March 1856 – Bear Valley, California: Sparsely Documented Lynching of an Unnamed Chinese Man

In March 1856, an unnamed Chinese man was reportedly lynched in or near Bear Valley, California. No surviving source preserves his name, the exact day of the attack, the motive, or the identities of the perpetrators. The case survives only as a thin but important trace of anti-Chinese mob violence in the Gold Rush years.