California's Foreign Miners' Tax was written to bleed one group, and it worked: collected almost entirely from Chinese miners, it supplied close to a quarter of the state's revenue across two decades. In 1854 People v. Hall barred Chinese testimony against white defendants, which in practice licensed robbery, assault and murder. The episode also handles a notorious idiom whose earliest known uses post-date the Gold Rush by decades.
Who's who
- Ling SingChinese miner whose 1853 murder led to the Hall case
- George W. HallWhite man convicted of Ling Sing's murder, freed by the Hall ruling
- Hugh Campbell MurrayCalifornia Chief Justice who wrote the People v. Hall opinion
- Thomas Jefferson GreenState senator who authored the 1850 miners' tax
Where it happens
- Nevada County, CaliforniaWhere Ling Sing was killed in a robbery of a Chinese camp
- Sierra Nevada placer diggings, CaliforniaWhere Chinese miners reworked abandoned claims
Timeline
- April 1850First Foreign Miners' Tax set at $20 a month
- May 1852Second tax of $3 a month aimed at Chinese miners
- August 1853Ling Sing killed in an armed robbery
- 1854People v. Hall bars Chinese testimony against whites
- 1870Tax voided after the federal Civil Rights Act; over $5 million collected from Chinese miners
Still debated
The idiom 'a Chinaman's chance' is not attested until 1893 and 1904, so a Gold Rush coinage is a retrospective gloss rather than documented fact. The 'quarter of state revenue' figure is well supported but approximate.