Bellingham Riots

Virginia SOL 

VUS.10     The student will apply history and social science skills to analyze how the nation grew and changed from the end of Reconstruction through the early 20th century by

b. examining and evaluating the motivations, contributions, and challenges immigrants to the United States faced before, during, and upon arrival

A Brief Summary 

"Several hundred of these [Punjabi] migrants found work as contract laborers in the lumber mills of the newly-incorporated city of Bellingham, WA. The recent introduction of the Great Northern Railway connected Bellingham to the outside economy and helped quickly turn it into a boom-town built primarily off of lumber and fishing. 

In a city home to one of the Pacific Northwest anti-Chinese campaigns of the late 1800s, and a strong tradition of not letting Chinese live in town except during the salmon season, this new presence of South Asian laborers was immediately unwelcome. Bellingham was home to an 800-member strong chapter of the Japanese-Korean Exclusion League, a national labor organization with the avowed mission “to guard the gateway of Occidental Civilization [West Coast] against Oriental invasion.” 

It was from these ranks that organized agitation began to emerge, demanding that no South Asians be employed in the lumber mills or anywhere in Bellingham after Labor Day - September 2nd, 1907. More than a thousand union members paraded through town that day to show their organized strength. The South Asian workers nonetheless appeared at their jobs the following day. The subsequent tension blew into the full scale riot of September 4th."

Setting the Stage: Race and Asian Immigrants in America 

The Race Question 


Only a wise man or a fool can give a ready-made solution to the problem as it is now presented. There is reason in the argument that the West needs cheap labor: there is an irresistible force in the dictum that America- which includes in his connection to both the United States and Canada- is a white man’s country. 


This problem is not to be solved by men who find that cheap labor will increase their incomes: it is not to be solved by men who are interested in marketing their labor at the highest figure. To both of them classes— if we admit that they are classes— the general public, the great American public which considers only the general real, should say hands off. The questions I not one of special interest but of general good, one that touches our democracy in a vital spot. 


The race problem presents many different phases. Just now its chief aspect is industrial, but it is also social and political, and in the final analysis these last two will be found more important than the first. The European hordes, good and bad, that are pouring into this country, do not enter into the consideration. Europe may dump upon us all her criminals and in time we will assimilate them. They are of our blood and our inheritances. They present no serious menace. But what of the Chinaman, the Japan, the Hindu, the Filipino and the negro? The negro— lowest of all in racial standing— we may accept, not lightly, but because we must. The Filipino— ah. There’s the rub. He is almost an American as the decadent Hindu is almost a Britisher. And there are ten millions of him. Will he make a good cis-Pacific citizen? Can he become a part of our citizenship? Is he not a menace to the very principles of our democracy? Is he qualified to help govern a nation of self-governing people? But we’ve got him and we may leave him out of the consideration temporarily. 

Transcription: The Race Question The Bellingham anti-Hindu disturbance, which has been echoed and re-echoed from every port in which ships find anchorage, may be the beginning of racial rumor such as hs never been known before. For it may mean the beginning of a racial adjustment in the United States and Canada. It is certain, at least, to cause a quickening of interest among many peoples in this very vital subject. It may depend the prejudice as inexorable as nature’s laws which establish a difference between orientals and the occidentals, but it will force the rest of the nation to give the question the serious consideration to which it is entitled. Only a wise man or a fool can give a ready-made solution to the problem as it is now presented. There is reason in the argument that the West needs cheap labor: there is an irresistible force in the dictum that America- which includes int his connection both the United States and Canada- is a white man’s country. How can these two conflicting principles be adjusted: Although a flood of discussion may be eased by the Bellingham and Vancouver method, which in time may bring about a complete and satisfactory adjustment, no one will argue that the method is fundamentally right. The problem cannot be solved by broken windows and broken heads. Our little affair was merely an incident. It represented one extreme of a very acute subject. But may not the employers of contract labor, whatever the seeming demands of expediency, have represented another extreme equally violent! This problem is not to be solved by men who find that cheap labor will increase their incomes: it is not to be solved by men who are interested in marketing their labor at the highest figure. To both of them classes— if we admit that they are classes— the general public, the great American public which considers only the general real, should say hands off. The questions I not one of special interest but of general good, one that touches our democracy in a vital spot. The race problem presents many different phases. Just now its chief aspect is industrial, but it is also social and political, and in the final analysis these last two will be found more important than the first. The European hordes, good and bad, that are pouring into this country, do not enter into the consideration. Europe may dump upon us all her criminals and in time we will assimilate them. They are of our blood and our inheritances. They present no serious menace. But what of the Chinaman, the Japan, the Hindu, the Filipino and the negro? The negro— lowest of all in racial standing— we may accept, not lightly, but because we must. The Filipino— ah. There’s the rub. He is almost an American as the decadent Hindu is almost a Britisher. And there are ten millions of him. Will he make a good cis-Pacific citizen? Can he become a part of our citizenship? Is he not a menace to the very principles of our democracy? Is he qualified to help govern a nation of self-governing people? But we’ve got him and we may leave him out of the consideration temporarily. The seriousness of the Hindu problem has probably been exaggerated and we may soon expect to hear the last of him. The chinaman wea already have pretty well in check. So it al comes down to the cap as the person demanding our serious consideration in the immediate future. The Japanese are the greatest of the yellow races. The nation has a militant way of doing things that commands our admiration. It has lately taken a position in the forefront of international commerce and politics. The United States desire to be on the most friendly elating with this great people. But for all that can we not easily go too far in the matter of turning over our local business to them. For the present they serve to fill a great industrial need. There’s more work to be done than we can do. He goes peaceably about his business and as not a menace except by force of numbers. Industrially, he fits in now. But can we afford to let an industrial need precipitate a social and political crisis? The question is one that demands the exercise of statesmanship, not a display of passion.

South Asian Portrayals: Punjabi Immigrants Arrive to Bellingham, Washington 

OCR- hinduinnorthwest.pdf

"In the industrial world, however, he ["the Hindu"] fills a place. The millmen of the Northwest declare that they employ him, not because they want cheap labor, not because they want to use him as a club over labor unions, but because they must have labor of one kind or another."

The discourse surrounding Asian immigration and labor rights, albeit exclusively for White men, becomes a critical comparison to how our labor ideologies and advocacy function today. 

Tensions Rise 

A digitized image of the newspaper column headline, "Hindus Warned to Leave Everett."

Transcription: 

HINDUS WARNED TO LEAVE EVERETT

Millmen Refuse to Discharge Dusky Workers and Replace Them at Same Wages by Whites-- Claim Is Made That It Is an Attempt to Force Down Wages. 

TRIED TO AVOID TROUBLE

Labor Leader Says Hindus Should Leave as All Peaceful Means Have Been Exhausted. 

Everett, Wash., Oct. 2.-- Concerning the attitude of the millowners as to their willingness to discharge Hindu laborers if white men are procurable at the same wages, a labor leader makes a velled threat against the turbaned men ,admonishment them to leave the city unless they are looking for trouble. Millmen say, in reply, it is not fair to force them to pay big wages for the performance of common labor, such as pilling lumber and raking refuse out of water trough. There is not a single mill in the city today, it is claimed that is makingmoney, owing to the almost total lack of new orders coming from the East, and manufacturers are already looking forward to the necessity of closing their plants. 

Here is what a labor leader says of the Hindu situation: 

"This stand proves the contention of the unions that Hindus were being employed for the wole purpose of reducing wages and lowering the standard of living of the American workingman. We tried every way possible to avoid trouble in Everett in dealing with this question. I always advocate peaceful methods, but there always comes a time when some of the workers most seriously affected are hard to keep down when the pressure gets hard. Judging from history, if the millmen will not dispose of the HIndus as the places can be tilled, I would advise the Hindus to go away. 

"Considering the prices that manufacturers are getting for their products, taken together with the cost of living, there is no justice nor sense in the demand for white men to come down to the Asiatics standard of living. That isn't all; they will not do it." 

The Bellingham Riots: Publications and Discourse 

A digitized image of the newspaper column headline, "Mob Drives Out Hindus."

“Six badly beaten Hindus are in the hospital, 400 frightened and half naked Sikhs are in jail and the corridors of the city hall, guarded by policemen, and somewhere between Bellingham and British Columbia are 750 natives of India, beaten, hungry, and half clothed, making their way along the Great Northern railway to Canadian territory and the protection of the British flag. 

The long-expected cry “drive out the Hindus” was heard throughout the city and along the water front last night. The police were helpless. All authority was paralyzed and for five hours a mob of 500 white men raided the mills where the foreigners were working, battered down doors of lodging houses, and dragging the Asiatics from their beds, escorted them to the city limits, with orders to keep going."

AEL- HindooQuestion.pdf

“One of the chief reasons for the change of name of this League from “Japanese and Korean” to that of “Asiatic” was the knowledge that we have of the great number of Hindoos that are looking toward the Pacific Coast, especially California, as a field for exploitation…the disturbance at Bellingham, Wash., caused by the displacing of white mill hands by Hindoos, caused them to flock to California by hundreds, and their presence in the southern part has caused such apprehension among the people of the section that Senator Flint contemplates introducing a bill for their exclusion…The conclusions reached by your “Bureau” after a careful study of the material at hand, is that the Hindoo is more sinned against than sinning.”