The John Crow Project
Documenting the history of anti-Chinese lynchings, riots, and massacres
in the American West (1850 – 1915)
What Is the John Crow Project?
Between the California Gold Rush and the First World War, Chinese immigrants were subjected to a coordinated regime of racial terror—lynchings, riots, expulsions, and legal exclusion. This project calls that Western system “John Crow”: a structure aimed at expulsion rather than subordination.
Drawing on a newly compiled dataset of documented lynchings, digitized newspaper archives, and spatial analysis, this site reconstructs how violence spread—across towns, along rivers and railroads, and through national print networks.
The interactive maps, timelines, and charts presented here translate the quantitative and spatial arguments of the dissertation into web-based form. Where possible, visualizations correspond directly to analytical figures developed in A Murder of Crows.
Quick Start
Browse lynching records by date, place, and event details.
Read article images, transcriptions, and source citations.
Open charts, maps, timelines, and comparative views.
Access structured data used across the archive.
Ask questions and trace evidence across records.
New to the site? Take the guided tour.
Featured Record
Five Chinese Men Were Taken from Jail and Lynched
1885-09-21Pierce City, Idaho • Lynching
In late September 1885, five Chinese men accused of murdering and robbing Daniel Frazer at Pierce City were taken from jail and hanged by a citizens’ mob. <i>The Inter Ocean</i> called the bodies “Ghastly Fruit on Pierce City Trees.” The <i>Springfield News-Sun</i> reported that the men were “summarily disposed of” after alleged confessions. The case formed part of the broader anti-Chinese purge climate then spreading across the Northwest, where murder accusations, labor hostility, and mob action merged into campaigns of terror and expulsion. For more details, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1885_Pierce_City_lynching.
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