Writers and historians have traditionally portrayed Chinese immigrants in the nineteenth-century American West as victims. By investigating the early history of Idaho's Boise Basin, Liping Zhu challenges this image and offers an alternative discourse to the study of this ethnic minority.Between 1863 and 1910, a large number of Chinese immigrants resided in the Boise Basin to search for gold. As in many Rocky Mountain mining camps, they comprised a majority of the population. Unlike settlers in many other boom-and-bust western mining towns, the Chinese in the Boise Basin managed to stay there for more than half a century. Thus, the Chinese portrayed all the stereotypical frontier roles-victors, victims, and villains. Their basic material needs were guaranteed, and many individuals were able to climb up the economic ladder. Frontier justice was used to settle disputes; Chinese-Americans frequently challenged white opponents in the various courts as well as in gun battles. Interesting and provocative, A Chinaman's Chance not only offers general readers a narrative account of the Rocky Mountain mining frontier, but also introduces a fresh interpretation of the Chinese experience in nineteenth-century America to scholars interested in Asian American studies, immigration history, and ethnicity in the American West. Liping Zhu is Chair of the History Department at Eastern Washington University. A CHINAMAN'S CHANCE THE CHINESE ON THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN MINING FRONTIER By LIPING ZHU UNIVERSITY PRESS OF COLORADO Copyright © 1997 University Press of Colorado All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-87081-575-1 Contents Acknowledgments.............................ixIntroduction................................11. From Canton to Idaho.....................72. Basin of Gold............................373. Life in the Rockies......................654. The Quest for Riches.....................975. Violence and Justice.....................1296. Different but Equal......................1597. Exodus...................................183Bibliography................................201Index.......................................221 Chapter One From Canton to Idaho Like the Americans, the Chinese have historically been a mobile and migratory people. In 1924 Professor Harley Farnsworth MacNair of St. John's University stated, "In the modern age two races, and only two have entered and continued upon periods of expansion: the white and the yellow races." Although tainted by contemporary prejudice, this statement caught certain truths: the similarities between U.S. and Chinese history. Over the centuries, both nations grew into continental empires through exploring, conquering, and settling their frontiers. Expansion constitutes a common theme in the development of the two countries. MacNair was probably the first scholar to attempt to explain Chinese history through a "frontier theory." If the thrust of U.S. history is a westward movement onto the frontier, as Frederick Jackson Turner alleges, the 5,000-year-old Chinese civilization can be viewed as a process of continuous expansion in all directions. The Middle Kingdom, as the Chinese call their country, began four or five millennia ago with a few tiny colonies along the Yellow River. Gradually, the military, the adventuresome, the exiles, and the discontented pushed China's borders outward until they could push no farther. The South China Sea, the Himalayas, the Siberian tundra, and the Pacific Ocean finally stopped them. During the Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368), Mongolian rulers laid the foundation for China's current boundaries. Territorial growth on the continent had reached its limits. Long before filling this vast virgin land with permanent settlers, China had already begun searching for new places and opportunities overseas. As early as the fifth century A.D., a few Buddhist monks sailed east for 2,000 miles, landing on some Pacific islands where the natives customarily painted their faces and bodies. Other adventurers navigated westward and reached the Red Sea. By the tenth and eleventh centuries, a significant number of Chinese junks (flat-bottomed ships) dominated the trading route between India and Southeast Asia. Many Arabian merchants preferred to travel on well-designed, sturdy Chinese junks because they proved safer and more comfortable. 2 Despite a millennium of frequent and regular contact with other countries, no large number of Chinese people emigrated to foreign lands before the sixteenth century. The relative backwardness of their Asian neighbors encouraged few Chinese to leave their homeland. Thus, the stream of Chinese expansion overseas did not occur until the era of Columbus. On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus, setting out with three small ships, reached an island in the Bahamas. This voyage forever changed the world. Not only did Europeans and American Indians discover each other, but they began a biological and cultural