The Decayed Qing Dynasty and Mercenary Political Players:

The Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882

HIST 4839-001
Final Draft
May 5, 2016

On August 29, 1842, after its defeat in the first opium war, the Qing Dynasty had signed
the Treaty of Nanjing with the Great Britain, and lost Xianggang (Hong Kong), which became an
overseas colony of the British Empire for more than one and a half century. As part of the treaty,
the Qing Dynasty had to pay Great Britain in total of twenty-one million silver dollars from 1842
to 1845 every year. In addition, Great Britain gained four treaty ports: Shamian Island of
Guangdong, Fuzhou of Fujian, Ningbo of Zhejiang, and Shanghai. It was the first time the Great
Britain tasted benefits from the Qing Dynasty.1
Unfortunately, Great Britain was never satisfied with its existing benefits. Upon its
greediness, the second opium war broke out in 1856. Great Britain sought to renegotiate their
commercial treaties with Qing Dynasty. After the Qing Dynasty refused such unreasonable
requirement, Great Britain contacted France, Russia, and the United States to aid to form an
alliance in order to deal with the Qing Dynasty. The French, Russian Empire, and the United
States joined and agreed to share the benefits with Great Britain.
Meanwhile, Inside of the Qing Dynasty, the Taiping rebellion started five years earlier in
1851. The Taiping rebellion was the product of the Qing Dynasty shifting its burden of
indemnity to the peasants, who had already suffered from unexpected natural disasters, such as
floods and droughts.2 The Taiping rebellion lasted for fourteen years and spread to every single
province in China, except Gansu province. During the second opium war, Yuan Ming Yuan,
which was located in northwest part of Beijing, the capital of the Qing Dynasty, was burned by
the French army. Now, the Qing Dynasty had to deal with both an internal and external situation

UCLA International Institute, Treaty of Nanjing. http://www.international.ucla.edu/asia/article/18421.

Emergence of Modern China. http://www.chaos.umd.edu/history/modern2.html.

at the same time. To seek peace, the Qing Dynasty asked help from the western countries to
suppress the Taiping rebellion, which led directly to the signing of the Tianjin treaty in 1858.

The western powers could do anything in the land of the Qing Dynasty. According to the
Tianjin treaty, Great Britain, French empire, Russian empire and the United States could install
legations in Beijing. Second, eleven ports was forced to open to foreign trade, including Tianjin,
Yingkou of Liaoning, Hankou of Wuhan, Nanjing of Jiangsu, and Taiwan.3 Third, with their
passports, foreigners could travel through the interior of the Qing Dynasty. Fourth, the Qing
Dynasty lost Jiulong (Kowloon) to Great Britain, which could have a free trade of opium at those
free trade ports. Fifth, the Qing Dynasty had to allow religious freedom and gave Christianity
full property rights. In addition, the Qing Dynasty signed two additional separate Treaties called
Aigun Treaty and the Supplementary Treaty of Beijing with Russian empire in 1858. The first
treaty gave Russian empire coastal land in northern part of the Qing Dynasty and the second
treaty had made the Qing Dynasty lose approximately 400,000 square mile of territory to St.
Petersburg to Russian empire.4Under those unequal treaties, the Qing Dynasty sold its territories
to the strongest countries unconditionally and made its country fragmented and allowed itself to
be trampled by different countries with power.

The heavy pressure and exploitation from the Qing Dynasty forced a portion of Chinese
to find another way be survive. After the discovery of gold in California by John Marshall in
1848, the exciting news were spread by other Chinese merchants who went back and forth to
both Qing Dynasty and the United States. Chinese people chose to risk their lives to come to the

U.S. Department of State. Archives. http://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/dwe/82012.htm

Allingham, Philip V. England and China: The Opium Wars, 1839-1860. Lakehead University, Thunder Bay,
Ontario. Philip V. Allingham was a contributing editor of Victorian Web.
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/empire/opiumwars/opiumwars1. html
4

United States in order to escape the war between the Qing dynasty and the Taiping rebellion and
also to search greater economic opportunities. The gold mountain of 1848 in California appealed
25,000 Chinese immigrants to come to California.5 Chinese people came in hope of making a
fortune. 6Chinese immigrants came to the United States by their own choice. It seemed that
America gave them a new hope in a new land.
Among those 25,000 Chinese, more than two-thirds of them lived in California.7 After
the Chinese immigrants came to the California, they involved in gold searching, mining, land
clearing, farming, fruit culture, domestic servants, and the construction of Western railroads in
the United States and Canada.8 For all kinds of jobs they involved in, they worked very hard,
they did the work that white workers were not be willing to do, and they mastered the working
skills or methods very quickly. 9 For example, Henry Degroot, who worked as the foreign-miners
tax collector in 1853 to 1854, stated that The Chinese went on and by their method of mining
they covered up a great deal of good ground. They prevented white men from coming in because
they did not like to mine near them, and in that way a good deal of mining-ground was lost
which we will never be able to work out. 10 Chinese workers knew that they came to the United

Sung, Betty Lee. Mountain of Gold. New York: The Macmillan Company. 22. Betty Lee Sung is an Americanborn who has been written a special program on the Chinese in the United States for Voice of America.
6

Norton, Henry Kittredge. The Chinese. The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco.
http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist6/chinhate.html. Henry Kittredge Norton (1884-1965) was an American
educator, journalist, author, and businessman. He was also His positions included trustee and president of the
New York, Susquehanna & Western Railroad, director of Walter Kidde & Co., and member of the New York City
Transit Authority.
7

Daniels, Roger, Not Like Us: Immigrants and Minorities in American, 1890-1924. The American Ways Series:
Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 1997, 5-6. Roger Daniels is as a Charles Phelps Taft Professor of History at the University of
Cincinnati.
8
Seward, F. George. Chinese Immigration: Its Social and Economical Aspects. Charles Scribners Sons: New York,
1881. 14-185. George F. Seward was a late United States Minister to the Qing Dynasty.
9
Seward. F. George. Chinese Immigration. 18-49.
10
Ibid., 47.

States for a fortune and for a better living in future. They had to work harder than others. In
farming fields, they worked in wheat fields, in grain fields, and in raising fruit. If there was a job
opportunity, they went to it without any hesitation. Seward admired that Chinese endured all
difficulties, including prejudice, discrimination, violence, and harsh punishments. 11 They were
working for surviving. Consequently, Chinese laborers were hired first by the mining companies
and other companies as well.
Current historians, like Roger Daniels and Andrew Gyory, have their own different points
of view on the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Daniels argues that the Chinese immigrants
became the target of political movement determined by their race, the underdeveloped region
they came, and the variety of discrimination they encountered. According to Daniels, Chinese
immigrants became the victims of criminals and anti-Chinese mobs. It was unfair that Chinese
could not complain about what they had experienced based on the California Supreme Court
rule: The Chinese could not have any testimony against white persons in 1854.12 Without strong
support from the Qing Dynasty and without protection under the law in the United States, I think
it was the dark period of Chinese immigrants experiencing exploitation, injustice, discrimination,
and even violence on a daily basis. Most importantly, without the protection by the law in the
United States and a strong Qing Dynasty, white people could hurt any Chinese at their own will.
They could chase off Chinese from the working places. Under the special circumstance of
situation, all Chinese immigrants had to find a way to overcome all difficulties, to deal with any
situation they had, and try their best to protect and depend on themselves. Consequently, Chinese
immigrants were living and working full of fear, every day and every moment.

11

Seward, F. George. Chinese Immigration. 40.

Daniels, Roger, Not Like Us: Immigrants and Minorities in American, 1890-1924. The American Ways Series:
Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 1997, 8. Roger Daniels is as a Charles Phelps Taft Professor of History at the University of
Cincinnati.
12

Another historian, Andrew Gyory, argues that the Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion
Act in 1882 determined by a group of national politicians who used the anti-Chinese movement
as a good opportunity to gain more votes. 13 A group of politicians chose the Chinese immigrants
as scapegoats to help them gain more political power. Those politicians not only used Chinese
immigrants to favor America workers, but also used workers voice and the economic hard times
as their platforms as well to gain more votes and to get more political power.
It is true that the Chinese immigrants encountered a variety of discrimination from the
beginning of the period after they came to the United States. Later, the national racism controlled
by those politicians manipulated white workers to gain an electoral advantage. Both historians
chose to focus on the factors caused the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, but they
ignored another important factor, the weak Qing Dynasty. Together, the weak Qing Dynasty,
factors of the discrimination Chinese encountered in the United States, and the top-down
politicians who favored the white workers to gain more votes determined the passing of the
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
A cowardly, powerless, ignorant, and decayed Qing Dynasty played a pivotal role to the
passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The imperial China in the Nineteenth-Century
was not the worlds most prosperous country anymore. The Qing Dynasty became the weakest
imperial Dynasty during the 1800s, and it had been isolated because there was no connection
between the Qing Dynasty and other countries.
First, under the law, no Chinese were allowed to migrate to other countries in the 1840s.
For example, if a Chinese man was caught, he would receive a death penalty, and his head

13

Gyory, Andrew. Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act, the University of North
Carolina Press: Chapel Hill and London, 1998, 1.

would be severed from his body by one stroke of the executioners axe in public.14 With a cruel
punishment, all Chinese stayed in their homeland and tried their way to survive. Such
punishment proves that the Qing Dynasty tried to control its people under the imperial dynasty.
Second, the Qing Dynasty did not have enough money in the 1800s. For instance, on the
economic level, the reserves of Qing Dynasty only owned nine million liang of silver in 1850.15
With the increased population, the Qing Dynasty had to import extra rice from abroad, even
during the best harvest years. 16 The land for agricultural could not produce enough food to feed
its population, resulting in starvation and death, which led directly to the Taiping rebellion. The
Taiping rebellion broke out from Guangxi in 1851, the leader was Hong Xiuquan. He was a
village teacher and unsuccessful imperial examination candidate. 17 In several years, it spread out
to the whole nation, resulting in over 30 million people were killed in 14 years. 18
Worrying about its imperial dynasty from falling down, Qing Dynasty asked help from other
countries.
Third, the weak Qing Dynasty asked help from the western powers when Taiping
rebellion broke out. For example, an ignorant Qing Dynasty used western powers to suppress the
Taiping rebellion (1851-1864), which was a huge mistake. The authorities of the Qing Dynasty
should have known that the Western powers would not help them unconditionally. In return, the

14

Sung, Betty Lee. Mountain of Gold: the Story of the Chinese in America. New York: The Macmillan Company,
1967. 10.
15
Chang, Iris. The Chinese in America: A Narrative Story. New York: the Penguin Group, 2003. 13. The
information comes from Jacques Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization, translated by J.R. Foster (Cambridge,
England, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp.530-531. During the Qing Dynasty period, silver
was used as currency. Liang was used to measure the weight of silver.
16
Chang, Iris. The Chinese in America: A Narrative Story. New York: the Penguin Group, 2003. 13-14.
17
Emergence of Modern China: The Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864).
http://www.chaos.umd.edu/history/modern2.html. The Imperial Examination System was an exam started from
local, then provincial, and national, which was used to choose government officials to the Qing Dynasty. As
Imperial Examination candidates, they needed to write essays on ancient Chinese literature and philosophy in order
to pass the exam. Chang, Iris. The Chinese in America: A Narrative History. New York: the Penguin Group. 2003.
7.
18
Emergence of Modern China: The Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864).

Qing Dynasty was forced to pay indemnities to the Western powers.19 The Qing Dynasty should
have dealt with the internal conflict by themselves, not depending on other countries.
At last, Qing Dynasty had signed the following unequal treaties with other countries
during the opium wars. The Najing treaty with Great Britain in 1842, the Tianjin treaty with the
United States in 1858, both Aigun treaty and the Supplementary treaty of Beijing with Russian
empire, etc. All the signed treaties had proved that the Qing Dynasty was weak and timid. All
unequal treaties also demonstrated that the Qing Dynasty had signed the treaties by following the
directions of the foreign countries who created the treaties at their will.
The Qing Dynasty was so busy to sign up from one treaty to another. Four years later,
after the end of the Taiping rebellion, the Qing Dynasty had signed the Burlingame treaty with
the United States in 1868. The Burlingame Treaty strengthened U.S. trade interests with the Qing
Dynasty by opening Guangdong as a trade port to the United States. In addition, the Qing
Dynasty should appoint consuls to American port cities. On the other hand, the United States
agreed to allow the Chinese the right to free immigration and travel within the United States and
provided protection of Chinese citizens in the United States under the law. Qing Dynasty agreed
to provide Chinese cheap laborers to the United States. 20 In all, the Burlingame treaty
specifically protected the right of the Chinese to immigrate into the United States and it
guaranteed the right of Chinese to enter the United States as immigrants. Unfortunately, twentytwo years later, the anti-Chinese sentiment increased. The pressure from the workers, the
national labor movement, the racist atmosphere, and the politicians efforts, made the Congress

19

20

U.S. Department of State. http://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/dwe/82012.htm.

History of Historian. History of Historian. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/burlingameseward-treaty.

pass the Chinese Exclusion Act. Several factors pushed the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act
in 1882.
First, ethnic discrimination was one of the factors to stimulate the passing of the Chinese
Exclusion Act of 1882. The Chinese laborers endured discrimination when they were working in
gold fields. After the gold became scarce, they were forced to switch their job to farming,
mining, land cleaning, fruit culture, domestic serving, and the construction of Western railroads
in the United States and Canada.21 The bosses of mining, farming, and land cleaning etc., made
money out from the Chinese laborers. For example, according to Mr. John M. Horners, as an
owner of a farmer of Alameda County, California, proved that the white laborers were paid in
$18 to $25 per month since 1857. In contrast, nearly two decades later, the bosses still paid the
Chinese laborers with $20 per month in 1876. The truth was, as Mr. John M. Horners mentioned,
To survive, both worker laborers and farmers required at least $25 per month.22 I think it was
obvious that as employees, Chinese laborers had no choice asking for a higher wage because the
wages were controlled by the employers. All employers who made money out from Chinese
laborers were the racial tension initial makers. I guess if those employers did not lower the wages
to hire Chinese laborers, Chinese workers would have the same wages as white workers.
Second, unjust treatment played an essential role to promote the passing of the Chinese
Exclusion act in 1882. On May 4th, 1852, the legislature of California passed an act in order to
have a license tax of $3 per month paid by foreign workers who were working in placer and
quartz mining fields. By 1851, there were 25,000 Chinese immigrants in California.23 The next

Seward, F. George. Chinese Immigration: Its Social and Economical Aspects. Charles Scribners Sons: New
York, 1881. 14-185. George F. Seward was a late United States Minister to the Qing Dynasty.
22
Seward, F. George. Chinese Immigration. 57-63.
23
Sung, Betty Lee. Mountain of Gold: The Story of the Chinese in America. New York: The Macmillan Company,
1967. 22. Betty Lee Sung is an American-born who has been written a special program on the Chinese in the United
States for Voice of America.
21

year, the tax was increased to $4 per month each person by passing another act on Marth 30th,
1853.24 According to Seward, there were 30,000 Chinese were engaged in mining in the year of
1862.25 As I can figure it out, 30,000 Chinese workers paid $120,000 miner tax each month to
the California state. Probably some Chinese laborers realized the unfair treatment they were
experiencing, some of them refused to pay the miner tax. Unfortunately, Mr. Speer, as a witness,
he was also as the author of China and the United States observed, if some of the Chinese
workers refused to pay the tax, the tax collectors would have stuck, stabbed or shot them.26
With harsh living conditions and cruel punishment from the tax collectors, I understand that
Chinese workers tried their best to find jobs to survive. For example, as the owner of a wheat
culture, Mr. George D. Roberts regarded, We gave white laborers a very fair test a few years
ago and gave them the usual country wages at $35 to $40 dollarsWe had to abandon it after
trying a couple of weeks, and losing a great deal of wheat by the experimentthese men would
not work more than two or three days or a week, and then they would quitthen I hired several
hundred Chinese workers to do two hundred acres that had been reaped, and they did the work
that night when they came. 27 Chinese workers had to choose the work that white workers were
not be willing to do with lower wages, and they mastered the working skills or methods very
quickly. I believe that there was no doubt that any employer would prefer to choose Chinese
workers as their employees, including the mining company, the fruit culture, the wheat culture,
and the Transcontinental Railroad construction companies. Their diligent, hard-working, and
faithfulness made them get job opportunities to build up the Transcontinental Railroad later.

Seward, F. George. Chinese Immigration: Its Social and Economical Aspects. Charles Scribners Sons: New
York, 1881. 36. George F. Seward was a late United States Minister to the Qing Dynasty.
25
Seward, F. George. Chinese Immigration. 50.
26
Ibid., 40.
27
Ibid., 59.
24

Third, racist attitude hold by both workers and top-down politicians played an important role
to help pass the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. When economic growth slowed beginning in the
1870s, resulting in serious unemployment problems, the competition between white workers and
Chinese laborers increased. Both the workingmens party and San Francisco Governor John
Bigler blamed Chinese laborers for depressed wages. In his speeches called Our Misery and
Despair of 1878, Denis Kearney, as the main leader of the workingmens party, attacked Chinese
laborers with full of racist expressions. He described Chinese laborers as a race of cheap
working slaves, who undercut American living standards and destroyed the liberty of the United
States. In his speech, he addressed Chinese laborers were working as slaves and loaded the
whole nation with debt. His speech was unbelievable and with a lot of doubtful points. Denis
targeted Chinese workers to blame because he knew there is no protection to Chinese under the
law. At the end, Kearney said, We, as the workingmens party of California, should help banish
the Chinese from the United States. 28 I think the reason why Denis encouraged his workingmen
to chase off Chinese back to their country was to reinforce his leadership.
According to table II, there were 75,025 Chinese laborers in California of 1880. Based on the
new legislation of law, each Chinese man needed pay $4 per month. Chinese laborers would pay
$300,100 every month, and $3,601,200 to the California state and county treasuries per year. As
James G. Blaine mentioned in his biography written by Gail Hamilton, Our total national
indebtedness today is twenty-one hundred and forth millions of dollars ($2,140,000,000.00); of
this great sum sixty-four millions ($64,000,000) given towards the construction of a railroad to

Kearney, Denis, President, and H. L. Knight, Secretary, Appeal from California. The Chinese Invasion.
Workingmens Address, Indianapolis Times, 28 February 1878.
28

the Pacific is all that was incurred for works of peace. 29 It was so obvious that all Chinese
workers created value to California and helped release the debt of the United States. Deniss
speech, as a fire-lighter, ignited the anti-Chinese immigration movement. Chinese were easily
managed people, and they were eager to avoid conflict with other groups of people based on the
ineffectual in court under the law. It seemed like the anti-Chinese movement spread out into
another states, until it reached to the whole nation in a short period of time, although Denis was
an alarmist.
Here is the data to prove that Chinese laborers had paid the taxes in the years of 1850, 1860,
1870 and 1880 when they were doing the mining in California and they could not make any debt
to the United States. On contrast, Chinese workers created profit to California through their hard
working.
Table I: Chinese workers in California and taxes they had paid in the past 30 years30

Years

1850
1860
1870
1880
Total

29

Foreign Miners
tax each person
paid per month

Chinese miners
in California

$20.00
$20.00
$20.00
$20.00

25,000
36,890
62,682
75,025

Total taxes they

had paid each
month
$500,000.00
$737,800.00
$1,253,640.00
$1,500,500.00
$3,991,940.00

Total taxes they

had paid every
year
$6,000,000.00
$8,853,600.00
$15,043,680.00
$30,010,000.00
$59,907,280.00

Congressional Record: Proceedings and debates of the forty-seventh congress. Washington: Government Printing
Office. 1882. Hamilton, Gail. Biography of James G. Blaine. 312.
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b61874;view=1up;seq=354.
30
Data of the Chinese miners in California in the table is given by Seward, F. George. Chinese Immigration: Its
Social and Economical Aspects. Charles Scribners Sons: New York, 1881. 5 and 421. George F. Seward was a late
United States Minister to the Qing Dynasty. It is also given by Sung, Betty Lee. Mountain of Gold: The Story of
Chinese in America. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967. 26. According to Sung, the new state legislature
passed a Foreign Miners License Law imposing $20.00 per month on all foreign miners tax in 1851.

At last, the xenophobia played an essential role to push the passing of the Chinese Exclusion
act in 1882. When a small percent of Chinese immigrants came to the United States in the
nineteen-century, politicians of America feared that the Chinese immigrants would occupy the
while nation of the United States in the future. For instance, democratic representative Hernando
Money of Mississippi said, Our Chinese commerce has established a stream ferry across the
Pacific, and as it increases, its facilities for transportation increase. The carrying capacity of
single steamship is five thousand human souls, and a half million Chinamen can be place in San
Francisco in a single year.31 Money was upset about the coming of the Chinese immigrants and
there was no objection on his point of view. In fact, the table one shows there were 21,745
Chinese population in San Francisco in 1880. Besides, according to data provided by Table I,
there were 16 Chinese in 1870 and 52 Chinese in 1880 of Mississippi. In my opinion, to reach a
half million, additional 478, 255 Chinese population should come to the United States. Besides,
for the number of Chinese, there were 96 ferries required to carry them. It is hard for me to
understand where his fear came from?
The data as the following shown was provided by the Census Bureau in June, 1880.
Table II: Chinese population in each state of the United States32
States
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado

1870

1880
4

20
98
49310
7

1630
124
75025
610

Connecticut
Dakota
Delaware

124
238
1

States
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New
Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York

1870
16
8
1949
3152

15
29

1880
52
94
1764
18
5426
14
176
55
924

Seward, F. George. Chinese Immigration: Its Social and Economical Aspects. Charles Scribners Sons: New
York, 1881. 301. George F. Seward was a late United States Minister to the Qing Dynasty.
32
Seward, F. George. Chinese Immigration. 421.
31

District of
Columbia
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana

13

1
4274
1

18
17
3378
210
33

Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts

Michigan
Minnesota

1
71
1
2
97

47
19
10
481
9
5
237
27
53

North
Carolina
Ohio
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South
Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West
Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Total

1
3330
14
1

114
9513
100
27
9

25
445

26
141
501

4
234

143
63,259

6
3182
14
16
914
105,399

Table III: Chinese population in San Francisco and California33

San Francisco
California (including San
Francisco)

Aggregate population
233,953
864,686

Chinese Population
21,745
75,025

From the table above, there were 75,025 Chinese population living in California, which
was the most Chinese immigrants resided there. Compare to the data given by the United States
census of 1870, there were 49,310 Chinese population in California. 34 In one decade, the
Chinese population increased to 25,715. In other words, in average, there were 2,572 Chinese
who came to the United States every year. As Seward states, the Chinese population did not

Seward, F. George. Chinese Immigration: Its Social and Economical Aspects. Charles Scribners Sons: New
York, 1881. 421. George F. Seward was a late United States Minister to the Qing Dynasty.
34
Congressional Record: Proceedings and debates of the forty-seventh congress. Washington: Government Printing
Office. 1882. http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$c225013;view=1up;seq=519;size=175. 1517.
33

increase since 1876.35 The total population of the Qing Dynasty was 300,000,000 people.36 It
would take 116,641 years for all Chinese move to the United States. In addition, according to
Table II, in 1880, there were approximately nine percent of the Chinese population in California.
There would be one hundred Californians controlling nine Chinese in average. I believe that the
Chinese immigrants would not come to the United States without the gold fever appealing. They
came to the United States to make money and would go back to their original country. For
instance, Fatt Hing, who was a fish peddler at nineteen years old age in Toishan, Guangdong
(Canton), joined another 25,000 Chinese immigrants who came to the United States in 1851 in
searching of fortune. In 1853, as the gold became scarce, Fatt Hing decided that he would take
his gold and go back to his family. 37 Without their families stayed with them, they would not
stay in another country for a long period of time.
The United States re-signed the Angell treaty with the Qing Dynasty in 1880. According
to the treaty, Qing Dynasty agreed that the United States could regulate, limit, or suspend the
future coming Chinese immigrants and the Chinese citizens in the United States, but could not
absolutely prohibit it. In addition, Chinese immigrants who whether came to the United States or
went back to Qing Dynasty based on their own will.38 There were just two articles in the treaty.
There was no words to mention the rights of the Chinese immigrants. Instead, there were
limitations on Chinese immigrants, but not to absolutely prohibit the Chinese immigrants. There

Seward, F. George. Chinese Immigration: Its Social and Economical Aspects. Charles Scribners Sons: New
York, 1881. 10. George F. Seward was a late United States Minister to the Qing Dynasty.
36
Seward, F. George. Chinese Immigration. 300.
37
Sung, Betty Lee. Mountain of Gold: The Story of Chinese in America. New York: The Macmillan Company,
1967.22-28. Betty Lee Sung is an American-born who has been written a special program on the Chinese in the
United States for Voice of America
35

38

History of the Federal Judiciary. Chew Heong V. United States: Chinese Exclusion and the Federal Courts.
http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/tu_exclusion_doc_1.html.

is no doubt that a weak Qing Dynasty could do nothing to protect its people in any ways. The
Qing Dynasty did something as the United States required. After the signing of the Angell treaty,
the American politicians got more involved into the anti-Chinese movement.
The anti-Chinese movement pushed by those politicians with ulterior motives. They used
the above factors as their weapons. As the racial tension broke out, the 1876 resident campaign
was in full swing. To gain more votes, politicians used anti-Chinese movement as their
platforms. For example, as a representative to Congress in 1874 and Republican politician who
represented Maine in the United States House from 1863 to 1876, James G. Blaine gained the
vote for a senator by supporting anti-Chinese movement in 1876. 39 In my opinion, to gain more
votes and political power, the politicians targeted the Chinese immigrants as scapegoats and
Chinese immigrants became their victims.
The Chinese Exclusion act was passed by Congress of the United States in 1882, signed
by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882. It was a black legacy in America immigration
history. The 1868 Burlingame Treaty allowed Chinese population had free migration rights to
guarantee the necessary supply of laborers in the United States. In addition, the Angell treaty in
1880, the Chinese had free immigration rights to the United States, but the number of Chinese
immigrants should be restricted, not be prohibited completely. The Chinese Exclusion Act
violated both the Burlingame Treaty of 1868 and the Angell treaty of 1880. The Chinese became
the target and the only ethnic group to be excluded. The immigration policy of the United States
remains its inhumane and racist exclusion policies towards the Chinese in the later part of the
nineteenth-century and the early part of the twenties-century.

39

Congressional Record: Proceedings and debates of the forty-seventh congress. Washington: Government Printing
Office. 1882. Hamilton, Gail. Biography of James G. Blaine. 594.
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b61874;view=1up;seq=352

Annotated Bibliography
UCLA International Institute: Asia Institute. Treaty of Nanjing.
http://www.international.ucla.edu/asia/article/18421
This text provides me an original document about the Treaty of Nanjing and how much the Qing
Dynasty paid the Great Britain from 1842 to 1845.
Emergence of Modern China. http://www.chaos.umd.edu/history/modern2.html
This text tells me about the Taiping rebellion and why the Qing Dynasty asked help from
western countries.
U.S Department of State. Archives. http://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/dwe/82012.htm.
This document was useful for me to learn how the Tianjin treaty signed based on motives behind
the western powers.
Philip V. , Allingham. England and China: The Opium Wars, 1839-1860. Lakehead University,
Thunder Bay, Ontario. Philip V. Allingham was a contributing editor of Victorian Web.
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/empire/opiumwars/opiumwars1. html.
This document tells me how opium trade became legal in Qing Dynasty and how the Qing
Dynasty lost its territories to Russian empire under two unequal treaties.
Betty Lee, Sung. Mountain of Gold. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1967.
This book provides me with a typical Chinese named Fatt Hing who came to the United States
and went back to China with his golds. It was also used to find the data of Chinese immigrants in
1850s and the miner tax on foreigner in 1851.
Henry Kittredge, Norton. The Chinese. The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco.
http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist6/chinhate.html.
This document explains on how Chinese came to the United States and became the
competition of the white workers.
Roger, Daniels. Not Like Us: Immigrants and Minorities in American, 1890-1924. The American
Ways Series: Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 1997.
This book was useful for part of my main argument. It answers why the Chinese Exclusion Act
was passed by the Congress of the United States in 1882.
George F., Seward. Chinese Immigration: Its Social and Economical Aspects. Charles Scribners
Sons: New York, 1881.
This text was so crucial to my research on the true picture of the Chinese immigrants in the
nineteenth-century. The author provided witnesses with evidence related to the Chinese workers.
Andrew, Gyory. Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act, the University
of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill and London, 1998.

This book helped to answer why the Chinese Exclusion Act passed by the Congress of the
United States in 1882. It also provides part of argument of my paper.
Iris, Chang. The Chinese in America: A Narrative Story. New York: the Penguin Group, 2003.
13-14
This book explains on more details about the Qing Dynasty in 1800s.
History of Historian. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/burlingame-sewardtreaty
This document helps me to find a useful information about the Burlingame treaty.
Denis, Kearney. President, and H. L. Knight, Secretary, Appeal from California. The Chinese
Invasion. Workingmens Address, Indianapolis Times, 28 February 1878.
This text was crucial to my research about the original speech of Denis Kearney who had
attacked Chinese immigrants at his own will.
Congressional Record: Proceedings and debates of the forty-seventh congress. Washington:
Government Printing Office. 1882. Hamilton, Gail. Biography of James G. Blaine. 312, 352, and
1517. http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b61874;view=1up;seq=354
This document tells me a lot of information about James G. Blaine and the national debt owned
by the United States in a specific year.
History of the Federal Judiciary. Chew Heong V. United States: Chinese Exclusion and the
Federal Courts. http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/tu_exclusion_doc_1.html.
This document helps me find information about the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Bibliography
Part I: Primary sources
Denis, Kearney. President, and H. L. Knight, Secretary, Appeal from California. The Chinese
Invasion. Workingmens Address, Indianapolis Times, 28 February 1878.
George F., Seward. Chinese Immigration: Its Social and Economical Aspects. Charles Scribners
Sons: New York, 1881.
Part II: Secondary sources

Congressional Record: Proceedings and debates of the forty-seventh congress. Washington:

Government Printing Office. 1882. Hamilton, Gail. Biography of James G. Blaine. 312, 352, and
1517. http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b61874;view=1up;seq=354
Emergence of Modern China. http://www.chaos.umd.edu/history/modern2.html
Henry Kittredge, Norton. The Chinese. The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco.
http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist6/chinhate.html
Andrew, Gyory. Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act, the University
of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill and London, 1998.
History of the Federal Judiciary. Chew Heong V. United States: Chinese Exclusion and the
Federal Courts. http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/tu_exclusion_doc_1.html
oger, Daniels. Not Like Us: Immigrants and Minorities in American, 1890-1924. The American
Ways Series: Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 1997.
Betty Lee, Sung. Mountain of Gold. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1967.
History of Historian. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/burlingame-sewardtreaty.
U.S Department of State. Archives. http://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/dwe/82012.htm.
UCLA International Institute: Asia Institute. Treaty of Nanjing.
http://www.international.ucla.edu/asia/article/18421.