White Attackers Massacred Chinese Farmworkers

On March 14, 1877, white attackers massacred six Chinese farmworkers at Lem Ranch near Chico, California. The Sacramento Daily Union called it the “recent massacre of Chinese at a camp near Chico” and said it was “placed beyond question that the murderers were white men.” A few days later, The Times-Union reported that the Anti Coolie Society had approved the killings “amid cries of ‘that is what we want,’” linking the massacre to organized anti-Chinese agitation. The same report noted that a prominent opponent of the Anti-Coolie Movement “received a postal card warning him that he will be killed unless he leaves the state in 30 days.” It goes on to write that “it is absolutely necessary, alike in the interest of law and order and for the good name of the State, that the scoundrels should be ferreted out and punished.”