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Driven out: roundups and resistance of the Chinese in rural California.

Article Excerpt
Early Friday evening, February 2, 1885, David Kendall, a city councilman, was caught in the cross fire as two Chinese men shot at each other in Eureka, California, a small fishing and lumber town on the foggy north coast. Kendall died instantly, and a crowd quickly gathered, chanting "Burn Chinatown." In less than twenty minutes, some six hundred white men met in Centennial Hall, a few blocks from Chinatown, and determined that all Chinese had to leave Eureka. A committee of six men was chosen to go to Chinatown and tell the Chinese they had twenty-four hours to leave. That night an effigy of a Chinese man hung from a gallows on the edge of Chinatown. Pinned to the gallows was a sign announcing "Any Chinese seen on the street after three o'clock today will be hung." Two Chinese men fled into the redwoods and were caught; the rest complied. By Saturday morning, twenty-three loads of Chinese people and their clothing and household goods were gathered on the docks. Small skiffs carried the Chinese to two steam ships that happened to be in Humboldt Bay; 135 people were loaded onto the Humboldt,...

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