Record 22 of 75
A White Mob Massacred at Least 18 Chinese Residents
Narrative
On October 24, 1871, a white mob in Los Angeles attacked the Chinese quarter, looted businesses, and killed at least 18 Chinese residents in one of the deadliest anti-Chinese massacres in United States history. Early telegrams reprinted in The Deseret News announced that “fifteen Chinamen have been hung,” while later reports in the Chicago Tribune described victims stripped, robbed, shot, and hanged amid “wholesale pillaging” of Chinese homes and stores. Trial testimony published in the Los Angeles Daily News showed how prisoners were dragged from custody and hanged as armed crowds surged through Negro Alley and the Coronel building. The violence left the Chinese community dead, wounded, dispossessed, and terrorized.