Railroads and Boomtowns: The Allure of New Frontiers
With the mounting interactions and connections with foreigners through the forced opening of China after the treaties, people in China were attracted by the opportunities abroad. Along with poverty and overpopulation, Chinese people hoped to strike fortunes outside of the Qing Empire.
Nineteenth-century America was characterized by Westward Expansion, Native American displacement, and economic opportunities that would impact Chinese emigration. The ideology of Manifest Destiny that the United States was a country appointed by God to expand its democratic institutions gave justification for Westward Expansion. In 1803, the Louisiana Purchase during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson doubled the nation’s size. The annexation of Texas in 1845 made the United States 28 states in total. The next year, the Oregon Treaty set the border at the 49th parallel. In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, after the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), secured the territories of California, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico.
With the acquisition of new lands, people searched for economic opportunities in the West. The Homestead Act of 1862 incentivized people’s movement to settle in the West by providing 160 acres of land to citizens willing to farm the land for five years. To complement the migration of people and the territorial growth of the United States, transportation experienced a revolution as well. Steamboats were introduced into the Mississippi River, and the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad (1863-1869) was underway. The news of gold and mining for precious metals attracted another wave of migrants.
Regardless of the prospects from Westward Expansion, it was inevitably built upon Native American displacement. President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which removed Native Americans from lands west of the Mississippi River. The infamous Trail of Tears displaced approximately 60,000 Native Americans. Native Americans resisted encroachment from westward expansion during the Plains Wars (1850s-1890s). In 1887, the Dawes Act was passed to attempt the forced assimilation of Native Americans by stripping them of their culture.
Thus, the California Gold Rush (1848-1855) and the Transcontinental Railroad became crucial events that appealed to the Chinese people. Aside from the search for gold and intensive labor on railroads, the boomtowns fueled by the economic growth of the Gold Rush also paved the way for businesses such as restaurants, merchants of Chinese goods, and lasting communities such as San Francisco’s Chinatown.
Besides economic prospects, elite Chinese scholars went abroad in an attempt to reshape China into a new and stronger nation by discovering its weaknesses. An example figure was Yan Fu (严复, 1854-1921). He was one of the most notable translators of Western works into Chinese in his time.
A portrait of Yan Fu (严复).
Image: Portrait of Yan Fu, late 19th century. Photographed/Sourced by Yan Fu. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.