My interest in the Chinese Massacre began after reading an article in the Los Angeles Times that contained what I already know to be factual inaccuracies. But I did not know enough to articulate what was wrong with the article, so I set about to study the Chinese Massacre for myself. After transcribing and curating four years worth of newspaper articles, and reading several historical accounts, I came to the realization, historians are the problem, not just journalists. Reading through the historical works, in the order they were published, one can see where an error introduced by a historian, is repeated again by future historians and journalists. After a while, these errors start to become accepted fact. The quality and accuracy of this history had been on a decline, at least until Paul Spitzzeri and Scott Zesch took up the mantle.
What follows are critiques of some of these historians. Below are the authors I critique.
1886 P. S. Dorney(AKA Patrick Sarsfield De Orny)
1894 C. P. Dorland
1916 Harris Newmark
1930 Horace Bell
1960 Paul M. DeFalla
2011 John JohnsonJr.
2012 Scott Zesch
A Prophecy Partly Verified
P. S. Dorney
(Patrick Sarsfield)The Overland Monthly
Devoted to the
Development of the Country
Vol. Vii. (Second
Series.) March, 1886. -- No. 39.
Patrick Sarsfield
Dorney, a shoemaker, was a member of the mob on the night of October
24, 1871. Dorney was identified during the coroner’s inquest by
John Goller and Robert Mulloy. Dorney had been in Robert Mulloy’s
saloon long after the riot ended. He was in possession of a Chinese
man’s queue; one of four that had been cut from the deceased after
the bodies were brought to the Jail yard that night. He waved the
pigtail in Goller’s face and said something to the effect, “If
you don't believe this is China, smell it.” He clearly knew who
Goller was because he also complimented Goller’s business. The
event was published in the Los Angeles Daily News on October 28, as
part of the Coroner’s Inquest. In that paper, he is identified as
P. S. De Orney. Dorney would go on to become a writer for the Los
Angeles Times.
In 1886 he wrote the first history of the Chinese Massacre for the Overland Monthly. Based on his testimony, and the various inaccuracies in his narrative, I suspect Dorney was not present for the early events on the night of October 24. His testimony in 1871 confirms he was present at Tomlinson’s Corral, Goller’s Wagon Shop, and at the Jail Yard where the victim’s bodies were collected.
Dorney attempts to document the events that preceded the shooting affray between the Chinese huiguan (companies). His recollection of events seems to confuse events related to Sing Yu with the abduction of Yut Ho. For starters, he refers to Yut Ho as Quangk Cow. And then states “A rival clan ... spirited Quangk away to Santa Barbara.” [the other company] “utilized the machinery of the courts, and the county of Los Angeles was put to the expense of bringing the woman back to answer a buncombe charge of larceny.” And also “This result created intense excitement among Celestials, and a carriage containing the leader of the successful faction and the disputed woman was surrounded and fired upon in broad daylight and in the heart of Los Angeles, by a band of infuriated highbinders.” These statements describe the October and December 1870 events where Sing Yu was abducted and taken to Ventura, returned on a warrant for larceny, and latter arrested by the Santa Barbara Marshal and taken away in a carriage that was attacked by a mob of Chinese men.
Dorney also tells of two assassins hired to kill Yo Hing: “Hing had been apprised by telegraph of his sentence, and of the coming of his executioners. So accurately had they been described by the 'Frisco friends of Hing, that the latter pointed them out just as they stepped from the San Pedro train, and they were arrested on warrants previously sworn to by the condemned man.” However, this story is almost identical to an incident involving Sing Lee in November of 1870:
Los Angeles Daily News, Volume 2, Number 277, 23 November 1870
CHINESE TROUBLES. -- Yesterday Sing Lee, a "big Tyee" among the Chinese of this city, received a telegram from Petriopolis(sic) [Newhall], warning him that three of his countrymen had been paid to murder him, and that they were here, or would soon arrive, for the purpose of effecting their object. One of the parties supposed to be implicated in the affair, has been arrested and lodged in jail. These murderous longings upon the part of this "docile and tractable" portion of our residents, are presumed to have grown out of a case in Court some weeks since, wherein a Chinese women was concerned.
Los Angeles Daily News, Volume 2, Number 280, 26 November 1870
Lee Fat, a Chinaman, had, it appeared, conspired against the life of Sing Lee, and was bound over in the sum of $500 to keep the peace. This is the party against whom Sing Lee was warned by telegraph, as reported in the News.
Dorney's assasin story is also very similar to the false accusations leveled against members of the Hop Wa company by Yo Hing. Yo Hing thought Hop Wa men were sent from San Francisco to help defend Wong Heng:
Los Angeles Daily News, Volume 3, Number 54, 5 March 1871
INTERESTING TRIAL. -- From 10 A. M. to 4 P. M., yesterday, Justice Gray's Court was thronged with a dense crowd of eager spectators. A trial of great interest was in progress, and the attention of the audience was marked. Messrs. Quong You and Lee Gee, two gentlemen of slightly burnished complexions, had sought the protection of "Melican" law, against Chow Chee and On Hone, who had threatened to kill them outright, or to hire other parties to kill them, after the latest Mongolian style. The case was not finished, and will come up again to-morrow. The cause of the difficulty is, of course, either a woman or some company rivalry. Justice for this class of our fellow citizens is full of delays owing to the culpable want of proficiency of our officers in the Chinese language.
Either way, these events, as described by Dorney, don’t correlate with any primary sources.
Then Dorney’s description of the affray on the afternoon of October 24 (he erroneously states October 28), is described as a battle that lasted for two days between the East and West side of Negro Alley. The situation then evolved after “the police made a raid upon the fighters late on the afternoon of October 28th(sic)”, which in turn led to “the fighters, as one man, united in opposing the police; and, taken wholly by surprise, the "peelers" were routed in a moment.” The police then supposedly “prepared for another charge, and were joined by a few citizens, among whom was Bob Thompson ”where “the police were again routed, leaving behind them officer Bilderrain, desperately wounded, a Spanish boy shot in the foot, and a citizen Thompson withering in the agonies of death.” The generally accepted sequence of events, documented by subsequent historians, describe Thomson arriving only after Bilderrain was shot; Thompson came in response to the police whistle. Thompson was also warned off by Esteban Sanchez and others. He was not part of an organized force.
Dorney’s details of the riot and massacre mostly parallel the recorded events with the exception of a few details and a few misnomers. He names the place where Ah Wing is hanged as General Baldwin's corral, but it was the lumber yard for the Griffin and Lynch Lumber Company; but colloquially known as Thompson’s Corral (after the previous owner). He also states that Ah Wing “was stabbed in the back and side, and was dead as a doorstop before” reaching the makeshift gallows. But Ah Wing was taken from Emil Harris at the Corner of Temple and Main, which was only about 300 feet from the gate of the corral.
He claims, “A man, then and now of standing and influence, dashed into a neighboring store, and presently emerged, shaking aloft the first rope.” Yet his own testimony at the inquest describes the moment J. G. Scott emerges from Burdick’s store with a rope that was handed to shoemaker A. R. Johnson. Scott was a carpenter, and was not then, nor ever, a man of “standing and influence”. The same sequence of events involving the rope was also described by William Widney during testimony two days earlier. So it’s possible that Dorney repeated statements he read in the newspaper.
Dorney describes “Jacques, a Frenchman” who was “armed with a cleaver”, and “Jacques was the fire-fiend of the occasion -- time and again Chinatown was ablaze -- and Jacquez with his cleaver was always found pictured in the glare.” But the only Frenchman with a cleaver was actually a butcher named Andreas Soeur. And the fire-fiend was most likely Jacob C. Cox, who was seen by multiple witnesses throwing a fireball into the Coronel Adobe and then retrieving it.
Dorney describes,
but does not explicitly name, Council member George Fall as “plying
a Henry rifle until excessive labor clogged its mechanism”,
however, during the Coroner’s inquest, George Fall stated, “[I]
never carried a weapon in my life.” Dorney also never mentioned George Fall during his testimony in 1871.
When the Coronel Adobe was finally breached, the mob started on the East end of the block and worked their way towards Los Angeles street. But in Dorney’s story, he seems to suggest the crowd started instead at Los Angeles Street. The corner unit, facing Arcadia Street, was the Doctor Tong’s residence, and was the second to last apartment broken into.
Dorney describes how a man he calls "Dutch Charley," who was a “tinsmith by trade.” killed a man who was being hanged from a Wagon in front of Goller’s shop, because the victim was too tall to be hung from such a short distance. It does not appear that Dorney’s “Dutch Charley” was ever prosecuted. And Dorney does not appear to have mentioned Dutch Charley during his testimony. Other witnesses were questioned during the inquest about a man nicknamed “Dutchy”, but the only man who was identified as being Dutch was most likely Louis Mendell; as the Daily News mentioned “An (sic) man of Dutch descent was also arrested on the charge of breaking open a trunk, and is now in jail.” and Mike Madegan stated: "Frenchy" might be called "Dutchy;" I know him as "Frenchy;" I identify that man (Louis Manuel(sic)) as being the man I know as Frenchy."
Dorney describes one victim as being “not above twelve years of age.” This is a fabricatioin; as the youngest of the victims were described by the Daily Star as “boys of eighteen or nineteen years”.
There is no dispute that Dorney was present during the massacre. His narrative is one of the few first-hand accounts that survives. However, portions of his story are assembled from his recollections of second-hand information, and distorted by fifteen years of time. And his history of the events preceding the massacre only vaguely resemble newspaper accounts. Historians should be careful not to rely on Dorney as their only source.
1886 P. S. Dorney(AKA Patrick Sarsfield De Orny)
1894 C. P. Dorland
1916 Harris Newmark
1930 Horace Bell
1960 Paul M. DeFalla
2011 John JohnsonJr.
2012 Scott Zesch
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