October 19, 1858 – Sacramento County, California: A Chinese Man Accused of Murder and Lynched

On October 19, 1858, in rural Sacramento County (near Cook’s Bar on the American River), a Chinese laborer was lynched by a posse of white vigilantes after being accused of murdering an elderly white farmer. When a farmer was found slain, suspicion quickly fell on a Chinese man in the vicinity, who was captured by locals. Instead of turning him over to the sheriff, the mob hanged the man from a tree with no due process. Newspapers reported the incident with typical brevity, using stark headlines like “Chinaman Lynched.” The pretext for this lynching was righteous justice: The white mob claimed to be avenging a crime. White vigilantes assumed any Chinese suspect to be guilty and took the law into their own hands. A few years earlier, the California Supreme Court ruled that Chinese witnesses could not testify in court, effectively giving would-be lynchers a license to kill. The lynching at Cook’s Bar demonstrated how "law and order" on the frontier often took the form of racial terror. White mobs made it clear that even the mere allegation of harming a white person could seal a "Chinaman’s" fate. White vigilantes believed that extralegal violence filled the void where sanctioned law and order fell short.