Chinese Massacre of 1871
24 October 1871Calle de los Negros, near the Los Angeles Plaza, Los Angeles County, CA
A mob of some 500 people attacked the Chinese quarter of Los Angeles and killed at least 18 Chinese men and boys, most of them lynched. Every conviction was overturned.
Note: Describes mass lynching, including of children.
On 24 October 1871 a shootout between rival Chinese associations near the Los Angeles Plaza left a white rancher dead and a police officer wounded. Word spread through a city of about 6,000 people, and a mob of some 500 - roughly a tenth of the population - surrounded the adobe block on Calle de los Negros where most of the city's Chinese residents lived and worked.
The mob broke through roofs and walls, dragged men and boys into the street, and hanged them from wagons, a corral gate and an awning. At least eighteen Chinese men and boys were killed; one was a doctor, pleading in English and Spanish; the youngest was a teenager. The dead included people with no connection to the earlier shooting. Shops were looted as the lynchings went on.
Eight men were convicted of manslaughter. The convictions were overturned on appeal because the indictments had failed to state that the murdered man had in fact been murdered. No one served a full sentence. It remains one of the largest mass lynchings in United States history.
Sources
- Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese AmericansRandom House (2007)Jean Pfaelzer's study of the expulsions and massacres of Chinese communities across the American West.
- The Chinese Massacre of 1871Los Angeles Public Librarylapl.org