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 Laborer Found Hanging Near Briggs’ Ranch
1881-03-04Davis, California • Lynching
On March 4, 1881, a Chinese laborer was found hanging from a tree near Briggs’ ranch outside Davisville, California. The <i>Reno Gazette-Journal</i> reported that there were “no particulars as to the cause." The <i>Napa County Recorder</i> later said that a coroner’s jury found death by strangulation but could not determine whether “the hanging was done by himself or others.” The case remains an ambiguous but suspicious hanging death.
Read full record →