CHINESE HAD MORE THAN THEIR SHARE OF DIFFICULT TIMES
----During the mid-19th century, a combination of forces acted to push the Chinese out of China and pull them into the United States.
Although a few seamen, entertainers, students and others had arrived previously, Chinese first came to this country in large numbers during the early 1850s. They left China for a variety of reasons: overpopulation; land shortages; famines; natural disasters such as droughts, floods and earthquakes, and the devastating Taiping Rebellion that began in the 1850s.
Southern China was especially hard hit by all these events. Desperate to earn a living and to provide for their families at home, many Chinese from that area sought work in California, where gold had recently been discovered. As mining became less profitable in California, the Chinese, like many other people, drifted north, finally reaching Idaho in the mid-1860s.
At first, the Chinese were not permitted in the mining districts; the whites voted to keep them out. But as soon as the placer claims became unprofitable, Chinese were admitted and allowed to buy the supposedly worked-out claims. The Chinese found there was still enough gold to make a living, with hard work, and in spite of a discriminatory mining tax of $5 per month.
The first Chinese arrived at Lewiston in March of 1865. They probably came as gold miners, because that was when whites began allowing them into the Pierce City/Oro Fino mines. From Lewiston they also went to the Snake River mines. By the 1870s, there were reportedly 1,500 Chinese living at Lewiston, but this number had dropped to 400 by 1885.
In 1883, a fire of unknown origin wiped out Lewiston's original Chinatown. It was re-established on what is now the D Street parking lot, north of Brackenbury Square. A ''joss house,'' or temple, near the river also burned. It was rebuilt on C Street and was demolished in 1959. Older Lewiston residents remember the Chinese New Year celebrations and knew Chinese pioneers such as Louie Kim, Gue Owen and Ted and Fannie Loy.
At Pierce, Chinese were in the majority for many years. Even as late as 1892 there were only a handful of whites and some 150 to 300 Chinese, including a few Chinese women and children. Families were unusual in the Chinese community, because Chinese women customarily remained in China when their husbands went overseas to work. Although many women later wanted to join their husbands, Chinese exclusion laws passed in 1882 did not allow them to come.
Other communities in Nez Perce and Idaho counties that had Chinese residents included Florence, Grangeville, Mount Idaho, Elk City, Warren, Cottonwood, Nezperce and Orofino.
White miners allowed the Chinese into Florence in 1869, and they dominated that mining district well into the 1880s. There was a Chinese store at Grangeville as early as 1878. A Chinese baby was born at Mount Idaho in 1886. During the summer of 1888, Elk City had 400 Chinese and 12 whites. Cottonwood had a Chinese laundry in 1897, and Nezperce had one in 1904. In 1906, Orofino's only remaining Chinese resident cut off his braid.
Idaho's most famous Chinese person was probably Polly Bemis. Brought to Warren as a young woman, she and her husband, Charlie Bemis, later lived beside the Salmon River. He died in 1922 following a fire at the couple's cabin. She moved into Warren until a new cabin was built for her the next year. The cabin was recently nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. Polly Bemis died at Grangeville in 1933.
Chinese also lived in Latah County. There, Chinese worked the gold mines beginning in the 1870s and lasting into the 1890s.
A severe blow was dealt to Idaho's Chinese miners in the spring of 1890. Some Chinese in the Elk City mining district had filed suit against white claim jumpers who had forced them off their Moose Creek workings, claims that had been purchased by the Chinese many years before. Judge Willis Sweet, presiding over the district court at Mount Idaho, ruled that ''Chinese have no rights whatever on mining lands in the United States.'' Whites then took this as an excuse for forcing many Chinese miners off their claims, and out of the area.
Other Chinese in Latah County worked as gardeners and as railroad workers, beginning in the mid-1880s. Newspaper advertisements for Chinese laundries at Moscow first appeared in 1885. But those and other businesses were mostly gone by 1905.
Sometime before 1910 the rest of Moscow's Chinese were run out by ''the cowboys.'' Only occasional Chinese came and went there until 1926, when the Lee family bought a restaurant. It was operated by them for many years, and was later owned by their daughter and her husband, the Lews.
Prior to 1895, Genesee had a Chinese laundryman named Lem, and Kendrick also had Chinese laundries from time to time. In 1900, Kendrick had six Chinese residents, including a gardener. He was probably the same person remembered by older Kendrick residents as the man they called ''Jean (or Gene) Chinaman.'' Today, of course, the word ''Chinaman'' is considered offensive and is no longer used.
Chinese often worked as cooks or waitresses in hotels or restaurants. Into the early 1900s, newspaper advertisements for such businesses sometimes contained a line reading, ''No Chinese employed,'' or ''Only white labor.'' This usually meant that competing establishments had Chinese help.
In 1900, a Genesee hotel had a Chinese cook, and Kendrick had Chinese hotel workers. Another Chinese worked for a mining camp in the vicinity of Elk River. At larger towns, such as Lewiston, Chinese were employed as cooks in boarding houses. More affluent local citizens sometimes had Chinese house servants.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, together with a nationwide depressed economy, led to the formation of anti-Chinese crusades. These sprang up throughout the West as outrage against the ''Yellow Peril'' mounted.
The worst anti-Chinese violence in the history of the West was the Snake River Massacre. This occurred at Dug Bar in May 1887, when more than 30 Chinese miners were shot, beaten or hacked to death by a group of outlaws hoping for a cache of gold. The bodies of the victims were thrown into the river. Some floated down to Lewiston, Penawawa and other places. Of six men charged with the crime, only three could be located for trial. They were found innocent.
Elsewhere in the area, there were few overtly violent incidents, but Chinese were often teased or intimidated. Such harassment was more common during times of white hardship and unemployment.
By the 1920s and 1930s, the few Chinese remaining in Nez Perce, Idaho and Latah counties had earned the respect of their fellow citizens for their patience, their industry, their frugality and their importance to the local economy. In common with other pioneers in this region, some have left descendants to carry on these traditions.
About the author: Priscilla Wegars is a Ph.D. candidate in history/historical archaeology at the University of Idaho. Her topic is the history and archaeology of the Chinese in northern Idaho from 1880 to 1910.
