On October 24, 1871, a mob of roughly five hundred people, close to a tenth of Los Angeles, descended on the Chinese quarter and lynched eighteen or nineteen men and boys in a matter of hours. Convictions were overturned in 1873 on a charging technicality. In the decade that followed, anti-Chinese hatred became a governing program through ordinances, the Workingmen's Party and the Page Act of 1875, which barred Chinese women.
Who's who
- Chee Long TongPhysician hanged by the Los Angeles mob in 1871
- Robert ThompsonRancher killed in the gunfight that sparked the mob
- Denis KearneyAgitator who led the Workingmen's Party of California
- Horace F. PageCongressman who authored the Page Act of 1875
- Oliver P. MortonSenator who chaired the 1876 joint committee and dissented
- William T. ColemanMerchant whose pick-handle brigade quelled the 1877 riot
Where it happens
- Calle de los Negros, Los AngelesSite of the Chinese quarter massacre
- San Francisco, California+12 more episodesCity of harassment ordinances and the 1877 riot
- Sacramento, California+4 more episodesScene of state-level constitutional changes (1879)
Timeline
- October 24, 1871Los Angeles mob lynches 18 or 19 Chinese men and boys
- May 1873California Supreme Court reverses all eight manslaughter convictions
- March 1875Page Act bars Chinese women and collapses their immigration
- July 1877Three nights of riot in San Francisco's Chinatown
- October 1877Kearney founds the Workingmen's Party of California
- May 1879New state constitution ratified with Article XIX targeting Chinese
Still debated
The death toll is contested at 18 or 19 (occasionally 17), and the mob's size of 'about 500' is an estimate rather than a count.