Racial Violence at Rock Springs, Property Compensation, and "Indemnity" during Chinese Exclusion

Item set

• Angell Treaty
  The Angell Treaty of 1880 amended the Burlingame Treaty of 1868 and sought to regulate, limit, and suspend the arrival of Chinese laborers to the United States. Article Three of the treaty established a clause stating that Chinese subjects experiencing violence and mistreatment on U.S. soil should be entitled to protection by the U.S. government.
• Burlingame-Seward Treaty
  In the wake of the Second Opium War (1865-60), United States Secretary of State William Seward and the U.S. Minister to China Anson Burlingame negotiated what became known as the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. The treaty established trade ports for the U.S. in China, opened Chinese consuls in the U.S., and permitted the free immigration and travel of Chinese immigrants to the United States under the "the most-favored nation principle."
• Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
  The Chinese Exclusion Act barred Chinese laborers from entering the United States, with exceptions granted for merchants, students, or diplomats.
• Criminal Docket, Sweetwater County Rock Springs Precinct, September 1885
  A Coroner’s Inquest investigated the murders of Chinese mine workers in Rock Springs, Wyoming Territory, in September 1885. While 16 white miners were arrested for participation in the massacre, no one was ever held legally responsible.
• Estimate of Property Loss Sustained by the Chinese in their respective camps at Rock Springs
  In the wake of the 1885 Rock Springs Massacre, a U.S.- Chinese commission made up of politicians, ambassadors, and diplomats arrived in Wyoming Territory to collect testimony and tally the loss of property among Chinese laborers. The property lists accounted for individual property ownership, as well as property held in common by the Chinese miners.
• Grover Cleveland Speech Regarding Chinese Immigrant Workers
  President Grover Cleveland's 1886 speech discusses the anti-Chinese violence at Rock Springs, Wyoming Territory. In it he argues that the United States is not responsible for this violence.
• Keeping Account
  This political cartoon, published in the wake of the Rock Springs Massacre that targeted Chinese laborers, depicted the practice of "indemnity," or compensation between nations in the wake of racial violence. The cartoon depicted Uncle Sam and the Emperor of China debating how and whether China would be compensated for the racial violence in Wyoming Territory.
• Memorial of Chinese laborers resident at Rock Springs, Wyoming Territory
  Over five hundred Chinese survivors of the 1885 racial violence in Rock Springs petitioned Huang Sih Chuen, the Chinese consul at New York, providing testimony of the white-led massacre and detailing the circumstances through which they lost property. Survivors demanded bodily protection and property compensation, while invoking recent treaty stipulations between the U.S. and China
• Naturalization Act of 1870
  The 1870 Naturalization Act extended paths to United States citizenship for African descended people while excluding Chinese immigrants.
• Racial Violence at Rock Springs, Property Compensation, and "Indemnity" during Chinese Exclusion
  This teaching module investigates the legal concept of "indemnity" and property compensation in the wake of the Rock Springs Massacre, which targeted Chinese laborers in Wyoming Territory in 1885. When white miners attacked a Chinese labor community, Chinese survivors petitioned the New York consul and worked through diplomatic channels to demand redress. This module explores how the concept of "indemnity" relied on treaty obligations and was tied to property compensation during a moment when national legislation worked to further restrict Chinese immigration.