The Road to Chinese Exclusion by Liping Zhu;

Author:Liping Zhu;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 1)

Dr. Cotton C. Bradbury successfully rescued some Chinese, taking them to safety after directly confronting the mob and using his own body to shield fatally injured Look Young (Sing Lee) from the attackers, ca. 1880. (Courtesy of History Colorado, 10035450)

As the violence reached its climax, Mayor Sopris finally decided to seek help from the state. About 8:00 P.M., he formally asked Governor Pitkin to call out the state guard. Agreeing to take full responsibility, Governor Pitkin sent a telegraph to the state militia headquarters and ordered three companies stationed in Denver to the city center. Having prepared for possible deployment since late afternoon, the troops quickly move out from their armories and arrived in the downtown area, where they waited in some alleys for a final order to advance. Governor Pitkin wanted to get one more opinion from Sheriff Spangler before he would give the order to shoot. However, Spangler thought that his growing force of special deputies was making great progress in taking control of the situation. In the previous two hours, in fact, the sheriff’s deputies had successfully felled many rioters and had been able to thin the crowd everywhere. Thus, the governor never had to give the order to deploy the militia in Denver. In the meantime, Captain Burke and Mr. Pomeroy, mounted on horseback, began to ride around the downtown to warn the people on the streets that the militia was ready to move and that citizens should go home to avoid bloodshed. At some locations, their warnings were greeted by hoots and curses. But in most cases, the people expressed appreciation for the information. A combination of continual police pressure and possible militia action finally broke the will of the rioters, who began to disperse. By 10:00 P.M., the town had become much quieter. An hour later, Chief Cook officially declared that the riot was over after making one last inspection of the streets.90

The next laborious task for the exhausted policemen and deputies was to pick up all the Chinese in town and take them to a designated safe location. Most of them had been escorted to hotels, saloons, and residences in the afternoon for temporary shelter from the rioters. The authorities decided that the county jail was the best “permanent” facility because it offered the most secure building and allowed the peace officers to protect them collectively. Throughout the night, officers brought the grateful Chinese in chartered express wagons to the security of the jail. Many expressed their gratitude to the officers. As Assistant Fire Chief Roberts got ready to return to the streets after having transported a group to the jail, one young Chinese woman said to him, “Officer, I have not had a chance to thank you and your men for what you did for us this afternoon.” She told Roberts that she had arrived just the day before from San Francisco to rescue her sister from a “life of shame.” 91 Unfortunately, she and her sister had been caught in the riot, but they had been saved by the police.

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