Why the Chinese Came To America
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Please welcome my special guest blogger, Suzie Kue.
Many people remember from recall that the Chinese were instrumental in building the Transcontinental Railroad.
They had come to America in the 1840s with the start of the Gold Rush and never left. The arduous journey across the ocean was long, perilous, and extremely uncomfortable. Many Chinese died before ever reaching our country.
But few people know why they were so willing to leave their country to battle harsh traveling conditions within a ship’s hold, to come to a country where they were not always welcomed with open arms. Here is an extremely condensed background.
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty to rule over China. And it was a government where the emperor was not even Chinese, the ruling class was in fact Manchurians that had adopted their ways and took over their country: a fact that made the people very unhappy.
The Qing felt that China was [the center of the world] and thus had no need to learn from outsiders nor to trade for any foreign goods. Silk, tea, and porcelain left the country in abundance, but the only item allowed in was silver. This uneven trading practice led to England, whose national beverage was quickly becoming tea, to resort to unsavory methods to equal up trade when they ran out of silver. They brought opium to China and through a system of smuggling and free sampling; the country was soon addicted to the powerful narcotic.
Liz Zexu, imperial commander in charge of eliminating the illegal opium trade, tried many methods of ridding his country of the drug, but his attempts were largely unsuccessful because the addiction was so widespread. An open letter to Queen Victoria complaining about how unfair it was for her to allow her barbarians to sell opium in China and wondering where her conscience was pretty much started of the downfall of the Chinese empire as they knew it.
Fast forward to where the Opium War against the British had left the country weak and disorganized, and segregated into spheres of influence by foreign powers, like Germany, France, England, and Portugal. The Chinese were already unhappy with the poor management of the country, but then to be bossed around by hairy barbarians led to widespread rebellion.
Rebellion coupled with war and high taxes, drought, floods, famines, and every other misfortune that could befall a country happened all at once, causing the deaths of more than 30 million Chinese. The conditions were so bad that when American traders came and talked about mountains of gold, they practically swam across to California.
The conditions aboard the brigs that sailed to America were nothing less than atrocious. The Chinese were herded like sheep into the ship’s hold and kept in unsanitary conditions with little to no light.
Sleeping Condition on ships stacked 3 high Or worse
Men, ages 16 to 25, left China in hopes of a better life in the Land of Plenty where they could earn enough to return home as heroes.
□
P. T. Barnum's traveling carnival exhibited the "most New arrivals at Angel Island, San Francisco
the "most extraordinary curiosity yet: "a living
Chinese family.
BIO
Suzy Kue started writing short stories when she was in junior high and excelled in crafting believable stories to tell her parents, so she could get herself out of heaps of trouble.
Armed with a degree in History, which prompted her mother to ask, “What in the world are you going to do with that?,” Suzy Kue stated, “I’m going to write books!”
She currently lives in Southern California and survives on too little sleep in her quest to become published in historical romance while surviving a full time day job, 3 kids, and husband.
□
Pictures courtesy of
http://chineseimmigration.weebly.com/pictures.html
www.latinamericanstudies.org/chinese-immigrants.htm
memory.loc.gov/ammem/award99/cubhtml/cichome.html
www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/angel/gallery.htm
Please welcome my special guest blogger, Suzie Kue.
Why the Chinese Came to America
By Author Suzie Kue
By Author Suzie Kue
Many people remember from recall that the Chinese were instrumental in building the Transcontinental Railroad.
They had come to America in the 1840s with the start of the Gold Rush and never left. The arduous journey across the ocean was long, perilous, and extremely uncomfortable. Many Chinese died before ever reaching our country.
Chinese Railroad Workers Sailing to America
But few people know why they were so willing to leave their country to battle harsh traveling conditions within a ship’s hold, to come to a country where they were not always welcomed with open arms. Here is an extremely condensed background.
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty to rule over China. And it was a government where the emperor was not even Chinese, the ruling class was in fact Manchurians that had adopted their ways and took over their country: a fact that made the people very unhappy.
The Qing felt that China was [the center of the world] and thus had no need to learn from outsiders nor to trade for any foreign goods. Silk, tea, and porcelain left the country in abundance, but the only item allowed in was silver. This uneven trading practice led to England, whose national beverage was quickly becoming tea, to resort to unsavory methods to equal up trade when they ran out of silver. They brought opium to China and through a system of smuggling and free sampling; the country was soon addicted to the powerful narcotic. Liz Zexu, imperial commander in charge of eliminating the illegal opium trade, tried many methods of ridding his country of the drug, but his attempts were largely unsuccessful because the addiction was so widespread. An open letter to Queen Victoria complaining about how unfair it was for her to allow her barbarians to sell opium in China and wondering where her conscience was pretty much started of the downfall of the Chinese empire as they knew it.
Fast forward to where the Opium War against the British had left the country weak and disorganized, and segregated into spheres of influence by foreign powers, like Germany, France, England, and Portugal. The Chinese were already unhappy with the poor management of the country, but then to be bossed around by hairy barbarians led to widespread rebellion.
Rebellion coupled with war and high taxes, drought, floods, famines, and every other misfortune that could befall a country happened all at once, causing the deaths of more than 30 million Chinese. The conditions were so bad that when American traders came and talked about mountains of gold, they practically swam across to California.
The conditions aboard the brigs that sailed to America were nothing less than atrocious. The Chinese were herded like sheep into the ship’s hold and kept in unsanitary conditions with little to no light.
Sleeping Condition on ships stacked 3 high Or worse
□
P. T. Barnum's traveling carnival exhibited the "most New arrivals at Angel Island, San Francisco
the "most extraordinary curiosity yet: "a living
Chinese family.
BIO
Suzy Kue started writing short stories when she was in junior high and excelled in crafting believable stories to tell her parents, so she could get herself out of heaps of trouble.
Armed with a degree in History, which prompted her mother to ask, “What in the world are you going to do with that?,” Suzy Kue stated, “I’m going to write books!”She currently lives in Southern California and survives on too little sleep in her quest to become published in historical romance while surviving a full time day job, 3 kids, and husband.
□
Pictures courtesy of
http://chineseimmigration.weebly.com/pictures.html
www.latinamericanstudies.org/chinese-immigrants.htm
memory.loc.gov/ammem/award99/cubhtml/cichome.html
www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/angel/gallery.htm
615 Comments
I always wondered why they came across to America when we didn't treat them very well...
Thanks for sharing the info!
Lisa