The 1871 Los Angeles Chinese Massacre

On October 24, 1871, a horrific outbreak of racial violence convulsed Los Angeles, resulting in the deaths of 18 Chinese men. This event, now recognized as the largest mass lynching in United States history, has been largely erased from the nation’s historical memory. For decades, the story of the massacre was a forgotten chapter, a stark example of how even the most brutal episodes of racial hatred can be neglected and ignored. An article in the Los Angeles Times noted, “History forgot the 1871 Los Angeles Chinese massacre, but we’ve all been shaped by its violence.” The massacre was not an isolated incident but a brutal manifestation of the anti-Chinese sentiment that was deeply embedded in 19th-century California. As modern Los Angeles grapples with new waves of anti-Asian hate, the story of 1871 has re-emerged, a powerful and painful reminder of the deep historical roots of racial violence in the city and the nation. The effort to remember and memorialize this tragedy is part of a larger movement to build a collective understanding of hate and create a more inclusive future.

The Los Angeles Chinese Massacre of 1871 resulted from severe anti-Chinese prejudice and a weak frontier legal system, leading to a catastrophic loss of life and subsequent historical erasure, which modern efforts are now attempting to correct amidst renewed anti-Asian sentiment.

In the 1870s, Los Angeles was far from the sprawling metropolis it is today. It was considered a “backwater town,” a frontier settlement with a population of just 5,728 residents in 1870. The landscape was primarily agricultural, a “cow-town” just beginning to experience an economic boom. Despite this growth, it was a place with a reputation for lawlessness. The center of the city’s vice was Calle de los Negros, or “Nigger Alley,” an infamous street known for its slums, gambling houses, opium dens, and prostitution. It was a volatile environment where tensions simmered just below the surface, and the mechanisms of justice were often weak and unreliable. This setting provided fertile ground for the racial prejudices of the era to fester and eventually explode into violence.

The Chinese presence in Los Angeles was small but growing. The first two Chinese residents arrived in the 1850s, and by 1870, the community numbered 179 people. Like many immigrants of the era, they were drawn to California—which they called “Gold Mountain”—by the prospect of the Gold Rush and the desire to escape the instability in China following the First Opium War. Many did not intend to stay permanently; their goal was often to accumulate wealth and return to their families in China. They were industrious, establishing themselves as successful entrepreneurs in shipping, mining, agriculture, and trade. This small but visible community congregated in a section of the city that became known as Chinatown, centered on Calle de los Negros. They sought to maintain connections to their culture and origins, which, in the face of widespread prejudice, also served to isolate them from the broader population.

The Chinese community in California faced a rising tide of racial hostility. This sentiment was fueled by a combination of stereotypes, economic anxiety, and cultural clashes. News of opium dens and addiction in China following the Opium War marred the image of Chinese immigrants, who were unfairly stereotyped as addicts and gamblers. The presence of Chinese prostitution, though a reality for many women with few other economic options, was used to paint the entire community as immoral and exotic.

Newspapers and illustrations of the period relentlessly dehumanized the Chinese, referring to them with derogatory terms like “chinamen” and comparing them to Black communities in a process of “negroization.” Political cartoons depicted them with animalistic features, as monkeys or demonic creatures, to strip them of their humanity and justify persecution.

Economic tensions further inflamed this prejudice. The “coolie trade,” a system of contractual labor, brought thousands of Chinese men to America for cheap wages, particularly to work on the transcontinental railroad. White laborers grew resentful, fearing that the Chinese were undervaluing their labor and disrupting the social order. This resentment, which began in the mining camps of Northern California during the Gold Rush, spread throughout the state, leading to discriminatory measures like the foreign miners’ tax. By 1871, the anti-Chinese movement was a powerful force, and in the volatile frontier town of Los Angeles, it was a ticking time bomb.

The immediate trigger for the massacre was a conflict internal to the Chinese community. It began as a feud between two rival Chinese factions, or “companies,” over the possession of a woman named Ya Hit. Ya Hit was under the ownership of a prominent faction leader, Yo Hing, but was kidnapped by a rival leader, Sam Yeun. This act was a direct challenge to Yo Hing’s power and reputation. Tensions escalated, and on the morning of October 23, 1871, an unknown assailant fired at Yo Hing. He survived unharmed but promptly declared war on Sam Yeun’s faction. The small community of Chinatown was on edge, with some residents reportedly warning authorities to stay away as the conflict brewed.

The following day, Tuesday, October 24, at around 5:30 PM, the feud erupted into open gunfighting on Calle de los Negros. At least one police officer, Jesus Bilderrain, accompanied by a few other men, responded to the sound of gunfire. Upon their arrival, they were caught in the crossfire. Officer Bilderrain was shot in the shoulder, and a young Hispanic boy was wounded in the leg.

A white farmer and former saloonkeeper named Robert Thompson, who had joined the officers, was also present. Despite being warned by another officer to be careful, Thompson took it upon himself to intervene, firing blindly at three armed Chinese men hiding in a store. He was shot in the chest, just above the heart. Thompson was carried to a nearby drugstore, where he died an hour later. As news of his death spread, a false and inflammatory rumor quickly circulated through the town: the Chinese were indiscriminately killing white Americans. This rumor was the spark that ignited the powder keg of racial hatred.

Fueled by the rumor of Thompson’s murder, a mob of around 500 white and Hispanic men descended on Chinatown. Their rage was focused on the Coronel Building, an old adobe structure where the Chinese men involved in the initial shootout were believed to be hiding. The mob surrounded the building, whose sinking wooden roof offered little protection. They broke down the doors and stormed inside, beginning a night of terror and bloodshed that would stain the city’s history.

What followed was a frenzy of indiscriminate violence. The mob dragged Chinese men out of the Coronel Building, beating and mangling them before lynching them from any available structure. The brutality was not confined to those involved in the initial feud; the mob’s attack quickly spread to any Chinese person they could find, regardless of their involvement. Witnesses reported seeing a boy no older than ten screaming for more victims to lynch, a horrifying testament to the mob’s collective mania. In a desperate plea for his life, one young Chinese man declared, “Me no fraid, me good, no hurt any man.” His words were ignored.

By the time the violence subsided, 18 Chinese men and boys lay dead—fifteen of them by hanging. Looters ransacked Chinatown, stealing an estimated $30,000 to $70,000 from the victims and their community. The bodies of seventeen of the victims were unceremoniously piled in the corner of an empty jail cell, a grim conclusion to one of the most sordid moments in Los Angeles history.

The massacre unfolded in the heart of early Los Angeles, primarily along Calle de los Negros. The main site of the initial siege was the Antonio Coronel adobe building, from which many victims were dragged. The lynchings took place at various points throughout the area. Finally, the bodies of seventeen of the eighteen victims were collected and left in the city’s jail yard. The victims included both combatants from the initial feud and innocent residents of Chinatown who were targeted simply because of their race.

In the aftermath of the massacre, the legal system’s response was a catastrophic failure of justice. A coroner’s inquest and a grand jury were convened, leading to the indictment of approximately 150 individuals. However, the initial momentum for prosecution quickly dissipated. Ultimately, only ten men were prosecuted, and of those, just seven were brought to trial for the murder of a single victim.

These seven men were convicted on the lesser charge of manslaughter, receiving sentences that ranged from two to nine years in prison. Yet, even this small measure of accountability was fleeting. An appeal was made to the California Supreme Court, which reversed the convictions. Following the reversal, the Los Angeles District Attorney, Cameron M. Thom, chose not to retry the case. In the late spring of 1873, all the convicted men were set free. Not a single person was ultimately punished for the murder of 18 people. This judicial failure was underpinned by systemic racism, exemplified by an 1854 California Supreme Court ruling (The People v. Hall) which declared that Chinese individuals had no right to testify in court against white citizens, effectively denying them legal protection and recourse.

The failure to deliver justice for the victims of the 1871 massacre was not an end but a prelude to further persecution. The event was an early and extreme manifestation of a wave of anti-Chinese sentiment that would soon be codified into federal law. Just a few years later, Congress passed the Page Act of 1875, the first federal legislation to prohibit the immigration of a specific group based on national origin, effectively banning Chinese women from entering the country. This was followed by the infamous Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which suspended all immigration of Chinese laborers. The massacre and the subsequent lack of justice demonstrated that violence against the Chinese community would go unpunished, emboldening the anti-Chinese movement and paving the way for decades of discriminatory laws and policies.

The 1871 Chinese Massacre stands as a foundational event in the long and painful history of racial violence in Los Angeles and the American West. It was not a random riot but the brutal culmination of the anti-Chinese movement that was gaining momentum across California. The event laid a foundation for “hate and othering” in Los Angeles, establishing a pattern of racialized violence that would recur throughout the city’s history. From the Zoot Suit Riots of the 1940s to the Watts Rebellion of 1965, the 1992 uprising, the spike in anti-Muslim hate after 9/11, and the surge of anti-Asian violence during the COVID-19 pandemic, Los Angeles has repeatedly been a site of intergroup conflict rooted in prejudice and systemic discrimination. The 1871 massacre was one of the earliest and most vicious examples of this recurring cycle of hate.

For over a century, the massacre was largely forgotten, a glaring omission in the historical narratives of both Los Angeles and the United States. This historical erasure served to obscure the depth of anti-Asian racism in American history and allowed for the perpetuation of the myth that such violence was an anomaly. As Frank Shyong of the Los Angeles Times wrote, “History forgot the 1871 Los Angeles Chinese massacre, but we’ve all been shaped by its violence.” The neglect of this event in public memory and education meant that its lessons went unlearned. The failure to confront this dark chapter allowed the underlying prejudices to fester, contributing to the cycles of hate that continue to plague society. The recent push to remember the massacre is a crucial effort to reclaim this history and acknowledge its lasting impact.

Amid a recent and alarming surge in anti-Asian hate across the country, there has been a renewed and urgent effort to uncover and confront the history of racial violence in America. This movement has brought the 1871 Los Angeles Chinese Massacre out of the shadows of historical neglect. Community organizations and public officials, as part of initiatives like California’s “Stop the Hate” program, are working to build a collective understanding of the historical roots of prejudice. Recognizing that education and remembrance are crucial tools in combating modern-day hate, a significant push emerged to create a permanent, public monument to honor the victims of the 1871 massacre and ensure that this horrific event is never again forgotten.

Responding to this call for remembrance, the City of Los Angeles has initiated a project to create a memorial dedicated to the victims of the 1871 Chinese Massacre. After reviewing more than 176 proposals from artists and designers around the country, the city awarded the project to the team of artist Sze Tsung Nicolas Leong and writer Judy Chui-Hua Chung. The planned memorial will be installed along the 400 block of North Los Angeles Street, near the Chinese American Museum and close to the site where the violence originally unfolded. This project represents a landmark effort by the city to formally acknowledge this dark chapter of its past, correct the long-standing historical erasure, and provide a public space for reflection, mourning, and education.

The 1871 Massacre stands as a stark reminder of unchecked racialized violence targeting Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles. What began as an internal feud exploded into a race-based pogrom, fueled by xenophobia, economic anxiety, and a dysfunctional legal system. The murder of 18 people and the complete failure of justice that followed left a deep scar on the city, one that was hidden for far too long by historical neglect.

Commemorating the victims of this atrocity is an opportunity to promote awareness of historical Asian American experiences and to sustain the mission of building a safe and inclusive Los Angeles County. By finally bringing this story into the light, we honor the lives that were lost and commit to learning from the failures of the past to create a more just and equitable future.