56 A HISTORY OF THE CHINESE IN CALIFORNIA I Report of tbe Joim Speci'11 COl1nnittee to Investigate the levees. An engineer having planned the work, Cbinese hmnigmtion (44th Cong., lOd Session, 1876-77, estimates a~e made, and thereupon Chinese fore• Senate Report 689), p. 535. men take contracts for pieces at stipulated rates, 2 Ibid., pp. 534, 539. 3 John S. Hittell, Tbe C01mnerce and Industries of tbe and themselves hired their countrymen for the Pacific Coast (San Francisco, 1882), p. 480. actual labor. This subdivision to which the perfect 4 Ibid., pp. 728-729. organization of Chinese labor readily lel~dsitself, is 5 San Francisco Municipal Report (1897-1898), p. 85. 6 San Francisco Municipal Report (1900-1901), p. 37 very convenient. The engineer or master in charge 7 San Francisco Municipal Report (1904-1905), p. 122. of the work deals only with the Chinese foremen, 8 See Note 3. pays them for the work done, and exacts of them 9 J. S. HitteH, op. cit. Also George F. Seward, Cbillese Im• migmtion, Its Economic and Soci,11 Aspects (N. \~, the due performance of the contract." 4 The usual 1881). Refer to sections describing these industries. w:1ge was $1.00 per day. Sometimes, however, 10 J. S. Hittell, op. cit., p. 636. laborers were paid at the rate of 10cents per cubic yard of earth dug.5 RECLAMATION An Eastern observer in 1873 described a typical Up to the latter part of the 19th century large scene on a project: "We witnessed many gangs of parts of the land in the Sacramento and San Joa• Chinamen .... in all 250, making levees or embank• quin Valleys were swamp lands known as tule ments. They generally lodge in tents .... " 6 lands. These consisted of deposits of muck formed The high point of Chinese participation in this from a mixture of river-carried sediment and de• work was in the mid-1870's.7 The Chinese con• cayed vegetable matter resulting from the im• structed miles of levees, dikes and ditches, making mense growths of grasses and rule reeds in the thousands of acres of reclaimed land available for lowlands along the rivers. useful production. Reclaimed lands which origin• Tule lands covered the delta of the two rivers. ally cost $1.00 to $3.00 per acre were increased in Along the Sacramento, tule lands formed a broad value from_$20.oo up to $100.00 per acre.8 The belt varying anywhere from 3 to 4 miles to 10 value of this was recognized in the mid-1870'S miles in width, extending north from Suisun Bay when a former surveyor general of the state esti• far into Colusa County. In the south, the tule lands mated that the increase in the value of the prop• were narrow and interrupted belts along the San erty in the state, due to Chinese labor building Joaquin River. the railroads and reclaiming rule lands alone, was California landowners were well aware of the $289,700,000.9 potentialities of the rich soil in thes~ swamps. In I Paul S. Taylor. "Foundations of California Rural Society" 1852, the Tingley Bill was introduced in the Cali• CalifoTliia Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. 24 (1945), fornia legislature permitting the importation of pp. 192-228. 2 Julian Dana, The Sacramento, River of Gold (N. Y, contract labor. The bill was defeated but support• 1939), pp. 160-161. ers of the measure pointed out that "... there is 3 Ping, Chiu, Chinese Labor in California (Madison, 1967), p·72• ample field for [Chinese] employment in drain• 4 Charles Nordhoff, Northern California, Oregon, and the ing the swamp lands, in cultivating rice, raising Sandwich Islands (N. Y, 1877), p. 130. silk or planting tea .... " 1 5 See Note 3. 6 Pacific Rural Press, April 26,1873. In the early 1850'S,some farmers, such as Reu• 7 See Note 3. ben Kercheval, began the use of Chinese labor to 8 Report of the Joint Special Committee to Im'estigate Chi• build levees in the delta to reclaim the swamps nese Il1mIigration (44th Cong., 2nd Session, 1876-1877, from the Sacramento River.2 But, the draining of Senate Report 689), p. 441. 9 Senate Report 689, op. cit., p. 54. the marshlands did not really begin until the mid• 1860'Swhen many Chinese were leaving the gold For furtber reading on this subject: I. Ping Chiu, Cbinese Labor iN C.:lifomi,J (.'.:adison, 1967). mines, thus making available a good-sized labor pool.3 Reclamation companies then began to com• AGRICUL TVRAL LABOR pete with the railroads to seek the serv~cesof these IN THE 1860'S workers. A contemporary describes the labor sys• tem thusly: California farmers began looking at the use of "Chinese labor is used almost entirely in making Chinese on the farms as early as 18481 and some A HISTORY OF THE CHINESE IN CALIFORNIA 57 Chinese labor was used in the 1850'S.2 At that time roads, stone bridges, rock walls, wine cellars, and there was a serious labor shortage in the state. One irrigation ditches, some of which still exist today. farmer related how difficult it was to hire labor to Chinese became the preferred grape pic¥:ers in harvest his large wheat crop. He continued his vineyards in Northern and Central California. story: (Some vineyardists even go so far as to claim that "I then went to a Chinaman and told him that the Chinese were the best pickers the growers ever I wanted to contract for binding and shocking hired.) 8 In the 1870'S grape pickers, in Napa wheat .... I made the contract at so much per acre. County averaging 1,500 pounds per day, made ... Several hundred of them came. We had one or about $1.00 per day.9 two hundred acres that had been reaped, and needed putting up very badly, and the next morn• INFLUX INTO AGRICULTURAL WORK ing it was all in shock. The Chinamen did the work \V.ith the completion of the transcontinental that night. They did the work well and faith• railroad in 1869, many Chinese sought employ• fully." 3 By the late 1860'SChinese labor was used ment in the rural areas. Figures on the number of fairly widely by wheat farmers.4 Chinese engaged in agricultural work at the be• Chinese labor was also being used for other ginning of the 1870'S varied widely; however, agricultural work. One contemporary wrote the there was no doubt that Chinese labor soon as• following: sumed the dominant role, especially for seasonal "On many ranches all the laborers are people whose muscles were hardened on the little farms and temporary work, in California. Even in the 1880'S during the years of intense anti-Chinese in China .... we find that the dairy men are largely agitation leading up to the Chinese Exclusion Act employing this class of help .... Visit a hop planta• of 1882, 75 per cent of these farm workers were tion in the picking season, and count its 50, 60, or still Chinese. 10 70 pickers in the garb of the eastern Asiatics, work• Chinese were picking cotton at 90 cents per 100 ing steadily and noiselessly on from morning till pounds. I I All along the Pacific Coast Oriental night, gathering, curing and sacking the crop .... workers predominated in the harvesting of hops, Go through the fields of strawberries and other strawberries and other crops, the picking of which small fruits, ... the vineyards and orch~rds, and required stooping and squatting.I2 Chinese field you will learn that most of these fruits are gath• hands also worked in the first sugar beet fields ered or boxed for market by this same people ... ." 5 in California in 1872.13 On one fruit plantation this same author visited, "... one [Chinese] was tending the cider mill, one was busy ... turning out the little strawberry bas• FRUIT ORCHARDS kets, two were assorting and boxing apples, six Starting with 1870, California farmers turned were picking strawberries to be sold ... for $I.00 their attention to raising fruits for export to the per pound; some were picking apples, wIrile more Eastern markets. Today, it is difficult to properly were in the vineyard gathering grapes .... "5 assess the extent that the fruit farmers were in• debted to the Chinese. But by and large, most VINEYARD WORKERS farmers at that time were novices at fruit growing A. Haraszthy and his Buena Vista Vinicultural while the Chinese' skill in planting, cultivating, Society were primarily responsible for the intro• and garden-harvesting of orchard crops was gen• duction of Chinese labor to the vineyards of erally acknowledged. Thus it is probably not an Sonoma and Napa Counties in the early 1860's.6 exaggeration to credit the Chinese with actually The workers were paid $1.00 per day. ~hinese teaching the farmer many of the techniques of were employed in the fields, on permanent im• horticulture.I4 There is no doubt as to the impor• provements, and in lime and stone quarries. When tance of the Chinese at harvest time, however, for not working for Haraszthy's corporation, the Chi• even during the period of most intense anti-Chi• nese were hired out to different vineyards in the nese agitation, the Pacific Rural Press had this to area.7 say: "The availability of Chinese labor gave the The Chinese in Napa and Sonoma constructed fruit growers hope. They extended their opera- 58 A HISTORY OF THE CHINESE IN CALIFORNIA tions and the Chinese proved equal to all that had STRIKES been expected of them.