and Islam were not involved, was paroled in 2010.

Forgotten History: 1947 Massachusettes Protest Proves Power of Non-Violence

Feb 21, 1947, in a precursor to the Civil Rights Activism of the late 50s and the 60s students at Williams College in Massachusetts protested a barber in Williamstown who had tried to charge an African-American customer, Wayman Caliman, Jr., $3.00 for a haircut rather than the $1.00 he charged white customers.

Forty-five students picketed Mederic Bleau’s shop with the support of the student body at Williams. Caliman Jr. and the editor for the student paper, The Williams Record, Norman Redlich stopped into the shop late in the afternoon and Bleau told Caliman Jr. the cost would be $3.00 as opposed to the regular $1.00. So the two students left the store, and Redlich announced in The Record the plans to picket the shop.

Bleau told the Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, MA that he had cut the hair of students for 32 years and in that time cut the hair of Spaniards and Mexicans and of many nations but asked if he had cut any other Negro’s hair he refused to answer.

Bleau also told the paper that the fact was it wasn’t the student’s skin color but size of head and thickness of his hair. “I didn’t refuse him service,” said Bleau. “I had a hard day and his head looked huge to me in the mirror so I told him my price and he and the other boy left.”

The Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts took up the case and took Bleau to court using an 1865 law that no business could discriminate on the basis of skin color. Bleau was fined $50.

While the 5-day protest was a preview of protests to come it didn’t seem to hurt the shop in the long term. Mr. Bleau told the Eagle in 1953 he thought in 37 years with the scissors he had cut over 100,000 students hair. He retired in 1959 and died in 1969 at the age of 87.

Although he was a member of the NAACP for the rest of his life the protest wasn’t the start of an activist life for Wayman Caliman, Jr. He graduated from Williams with his BA then in 1949 with his MBA from Columbia University. In 1950 he joined the U.S. Navy and served for 28 years. Mr. Caliman died in 1986 at the age of 57.

Sources:

https://www.newspapers.com/image/532120593/?terms=%22Wayman%20Caliman%2C%20Jr%22

https://www.newspapers.com/image/155343377/?terms=%22Wayman%20Caliman%2C%20Jr%22&match=1

 

FDR Signs Executive Order 9066 Creating World War Two Japanese Internment Camps

In an opinion piece in the LA Times attorney, W.H. Anderson argued that “A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched—so a Japanese American, born of Japanese parents—grows up to be a Japanese, not an American.” This was before the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the war starting.

For many in America this was the attitude towards their Japanese neighbors even before the bombing, so the signing of Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Feb. 19, 1942, wasn’t met with massive protest at the time.

The infamous order though didn’t mention Japanese Americans specifically and said nothing about what would become of the people who would be evacuated. This was left up to the Department of War/Defense to decide.

So, with paranoia about the Japanese, reinforced by an existing prejudice the DOD rounded up about 122,000 Americans of Japanese descent and sent them to concentration camps. Many of their homes, businesses, and farms were confiscated.

Another factor that played into the decisions regarding the Nisei (Americans born to Japanese parents) many were farmers and there were competing economic interests that paid lobbyists to come to Washington and persuade congress to support the internment of the Japanese Americans.

The government made no charges against them, nor could they appeal their incarceration. All lost their personal liberties; although several Japanese Americans challenged the government’s actions in court cases, the Supreme Court upheld their legality. However, as incongruous as it sounds Nisei were encouraged to serve in the armed forces, and some were also drafted. Altogether, more than 30,000 Japanese Americans served with distinction during World War II in segregated units.

Realizing the total injustice of what happened to the Japanese Americans various individuals and groups sought compensation for those incarcerated after the war. The Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act of 1948, with amendments in 1951 and 1965, provided token payments for some property losses. More serious efforts to make amends took place in the early 1980s when the congressionally established Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians held investigations and found that total property loss was estimated at $1.3 billion, and net income loss at $2.7 billion (calculated in 1983 dollars). As a result, several bills were introduced in Congress from 1984 until 1988. In 1988, Public Law 100-383 acknowledged the injustice of incarceration, apologized for it, and provided partial restitution – a $20,000 cash payment to each person who was incarcerated.

Sources:

https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/executive-order-9066

 

Bhagat Singh Thind Loses In Supreme Court , Indians lose Citizanship

 

Feb 19, 1923, A racist Supreme Court is a great danger to all Americans, this was proven more than once but never more so than in the ruling in the United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind.

In 1919, Bhagat Singh Thind filed a petition for naturalization under the Naturalization Act of 1906, which allowed only "free white persons" and "aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent" to become United States citizens by naturalization.

While his petition was initially granted, almost immediately other U.S. immigration officials began the work to cancel his citizenship. Their basis for this cancellation was based on Thind’s political activities as a founding member of the Ghadr Party, a violent Indian independence movement headquartered in San Francisco. Based on this and stating he was not White; immigration officials rescinded his citizenship in four days.

Bhagat Singh Thind immigrated to the U.S. in 1913 for further college studies, he had volunteered and enlisted in the U.S. Army and fought in World War One, Thind was discharged honorably with his character designated as "excellent". 

Thind received his citizenship for the second time in the state of Oregon in November 1920 after the Bureau of Naturalization was unsuccessful in its efforts to stall it in Oregon court. The case then reached the Supreme Court, where a California attorney and fellow immigrant Sakharam Ganesh Pandit, represented Thind.

Before the court Pandit argued that while Thind was not light-toned in complexion, Thind was racially Caucasian by the scientific classification of the time, making him a white person under the precedent of Ozawa v. United States and therefore eligible for naturalization. Pandit made his arguments quoting anthropological texts that stated people in Punjab and other Northwestern Indian states belonged to the "Aryan race."  He cited scientific authorities such as Johann Friedrich Blumenbach as classifying Aryans as belonging to the Caucasian race.

This argument fell on deaf ears even if it met the precedent set in Ozawa v. United States just a few months before. When the court returned with their decision on Feb 19 and it was unanimous against Thind.

The court stated, “What we now hold is that the words ‘free white persons’ are words of common speech, to be interpreted in accordance with the understanding of the common man, synonymous with the word ‘Caucasian’ only as that word is popularly understood.”

The repercussions of the case were immediate, Bhagat Singh Thind’s American citizenship was revoked by the Bureau of Naturalization. Not only were new citizenships not granted, 65 South-Asian Americans who possessed their citizenship before the Thind decision had their citizenship revoked between 1923 and 1927.

After the ruling, Ulysses Webb, Attorney General of California, declared, “the menacing spread of Hindus holding our land will cease,” and using the California Alien Land Law, officials began taking homes and property. The Supreme Court upended, and in some cases cut short, the lives of ordinary people who had long considered the United States a home where they could safely lead their lives. Vaishno Bagai an immigrant art dealer who had his citizenship rescinded. He committed suicide in 1928 inhaling gas, he sent his suicide letter to the San Francisco Examiner.

“I came to America thinking, dreaming, and hoping to make this land my home. Sold my properties and brought more than twenty-five thousand dollars (gold_ to this country, established myself and tried my very best to give my children the best American education. But they now come to me and say, I am no longer an American citizen. They will not permit me to buy my home and lo, they even shall not issue me a passport to go back to India. Now what am I? What have I made of myself and my children? We cannot exercise our rights, we cannot leave this country. Humility and insults, who is responsible for all this? Myself and American government.”

After the U.S. v. Thind decision, the South-Asian American community dwindled in the United States, and the population was reduced to half its previous number by 1940.

 

Sources:

https://www.saada.org/item/20130513-2748

https://aaregistry.org/story/united-states-v-bhagat-singh-thind-ruled/

https://pluralism.org/bhagat-singh-thind-citizen-or-alien