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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 11, 2018)
Page 6C OUTSIDE East Oregonian Saturday, August 11, 2018 Mystery of Chinese mining revealed Archaeologists unearth new clues about miners in Grant County By RICHARD HANNERS EO Media Group As word got out in June 1862 about gold in Whiskey Gulch near Canyon City, 10,000 miners flocked to the high desert area of Eastern Oregon to strike it rich. Chinese miners working in Cal- ifornia and southwest Oregon around Jacksonville soon heard the news and joined the trek. Word also reached Guang- dong province in China, the home of Chinese mining companies that had operated across South- east Asia since 1700. By 1870, according to census records, 42 percent of Grant County’s popu- lation and 69 percent of its min- ers were Chinese. These immigrants shared one thing with Euro-Ameri- cans who flocked to Oregon — a desire to prosper from oppor- tunities offered by the untapped resources of America’s West. But their unfamiliar language, dress, food and other customs posed a hurdle for Chinese min- ers, and as anti-Chinese senti- ment hardened into legislation in the 1880s, the immigrants found themselves forced out of the land of opportunity. The result was a legacy of misunderstandings about the Chinese who helped develop the West in the late 19th century. Contributed photo Chelsea Rose, an archaeologist at Southern Oregon University and co-leader on excavations of several Chinese mining camp sites in the Middle Fork John Day River area dating to the 1870s, sits atop a cooking feature discovered at a former log cabin. Wrong assumptions In a talk at the Canyon City Community Hall on July 20, Chelsea Rose outlined three assumptions about the immigrant Chinese that have been proven wrong through research in his- torical documents and diggings at mining camps. An archaeologist at the South- ern Oregon University Labora- tory of Anthropology, Rose has conducted research in Jackson- ville, home of Oregon’s first Chi- natown, and made two field trips to Guangdong, where most of the miners originated. The first assumption, she said, is that Chinese miners were des- perate landless peasants who fled China to escape famine and war. In fact, Chinese mining compa- nies had effective managers and skilled laborers, and most Chi- nese immigrants were educated and came from families above the poverty line. A second assumption is that the Chinese only reworked claims abandoned by Euro-American miners, she said. The Chinese purchased or leased claims from Euro-Americans, but they greatly enlarged the mines and adapted a wide range of mining techniques to fit specific placer deposits. The third assumption is that the Chinese mostly worked for Euro-American companies, but most Chinese immigrants worked for Chinese companies that not only mined but also owned stores, gambling halls, laundries, restaurants and hotels, she said. Photo by Richard Hanners/EO Media Group Photo by Richard Hanners/EO Media Group Artifacts found at Chinese mining sites include, from left, a five- piece pan missing its bottom and a homemade hydraulic nozzle and, far right, a shovel that’s been cut off to suit Chinese-style of digging. A fragment from a ceramic bowl used by Chinese miners at a camp in the Middle Fork area of the Malheur National Forest. shovel heads, remains of five- piece gold pans, handmade per- forated metal pieces used to repair grizzly sluices and a trig- ger mechanism from a percus- sion cap rifle. The miners often repurposed metal for other uses. A piece of steel chiseled off a railroad track was likely used by a met- al-worker as an anvil, Hann said. Handmade nozzles for hydrau- lic mining were made from metal pieces riveted together, he said. While the cabins’ logs disap- peared over time, dry-stacked rock cooking features remained. Buried in the soil and debris nearby were bones from sheep, pig and chickens — but no beef, Hann noted. Early success Digging for facts Much of the evidence sup- porting Rose comes from archae- ological digs at mining sites around the southern Blue Moun- tains. Their locations were dis- covered in historical records at the Grant County Courthouse or the Kam Wah Chung State Heri- tage Site or during onsite inspec- tions ahead of timber sales. Malheur National Forest archaeologist Don Hann walked the timber sale sites and flagged critical locations to protect them from heavy equipment. Nine cabin sites associated with Chi- nese mining have been located in the Middle Fork John Day River area. In 2016, the Malheur For- est partnered with SOULA, Kam Wah Chung and the Grant County Historical Museum to support the study, protection and interpretation of these cultural resources. Rose and Hann co-di- rected the project. Recently 19 volunteers donated 660 hours to work with the archaeologists in the first phase of the project, which involved site clearing, surface artifact identification, metal detector surveying, feature map- ping and test excavations. Historic finds Despite signs of looting at Photo by Richard Hanners/EO Media Group Malheur National Forest archaeologist Don Hann uses a metal detector at a Chinese mining camp in the Middle Fork area. The pink flags indicate earlier detects. some sites, numerous artifacts were found with links to China, including ceramic potsherds, brown-glazed stoneware, frag- ments of Chinese Winter Green porcelain and pieces of glass bottles. The artifacts came from cups and dishes used for dining but also liquor bottles and opium containers. The stamped seal on one con- tainer was identified as the brand of the Sheung Wan Fook Lung company, a Hong Kong opium producer. The design is among the first internationally recog- nized brands in the history of Asia. Opium was outlawed in the U.S. in 1909. The archaeologists also found rubber boots with hobnailed soles used by the miners in the cold mountain streams. Metal items discovered at the cabin sites included cast-iron cook- ing pan fragments, vegetable oil cans, Chinese-style cut-off Researchers are unsure when the Chinese first came to Grant County, but commerce between the West Coast and China existed before the early gold strikes, Rose said. The earliest record of a Chi- nese-owned placer-mining claim belongs to the Ah Yee site in the Middle Fork, recorded in an 1867 mining sales agreement found in the Grant County Courthouse. Chinese mining activity bal- looned after that. By 1870, according to federal mining reports, about 82 percent of placer claims in Grant County were owned by Chinese companies. The government found it diffi- cult to assess the gold yield from Chinese miners as they were reluctant to talk. While the Chi- nese reported about $126,000 in gold production in 1870, federal agents suspected it was twice that amount, equivalent to $4.5 mil- lion today. Chinese mining companies in Grant County were set up in a similar fashion to the kongsi business partnerships found in China. Partners were not paid a wage but earned a share of the profits based on their level of contribution and their expertise. The miners sent their earnings back to China where it helped finance community centers, libraries and family homes.