Today, although they only number slightly more than one million in a nation of 233 million people, Chinese-Americans enrich the United States with their intellectual and artistic achievements, business acuity, influence, and patriotism. Yet of all the peoples who migrated to America's shores, the Chinese possibly had the toughest time of all. Poor, unskilled by western standards, clinging to "mysterious" ways, the early immigrants were abused and exploited by brawny whites. Nonetheless, they pulled themselves out of the hopeless mire of ignorance and prejudice and today are among America's most valued citizens.
Chinese were first recorded in America in 1785, when three seamen were left stranded in Baltimore after their ship's captain decided to get married and remain on shore. They were oddities, but apparently nothing untoward happened to them. The first serious exodus from China came in 1851, the Year of the Pig, and the first year of the reign of Emperor Hien Feng.
It was a time of terrible drought in China; there had been no rain for months to water crops or grow rice. The Chinese could not feed their chickens, let alone their families. Thousands died of starvation, particularly in Canton in southern China. There was rebellion too, and oddly, this affected the lives of the Chinese who came to America. The rebellion was against the Manchus from Manchuria in northern China who invaded mainland China in 1644, thus overthrowing the Ming dynasty, which had lasted for 277 years. For 267 years (1644-1911), the Manchu rulers changed the styles of the people, requiring men to shave the outer edge of their hair and braid the center in a long tail called a queue. Chinese working in America kept their distinctive queues because without them, they dared not return to their home country. Drunken Americans often clipped the queues off or tied two of them together, usually at tax-collecting time.
Historical background
China was the first nation to have a written language and before the early dynasty of Han, they used a knife to mark the writing on freshly slashed, moist sections of bamboo. As the bamboo dried, the records became permanent. When paper was developed, records were kept in books. The Chinese had improved methods of farming, creative artworks of jade, brocade, and ivory, and tea and spices that traveled across deserts by camel caravan. Pasta was also introduced to Europeans. The trade routes, however, were slow-going, dangerous, and expensive. Trade by sea was the more profitable, and European nations were all too eager to fund expeditions in the name of various crowns. The Portuguese reached China by sea in 1514, followed fifty years later by Spanish, Dutch, and English traders. Finally the French, Swedes, Danes, and Americans sailed into compete for trade. Canton was finally opened, but there was no landing ashore permitted. Trading was done by the hongs [government officials], and high taxes were collected in earnest.
Americans had a particularly difficult time because the Chinese had no use for trinkets, and following the American Revolution, there was little money, gold, or silver to do business with. The solution was found in the ginseng roots that grew wild in the forests of North America and were considered by the Chinese to be a powerful aphrodisiac. Another item the Yankees brought were the luxurious sea otter pelts with which the emperor and mandarins could line their robes. Yankees sailed the seas
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