The Chinese Exclusion Act was a federal law that was passed by the government of the United States on the 6th of May 1882. The legislation was drawn up in response to substantial increases in Chinese immigration to the West Coast of the United States from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards. There were a number of factors which led to this influx, specifically the opening up of China to the world through the Opium Wars from the late 1830s, the expansion of the United States to the Pacific Ocean and the economic opportunities presented by the California Gold Rush and the oil boom there that followed. As these occurred, tens of thousands of Chinese migrants began arriving to San Francisco and other major Pacific ports in the 1850s, 1860s and 1870s. A growing swell of anti-Chinese sentiment led to the passage of the highly controversial Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. This initially banned Chinese migration into the US for ten years, though it was later extended beyond 1892.[1]
Chinese Exclusion Act chronology of events
Prior to the middle of the nineteenth century China was remarkably isolated from the rest of the world. Back in the seventeenth century when Dutch, Portuguese, English, French and Spanish explorers, merchants and missionaries first began arriving to their shores, China, Japan and Korea all took the decision to shut themselves off from outside interference and western social ideas, instead leaving one or two ports open only to service a very limited trade with the Dutch and Portuguese. This situation prevailed until the mid-nineteenth century when Britain and the others western powers, which were now much more technologically advanced, effectively forced China, Japan and Korea to open their countries to outside interference, in China’s case having been forced to do so through the First Opium War with Britain.[2]
This process soon led to a growing awareness within these Far Eastern countries about the economic opportunities that were available in the Americas, Europe and some of the western colonies in places like India, South Africa and Australia. Within just a few years thousands of Chinese emigrants were leaving their homeland and heading overseas. They headed to many locations but the United States was a particularly lucrative destination, owing to the geographical proximity of the West Coast states right across the Pacific Ocean and the many opportunities there as California entered a boom period based on a gold rush, oil rushes and rapid urbanization. This process was also facilitated by the advent of the first steamships capable of traversing the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at speed in the 1840s.[3]
As they arrived to America, large communities of Chinese immigrants developed in cities like San Francisco and San Diego. The people here prospered through a range of activities. Much of the railway track which connected California to the rest of the country in the second half of the nineteenth century was laid down by Chinese workers, while Chinese service industries also sprung up in large numbers in the towns and cities. However, the influx soon led to growing xenophobia in an era of a heightened racial politics and by the late 1860s there were already calls and movements to limit Chinese immigration into the US. This culminated in 1882 in the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act.[4]
Initially the legislation enshrined a prohibition on Chinese settlement in America for a ten year period. However, in 1892 this was extended by a decade to 1902 and it was made permanent at the start of the twentieth century. The act was only gradually repealed from 1943 onwards when the US’s alliance with China during the Second World War led to a softening of the country’s stance on Chinese immigration. Elements of the Exclusion Act remained in place until the mid-1960s when all barriers of this kind were lifted.[5]
Extent of migration prior to the Chinese Exclusion Act
The level of migration which led to the Chinese Exclusion Act was quite intense. It is estimated that some 335,000 Chinese people arrived to the US in the three and a half decades between the US’s acquisition of California following the Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848 down to 1882. This constituted a very high proportion of the population of California and Oregon and cities like San Francisco and San Diego had huge Chinese communities. Although it was not yet a part of the United States or a territory thereof, the Kingdom of Hawaii, which would be annexed by the Americans in the 1890s, also experienced considerable Chinese migration. Hence, much of the basis for the community of five million or so Chinese Americans today was laid down in the pre-1882 period and some Chinese Americans will be able to trace their ancestors’ arrival to the US back to 1848 to 1882 period before the Chinese Exclusion Act came into being.[6]
Demographic impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act
Any evaluation of the demographic impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act is somewhat hypothetical. The act was designed to curb Chinese immigration into the United States, not encourage it. Consequently, the main result of the act is that it almost certainly ensured that the Chinese American community on the West Coast of the United States did not expand at the same rate that it had been in the 1860s and 1870s. Were it not for the legislation the Chinese American community would most likely be substantially larger than it is today. Conversely, although it is difficult to precisely track with any precision, the Exclusion Act would have led to an increase in the level of Chinese immigration into countries like Australia and the United Kingdom in the decades that followed as alternative destinations other than the US were sought. This soon led to growing xenophobia in places like the Australian states as well.[7]
See also
Explore more about the Chinese Exclusion Act
- California and Hawaii, Chinese immigration to the United States record collection on MyHeritage
- 1880 United States Federal Census record collection on MyHeritage
- Finding Genealogical Data in the Chinese Exclusion Act Case Files at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- Chinese American Research at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- Chinese Immigrants in the South at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
References
- ↑ https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/chinese-exclusion-act
- ↑ Peer Vries, State, Economy and the Great Divergence: Great Britain and China, 1680s–1850s (London, 2015).
- ↑ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/goldrush-chinese-immigrants/
- ↑ https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/chinese-exclusion-act-1882
- ↑ https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/chinese-immigration
- ↑ Townsend Walker, ‘Gold Mountain Guests: Chinese Migration to the United States, 1848–1882’, in The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 37, No. 1, The Tasks of Economic History (March, 1977), pp. 264–267.
- ↑ Antony Taylor, ‘Chinese Emigration to Australia around 1900: A Re-examination of Australia’s “Great White Walls”’, in History Compass, Vol. 11, No. 2 (February, 2013), pp. 104–116.