Page:History of Washington The Rise and Progress of an American State, volume 4.djvu/422

320 to imitate their example. Strangely enough, there were persons of responsibility and respectability who readily joined with these in stirring up trouble. There were few residents of the territory, if any, who were anxious to have the Chinese remain. Some of the coal mining companies, a few of the mills, and a few private individuals had employed them, when it had been difficult to procure white labor, but now that that difficulty was past, most of them were glad to secure white laborers again. A few had Chinese house servants who had proved so satisfactory that they wished to retain them, but these were not many. The Chinamen therefore were left with few to defend them, except those who were not willing to see them driven out by violence.

The agitation which began in Seattle and Tacoma in the summer of 1885, had gradually spread to other towns and villages in the western part of the territory, and to the coal mines in King County, in a few of which the Chinamen were working, when on September 4th, the people at Rock Springs, Wyoming, drove the Chinamen out of the coal mines at that place, killing eleven of them. News of this outrage was applauded by the agitators, and those who were accustomed to listen to them. It spread quickly to the smaller towns, and was received with peculiar interest at the coal mines and the hop fields where some growers, who had been unable to procure the usual number of Indians to harvest their crop, were bringing in Chinamen for the purpose. Among the latter were the Wold brothers, who had large yards in the Squak valley. On the afternoon of September 5th a party of 35 Chinamen, arrived at their yards, and two nights later their camp was attacked by five white men and two Indians, who fired into the tents where the Chinamen