racist and rapacious. There have been several complaints against him for stealing and gambling. Together with his brother Ignacio, he had controlled and organized -on behalf of the, then conservative, Democratic Party- several election blocks against Los Angeles’ Latin Community. Precluding, on purpose, the minority from voting.
Judge, Jury, and Press considered such a man a key witness.
He stated that, late on the 24th of October, he had gone to Negro Alley because he had heard gunshots. Later, he entered a backstreet. Wounded, he called for Officer Thompson. Who was then killed by Yuen. That cold-blooded murder was the drop that made Whites riot. Soon, it turned into lynching. Although atrocious, the Press talked about it in terms of common madness generated by a climate of discontent against Chinese and dismissed it. Not without a plethora of Fake News to condone every All-American Americans’ action. No matter how cruel and inhuman.
Figure 9 - An Opium Den, 1890. Opium, In China, was Used For Therapeutic And Religious Purposes. It Was Only After The Fall Of The Qing Empire And The Anglo-Chinese Wars That It Was Deliberately Distributed By English Among Chinese. The Reason was, Mainly, To Increase The Monopoly. Field Were Needed For It, Field That Were Used For Agricolture And Sustainment. China, Of Course, Tried To Stop This Madness. To No Avail. Such Vice And The Trade That Followed Were Approved -And Managed- By Both The Triad And The US Government.
Apparently, Chinese plunged the city into depravity. They did it oh-so terribly, that even fantastic figures stepped into the scene. The Mandarin himself requested all that hidden money, in order to take over California. Legit.
It was, somehow, the very same hoax used at the Gold Rush time. A Let-Them-Eat-Cake kind of situation. Better known as, One-That-Never-Happened. Unfortunately, no Chinese could testify in a trial against a White person. No wonder it ended very quickly.
H.M. Mitchell, reporter of LA Star, absolved the whole city as, “ Victim of a horrendous trade and the climate of violence perpetrated by Chinese Mob.”
There is no doubt that various Political Powers influenced and determined the dismissal. The same ones that later used the bloodbath to impose the infamous Chinese Exclusion Act, approved in 1882.
The truth, as usual, is much bitterer. Even trivial, if compared to such slaughter. Scraping deep into the narrow-minded racist soul of that time false moralists, there is only greedy larceny and nothing more. The outrage that followed it highlighted how cruel the instigators were. The evidence proved the frequent sharing of favours between Hing, the Mobs, and the local Police. Immediately afterwards, oddly, all the documentation was archived and the whole affair swept under the carpet. They would only come out many years later, thanks to the strenuous research of historians and some favourable condition known as, China-Is-Now-A-Great-Economic-Power-And-We-Gotta-Behave. But that is another story and shall be told another time.
Figure 10 - Back Of A Store In Chinatown, 1880. American Police Has Always Had Close And Ambiguous Liasons With The Triad. An Exclusive Control Was Exercised Not Only On Opium And Spices, But Also On Labourers And Commodities (Both Official And Illegal) That Were Imported At Very Low Cost. It Obviously Affected The Economy, Which Collapsed Soon After. Entrepreneurs, Especially Those Who Dealt Whith Railroads That Received Huge Government Subsidies, Were Deeply Interested. Chinese Were Preferred To Americans And Europeans Because Of Their Low Cost -Of Course- And Worked Twice As Hard. During The Era Of The First Trade Unions, Chinese Were Used As Strikebreakers By The Very Same Employers To Block The Claims Of The Working Class. Such Smear Campaign Ruined Chinese Reputation With Disastrous Consequences.
No need to clarify, Bilderrain went to Negro Alley to steal the gold. It was an errand requested by Hing himself, in order to retaliate for Yuen’s hostilities. Hing alliance and protection, however, were not enough to save him from the gunfire of the other one’s henchmen. Bilderrain was, in fact, not a certified Sheriff. He was a Vigilante , authorized by Police itself to maintain order in the Ghetto. That explains why they ignored the private agreements between them and Chinese Mob, while encouraging illegal traffics and assassinations. On the other hand, Law Enforcement perceived a large part of every income. They controlled all the events, due to a large network of informers, knowing everything in advance. Including what was about to happen that night. Their only task was to observe, let them act and -if necessary- clear the field of possible obstacles. The same Marshal Frances Baker, chief of Police, dealt regularly with the Mob. His specialty was to retrieve Chinese slaves who managed to escape and embark illegally to Europe. The motivation? Mere greed. The one driving force who tied every Crooked Cop to a gang or the other. Usually, the one who paid the most.
According to Yuen’s statements, Bilderrain and Hing were together in that alley. The two factions headed for a reckoning. Remain neutral was everything officers had to do.
For that to happen, Emil Harris and George Garde were the experts on field. They had already distinguished themselves in difficult actions during many Mexican riots, such as the capture and killing of Tiburzio Vasquez. Their orders were to stick around without getting involved, no matter what. In front of the angry crowd, they not only did not lift a finger but also threatened those who tried to prevent any lynching. They never appeared in court. On the other hand, they got a promotion. Seems fair, right?
As stated, it was officially a spontaneous event. But the astonishing extreme speed at which all those people randomly organized themselves -five hundred moved as one man, each with a specific task, with the common climax of killing- had premeditated tattooed all over it
And many admitted it. For instance, the already mentioned H.M. Mitchell. Reporter of the Star, former County Sheriff, part of the wealthy Glassel family, future Mayor, he was leader of the -as stated, then conservative- Democratic Party. All mainly due to his notorious article about the massacre. And he never bothered to deny any discriminatory feeling.
Next, the rich merchant J.H. Weldon. After the lynching, blood stained from head to toe, he went for a drink. Once there, he bragged, “ I am satisfied now. I have killed three Chinamen.”
What about one of LA most successful businessperson, Harris Newmark? He said that he saw Thompson on the floor and went home to celebrate. It is unknown what, exactly. However, the man had close relationships with officers Celis and Kerren. Both of them suspected of shooting their colleague and abandoning him in the alley where several Mobsters holed up.
Police Chief Francis Baker stated that, after the fires in the building, where those thugs hid, he decided to leave the city at the mercy of the crowd and simply went to bed.
Like nothing happened.
All that knowledge -the lynching, the sham trial, the Police involvement- is thanks to the painstaking work of John Johnson Jr. more than a century after the massacre, he managed to gain access to the Huntington Library archives. The records unequivocally show that Politics, Institutions, and Private Interests were the core of the economic crisis and general desperation that threw Los Angeles into chaos.
Constitutional Racism deprived Chinese people of any human rights. Accusing them to be the Devil Incarnate, in order to manipulate the General Public, was a very easy step.
Figure 11 - The Chinese Massacre, 1871. There Were Nineteen -Official- Victims.
