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
Chinese Witness Was Lynched in the Honomu Murder Case
1889-01-00Honomu, Hawaii • Lynching
In January 1889, the principal Chinese witness in the Honomu murder case was attacked near the plantation and died from his injuries. <i>The Hawaiian Gazette</i> reported that he was “lynched by his countrymen” and that police were pursuing suspects in what the paper called another case of “Highbinders’ law.” The killing appears to have been retaliation against a witness rather than a public spectacle lynching.
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