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CHAPTER 1
Entrance and Expansion, 1862–1880
Weaving together archaeological and historical sources regarding the Chinese experience in Montana completes a more holistic image of the Chinese in the state. Archaeological data, the material remains of Chinese residents, is critical due to the historical prejudices against this population during the 19th and 20th centuries that limited their inclusion in primary-source historical documents. Historical documents from the 1862–1880 period of Montana Chinese history provide some information on where they lived, and for how long, and some anecdotal stories of individual lives. For the most part, what exists in the historical record are generalizations or colorful accounts used to perpetuate racist depictions of the Chinese.
Archaeological studies of sites within this period supply detailed data on the daily lives of these individuals and bring them into better, less biased focus. Together, these two sources are used here to describe the first period of Chinese occupation in Montana, designated as the period of entrance and expansion (1862–1880).
There are currently 20 confirmed archaeological sites recorded in the state with at least some connection to this period of the emergence and establishment of Montana's Chinese population, with an additional 13 sites containing potential for data relevant to this period (Table 1). Unfortunately, many of the sites recorded on this list are heavily disturbed by later episodes of mining or development. Specifically, the archaeological remains of Confederate Gulch and Diamond City are destroyed, though a few miscellaneous Chinese artifacts have been recovered from modern mining claims. Chinese archaeological materials from this period are present at Virginia City, Butte, and Bannack, although due to their relatively urban environments, significant mixing has occurred, placing artifacts out of context. It is not feasible to discuss each recorded site individually; instead, in interpreting early Montana Territory Chinese experience, archaeology and the historical discussions contribute on an equal footing.
This chapter is largely organized as a chronological discussion of the Chinese in Montana, starting with a summary history of Montana before the gold strikes. After discovery of gold at Bannack in 1862, Chinese immigrants began moving into Montana Territory in substantial numbers (Figure 1 shows locations of areas discussed). By the 1870 federal census, Chinese immigrants accounted for 10% of Montana Territory's population. Between 1870 and 1880 Chinese population centers spread throughout Montana Territory, in many instances overtaking and controlling certain mining districts after European American miners had abandoned the areas. Increasing Chinese population in the territory led, in part, to significant legal challenges being leveled against this large but politically and legally weak population.
With growing racism in Montana Territory's legal system toward the Chinese, a significant facet of Chinese history during this period was how the population handled crime within their own ranks and how crimes against their population were handled in Montana's courts. Finally, the legal precedents and inherent biases in Montana Territory's treatment of the Chinese forced the population to adapt to a significant lack of women in the community. Even with a series of legal challenges during the first 18 years of Chinese history in Montana Territory, courts and judges handled the population on a remarkably level playing field, but this would change by the end of the 1870s. The rapid growth and expansion of their population and the creation of a self-supporting society within Montana Territory exemplify this first period of entrance and expansion (1862–1880).
Montana Pre-1862
Until the mid-1850s the land that Montana's boundary encompasses today was predominantly a fur trading frontier with sparse populations of trappers, traders, and only a handful of prospectors. The two main settlements were Fort Owen, located in the Bitterroot Valley of western Montana, and Fort Benton at the upper end of the Missouri River in the north-central part of the state. Fort Owen was a trading hub to a small but growing group of Bitterroot Valley farmers and offered some supplies to the travelers of the Emigrant trail heading to California or Oregon (Dunbar and Phillips 1927[1]: 2–10). Fort Benton was a center of the fur trade where trappers would bring their harvest for sale and trade (Malone et al. 1991:57).
Before the major gold strikes Montana was decidedly on the fringes of American western expansion. Until 1864 there was no Montana at all, as the lands now constituting the state were split between Idaho and Washington Territory. European American settlements at this time were limited to Fort Owen, Fort Connah, Fort Benton, a loosely organized band of settlers in the Deer Lodge Valley, and a handful of dispersed and relatively insignificant homesteaders (Phillips 1925). As such, the lack of established transportation thoroughfares kept the growth of Montana's settler and prospector populations to a minimum. Survey and construction of the Mullan Road from Fort Benton to Fort Walla Walla in Washington Territory began during the mid- to late 1850s and assisted in developing overland trade in the region (Malone et al. 1991:72). Even with the construction of the Mullan Road, the primary means of moving goods destined for Montana Territory was by steamboat up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to Fort Benton. From Fort Benton traders took wagon or pack train loads of goods to the various outposts in Montana Territory. Major John Owen was among those involved in early freighting trips. Until settlement of Bannack, and the development of trade routes from Utah and the Emigrant trail, Montana remained an area limited in its ability to prosper by the primitive transportation corridors. The bulk of European American (and later Chinese) interest in Montana did not begin until after gold discovery.
The exact year of the first gold discovery remains unclear, but most agree that between 1852 and 1855 a French fur trapper named Francois Finlay, commonly called Benetsee by both Native Americans and European Americans at the time, discovered gold in the west-central part of the state near modern-day Gold Creek (Burlingame 1942:79). Finlay had neither the equipment nor ambition to undertake substantial or systematic prospecting. Rather, the gold potential of Montana was not taken seriously until after the arrival of brothers James and Granville Stuart in 1858 (Phillips 1925: 133–140). After four years of rumors and growing gold prospecting parties, on July 28, 1862, John White and John McGavin, fresh from the Idaho gold mines, discovered a large pay streak at the mouth of Grasshopper Creek, roughly 20 miles south of modern-day Dillon, Montana (Wolle 1963:50). Within days a rush of miners from across the West began the long trek to Grasshopper Creek from Idaho, Nevada, and California. By the fall of 1862 these miners established the town of Bannack, approximately five miles from the discovery spot, and some estimates suggest the town's population was nearly 2,000 (Wolle 1963:52). By 1863 Major Owen estimated 2,000 or 3,000 additional emigrants entered the area around Bannack largely from Pike's Peak area of Colorado and from Salt Lake (Dunbar and Phillips 1927[1]:281).
The discovery of major placer gold deposits along Grasshopper Creek signaled an end to the early years of Montana's history as primarily a farming and fur trapping frontier. The establishment of Bannack as Montana's first large urban center ushered in this new historical period with pick and pistol. Bannack's colorful early years are not the subject of this chapter in Chinese history, but this was the nature of the social and cultural environment they found when they entered Montana. There is no clear historical evidence that any Chinese were part of the initial flood of immigrants to Bannack in 1862, but it seems a strong likelihood. Regardless of the exact date of their first arrival in the state, the discovery and exploitation of large tracts of placer ground along Grasshopper Creek signaled to the Chinese that Montana had become a land of opportunity.
Chinese Entrance into Montana 1862–1870
The discovery of gold in California during 1849 prompted the first large-scale migration of Chinese to the United States. By 1850 hundreds of Chinese began arriving on the coast of California to seek their fortunes in the gold fields. By the mid-1850s Chinese had moved into the adjacent gold fields of Oregon and Idaho and into the hard-rock mining communities of Nevada. Within only a decade the Chinese population of the United States had expanded to become tens of thousands strong, with most engaged in mining and mining-related activities along the Pacific coast. It is from these neighboring mining communities in Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, and California that the initial Chinese immigrants came to Montana Territory in the 1860s after the gold strikes.
After discovery of gold in Bannack, prospectors spread throughout southwest Montana in search of the next big strike. In quick succession prospectors found gold along Alder Creek in 1863, and Last Chance Gulch in 1864, and by 1865 miners had founded dozens of placer mining camps throughout the majority of southwest and south-central Montana. Small populations of Chinese began to enter this milieu of entrepreneurial opportunity during the middle 1860s. According to the transcribed minutes of a meeting at the Montana Institute of the Arts History Group in January 1967, Chinese potentially arrived in Virginia City from Bannack in 1863 (Davis 1966:2). According to Davis (1967:2), "When Alder Gulch was discovered I was told that there was one or two Chinamen that left Bannack in 1863 when the gold rush was on and headed for Alder Gulch and I believe this was true." Wiley Davis's information was based on his conversations with his father, who owned a store in Bannack in the early 1860s, so there is potential for error in his recollections; this information must be given a critical eye. The earliest verifiable documentation of Chinese in Montana comes from the pages of the Virginia City newspaper the Montana Post. In an article on June 3, 1865, the newspaper editors disparagingly speak of the arrival of a small group of Chinese to Alder Gulch (Montana Post 1865:2).
By 1866 descriptions of Chinese began appearing in a variety of historical documents, showing a significant increase in population throughout the territory. The first mention of Chinese in Helena is in the Lewis and Clark County Deed Records, where several groups of Chinese companies began to purchase mining lots in the "Rattlesnake District" in Last Chance Gulch. The deed books record that in 1866 groups of Chinese miners led by Ah Gown, Ah Quay, and Ah Rey purchased several placer claims in upper Last Chance Gulch (Lewis and Clark County Deed Book B:192). In the same year Ah Gih purchased lot 14 in block 3 of the original town plat (Lewis and Clark County Deed Book B:189), which now lies under the public library in downtown Helena. At the time of the Chinese purchase of claims and lots, Helena was part of Edgerton County, named after the first territorial governor of Montana, appointed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1864. Edgerton County was officially renamed Lewis and Clark County on March 1, 1868. After 1866 there were no more recorded deeds under Chinese names until the 1900s in Lewis and Clark County.
A small community of Chinese moved into the western part of Montana Territory by 1867, as evidenced by entries in Major John Owen's journals. One of the earliest European American settlers in Montana, Major John Owen established Fort Owen in the Bitterroot Valley in the early 1850s. This frontier outpost quickly became a center of commerce and culture for the growing European American population of Montana and also served as Indian Agency for the Salish Tribe into the 1870s. Fort Owen and the farmers surrounding it supplied the initial mining rushes with fresh fruit and vegetables as early as Bannack in 1862 (Spence 1975:130–131).
Major Owen's journals include various mentions of the employment of Chinese cooks to operate the Fort Owen kitchen. It appears Major Owen hired his first Chinese cook, noted as "John Chinaman," from Missoula on June 7, 1867, and paid $110 for his services over a period of 11 weeks (Dunbar and Phillips 1927[2]:58, 68). During his employment at Fort Owen the Chinese cook was apparently accosted by a grist mill employee. One of the cook's eyes was badly swollen, and Major Owen subsequently fired the European American employee (Dunbar and Phillips 1927[2]:67). On August 22, 1867, the Chinese cook hired by Owen returned to Missoula to visit his brother, suggesting at least a small population in the growing agricultural community 35 miles north of Fort Owen (Dunbar and Phillips 1927[2]:68). In October of 1867 Owen hired another Chinese cook, but fired him after only one week; as Owen remarked in his journal, "My Jno China Man Not so good a cook as the one I had during the Summer. He appears Stupid" (Dunbar and Phillips 1927[2]:74–75).
Only a few days after firing the previous cook, Major Owen hired another Chinese cook, though by January of 1868 he mentions two in his journals (Dunbar and Phillips 1927[2]:75, 82). It seems that the same two Chinese cooks appearing in Owen's journals for January 1868 worked through the summer of that year and were rehired the following fall of 1869 (Dunbar and Phillips 1927[2]:82, 144). The last recorded mention of Chinese at Fort Owen is in the 1870 federal census, which lists Jako Lann, a 51-year-old Chinese man, whose occupation is listed as "cooks at [Indian] Agency" (Federal Census Bureau 1870). The presence of Chinese cooks from 1867 to at least 1870 at Fort Owen highlights one type of employment opportunity that Montana Territory offered this immigrant population, and at least tangentially it associates them with the most significant individuals in early state history.
Outside Fort Owen and the Bitterroot Valley in the 1860s, miners discovered large placer deposits in Montana Territory, and with each new rush, the Chinese population increased. By 1868 Raymond (1869:140–141) estimated the Chinese population of Montana Territory to be near 800, with two-thirds of that number employed in placer mining. In 1869 Raymond (1870:260) expanded that estimate to between 2,000 and 3,000 Chinese residents. The significant disparity between Raymond's 1868 and 1869 numbers suggests a less than thorough accounting of the population or a massive increase in the population over the intervening winter.
Regardless of erroneous or conflicting data, in the late 1860s the Chinese population of Montana Territory rapidly expanded, due in large part to the rapid increase in the number of new placer districts. By the late 1860s placer districts such as German Gulch, Gold Creek, Pioneer, Ophir Gulch, Bear Creek, Alder Gulch, Grasshopper Creek, and Last Chance Gulch became large, capitalized, hard-rock mining ventures or were abandoned for new placer strikes elsewhere in the territory. It appears that similar to what happened in other areas of the western United States, Chinese miners were purchasing either abandoned claims or those claims that European Americans could no longer work profitably (Raymond 1869:141; 1870:260). The completion of the Central Pacific Railroad, with its nearest station 290 miles south of Montana Territory's borders, helped to open the region to further settlement by European Americans and Chinese after 1869. Indeed, in the fall of 1869 newspaper reporters noted that in Corinne, Utah Territory, "By the eastern bound train yesterday seventeen more [Chinese] arrived. This makes fifty-eight within four days. They are stopping in Corinne for a few days and will probably proceed on their journey to Montana early the present week" (Helena Daily Herald 1869:3).
Montana Territory's 1870 Chinese Demographics
Montana Territory's first federal census enumeration in 1870 recorded 1,949 Chinese spread across 9 of 13 counties (Figure 2). Major placer mining counties such as Deer Lodge (776), Lewis and Clark (299), and Madison County (122) accounted for over 61% of the entire territory's Chinese population (Table 2). While much has been said about the Chinese population of Montana Territory comprising just 10% of the total (Swartout 1988; Dirlick and Yeung 2001), in the three counties mentioned the proportions were higher than the territorial average. In Madison County, which included Virginia City and the surrounding mining camps, Chinese made up 11% of the population. Chinese in Helena and surrounding communities within Lewis and Clark County accounted for 13% of the population. Most significantly, Deer Lodge County had the highest proportion of Chinese in Montana Territory, with their numbers comprising nearly 18% of the population.
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Excerpted from "The Coming Man from Canton"
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