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
Jamestown Riot: One Killed, Several Wounded
1869-09-19Jamestown, California • Riot
An anti-Chinese riot occurred in Jamestown, Tuolumne County, on September 19, 1869. One Chinese man was killed, and several others were wounded in the incident. Very little is known about this incident. No newspaper documentation of the riot was found in the research for this project. However, it does highlight a pervasive challenge with documenting anti-Chinese violence in the American West: Lynchings and riots often leave only scant evidence in the historical record. Identification of perpetrators and victims is difficult without additional resources. Further research on events like the Jamestown riot is required.
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