The Rock Springs massacre, also known as the Rock Springs Riot, occurred on September 2, 1885, in the present-day United States city of Rock Springs in Sweetwater County, Wyoming. At least 28 Chinese miners were dead and 15 were injured. Rioters burned 78 Chinese homes, resulting in approximately US$150,000 in property damage. Tension between whites and Chinese immigrants in the late 19th century American West was particularly high.
About Rock Springs massacre in brief
The Rock Springs massacre, also known as the Rock Springs Riot, occurred on September 2, 1885, in the present-day United States city of Rock Springs in Sweetwater County, Wyoming. The riot, and resulting massacre of immigrant Chinese miners by white immigrant miners, was the result of racial prejudice toward the Chinese miners. At least 28 Chinese miners were dead and 15 were injured. Rioters burned 78 Chinese homes, resulting in approximately US$150,000 in property damage. Tension between whites and Chinese immigrants in the late 19th century American West was particularly high, especially in the decade preceding the violence. The massacre in Rock Springs was one among several instances of violence culminating from years of anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States. The Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 suspended Chinese immigration for ten years, but not before thousands of immigrants came to the American West. Most Chinese immigrants to Wyoming Territory took jobs with the railroad at first, but many ended up employed in coal mines owned by the Union Pacific Railroad. As Chinese immigration increased, so did anti- Chinese sentiment on the part of whites. The Knights of Labor, one of the foremost voices against Chinese immigrant labor, formed a chapter in Rock Spring in 1883, and most rioters were members of that organization. In the immediate aftermath of the riot, United States Army troops were deployed in Rock springs. They escorted the surviving Chinese miners, most of whom had fled to Evanston, Wyoming, back to Rock Springs a week after the riot.
In 1870, the Chinese population in Wyoming rose from 9,118 to 20,000, the largest percentage of Asian population in the U.S. During the 1870s, there were no Chinese residents in the largest towns along the UP line, Green River, Rock Springs and Green River. In 1874–75, after labor unrest disrupted coal production, the Union. Pacific Coal Department hired Chinese laborers to work in their coal mines throughout southern Wyoming. Chinese workers soon became an asset to Union Pacific and worked along UP lines and in UP coal mines from Laramie to Evanston. The first jobs Chinese laborers took in Wyoming were on the railroad, working for the UnionPacific company as maintenance-of-way workers. The vast majority of the nearly 100,000 Chinese immigrants resided within the American west: California, Nevada, Oregon, and the Washington Territory. Even so, where there were Chinese immigrants, they were generally concentrated in one area. Most of the Chinese people in the area were men working in the mine. In. 1870, they represented only 4% of the total population, but by 1885 they were again, concentrated, concentrated in the Wyoming coal mines. The increase during 1870s was the largest increase in the percentage of the Asian population of Wyoming. In 1880s, the population rose from 4% to 4%. In. the 1870 Census, the majority of Chinese in Wyoming and all of all Wyoming were reported to be members of the Wyoming Asian Pacific Islanders, what the government calls “Asian Pacific Islanders”
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This page is based on the article Rock Springs massacre published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
