Photo of the Day

While the US Civil War raged in the 1860s,

another war between rival clans in the Chinese province of Guangdong

killed 500,000 people and fostered epidemics which killed another million.

Guangzhou, c. 1800.

The major city in this province is Guangzhou,

also known as Canton,

an inland harbor in the Pearl River Delta of southern China

with a long history as an international port.

Floating warehouses in Canton's harbor, mid 1800s.

Durng this Chinese war,

thousands of war captives were taken to Guangzhou

to be sold into indentured servitude for work

at estates in Cuba, Peru and other parts of South America [“coolies”].

Chinese "coolies."

Others went to Guangzhou voluntarily,

signing on with labor contractors to work

for the Central Pacific Railroad in California

building the western portion of America’s transcontinental railroad.

The railroad had advertised in Sacramento for laborers

but only a few hundred white men had come forward,

far short of the thousands needed for the Herculean project.

White laborers were reluctant to engage in the dangerous work,

and figured they’d rather apply their pick-axe and shovels

in the burgeoning silver mines of Nevada

than in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Chinese gold prospectors in California, 1852.

Chinese laborers had been coming to California

since the discovery of gold in 1849,

but new laws had been passed

prohibiting them from staking an ownership claim in a mine.

So, they were looking for other opportunities.

Blasting through mountains to construct tunnels at high altitudes

and building trestles across deep gorges

would not be high on most people’s ‘opportunity’ list.

But ‘opportunity’ is a relative concept.

Anti-Chinese sentiment was rampant in America then.

The railroad paid Chinese workers 30% less than its white workers

and required them to pay for their own lodging, food, supplies and equipment.

And they stayed in segregated work camps.

But the railroad bosses found the Chinese workers to be excellent employees,

and eventually entrusted them with a variety of jobs.

Chinese workers lay the last rail for the transcontinental railroad, May 1869.

A friend whose ancestor left Canton to work for the railroad

tells me her ancestor’s story has been passed down in her family

from generation to generation.

Impoverished people of Canton, 1869. [John Thomson photo]

He is said to have traveled back and forth,

from Canton to California, several times,

bring back money which sustained the women, children

and elderly whom he had left behind.

Each retelling, my friend says, renews her family’s pride in being Chinese.

Chinese workers who laid the last rail of the transcontinental railroad pose at its 50th anniversary celebration, 1919.

‘We built America, Brenda,’ she tells me, then smiles.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda