Anti-Chinese Riot in Denver
By 1880, sinophobic violence was not a new occurrence in Colorado. There are different accounts as to what exactly triggered Denver's "Anti-Chinese riot" on the evening of October 31, 1880, but what occurred during and after has remained consistent. One version details a confrontation between drunken white railroad workers and two Chinese men over a game of billiards that resulted in an attack on the Chinese men and the death of a railroad worker out of self-defense.[3] Another account states the confrontation was between a Chinese launderer and a white man who refused to pay his bill.[4] This dispute also resulted in a white man being shot and as rumors circulated rapidly, a mob of three thousand people descended on Denver's Chinatown.[5]
Chinese residents were taken from their homes and businesses and forced out into the streets where they were beaten, and their property vandalized. Houses were robbed and looted of goods and monetary savings estimating over fifty thousand dollars.[6] Look Young, the proprietor of Sing Lee laundry, had his queue cut, was noosed, dragged, tortured, beaten, and hanged from a lamppost.[7] Attempts were made by the local government and authorities to quell the mob but without success. Chinese men, women, and children went into hiding with the help of other Denver residents. Some were taken to the Arapahoe County jail to shelter in place for over a week.[8]
It took the entire Chaffee Light Artillery and governor’s guard, and over five hundred police officers and detectives to put an end to the events of that night.[9] Isolated episodes of sinophobic violence continued to occur in the days that followed.[10] The Denver anti-Chinese riot resulted in extensive property damage, financial loss, and the physical and emotional scarring of Colorado’s Chinese residents. Some rioters were arrested and prosecuted with a maximum punishment of one year of incarceration; most were acquitted.[11] The Chinese government was outraged and tried to use their treaties with the United States as leverage to obtain compensation.[12] Once again, the American government did not uphold the agreement and cited that it was a state matter rather than a federal one.[13] Consequently, the Chinese residents of Denver never received any restitution. Despite their losses, they remained and rebuilt Chinatown once again.[14]
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[1] Gerald E. Rudolph, “The Chinese in Colorado, 1869-1911” (dissertation, 1964), 115-116; “Sentiments of the Chinese Organ Party,” Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO), Nov. 2, 1880, Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection, https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/; Xiaoyan Zhou, “Qing Perceptions of Anti-Chinese Violence in the United States: Case Studies from the American West” (dissertation, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2008), 49.
[2] Huping Ling and Allan W. Austin, “The Chinese American Experience: History and Culture,” in Asian American History and Culture an Encyclopedia (Hoboken, NJ: Taylor and Francis, 2010), 129.
[3] Rudolph, 110-111.
[4] Rudolph, 111.
[5] Rudolph, 110; Zhou, 49; “Sentiments of the Chinese Organ Party,” Rocky Mountain News, 1880.
[6] Rudolph, 112; Noah Allyn, “The Rise and Fall of Denver's Chinatown,” (History Colorado, April 11, 2019), https://www.historycolorado.org/story/colorado-voices/2019/04/11/rise-and-fall-denvers-chinatown; Jingyi Song, Denver's Chinatown 1875-1900: Gone But Not Forgotten, vol. 14 (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2020), https://brill.com/display/title/56042, 123; Wei, Asians in Colorado, 139.
[7] Ling and Austin, “The Chinese American Experience,” 129; Zhou, “Qing Perceptions, 49; Rudolph, “The Chinese in Colorado,” 113; William Wei, Asians in Colorado: a History of Persecution and Perseverance in the Centennial State (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2016), v132-133.
[8] “Denver Dots,” Leadville Weekly Democrat (Leadville, CO), Nov. 13, 1880, Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection; Rudolph, 112-115.
[9] Rudolph, 114.
[10] “Denver Dots,” Leadville Weekly Democrat, 1880; Rudolph, 115-116.
[11] Wei, 136; Rudolph, 117-118.
[12] Zhou, 49-51.
[13] Zhou, 51-53.
[14] Wei, 130.