Lynching John Chinaman

Vigilante justice involves mob rule where victims, guilty or innocent, get no day in court to plead their case. In American history, the lynching of black Americans in the South was not uncommon. In the first 6 months of 1903, for example, of lynchings of 48 men, mostly Colored men, 44 took place in southern states.

There were a few cases. however, that involved Chinese victims.  The sketch below was a political statement expressing resentment toward cheap Chinese labor that took work from whites and was not a representation of an actual lynching. Nonetheless, it could incite real-life incidents where Chinese were lynched.

In 1871 some Chinese had an argument among themselves and they fired guns, accidentally killing one policeman who came on the scene which angered a mob of about 500 men who destroyed Chinatown and attacked any Chinese in their path. Known as the Los Angeles massacre, they murdered 20 Chinese who were found hanging at three locations in the area. Some of them may have been lynched, but apparently, some were killed before they were then hung from supports.

In 1874, two Chinese murderers were lynched in of all places, Happy Camp, in a mining area in northern California.

A Chinese in Marysville, California, was found to have sexually molested a 13-year-old girl. Local authorities saved him from a lynching by quickly moving him out of town.

A Chinese cook lynched near Bakersfield, California, had attacked a mill employee with a knife.