Wong Chin Foo

Class Date: October 15th

Location: Your couch! See your weekly e-mail for Zoom link!

This week we’re talking about the life and activism of Wong Chin Foo, one of the first naturalized Chinese American citizens. We’ll be exploring the Chinese immigrant experience, primarily in California, as that is where our story takes place. Before that, let’s look at some background of the time:

• 1769 - Father Junipero Serra establishes the first mission in California

The Spanish were eager to begin settling what they named ‘Alta California’ and convert the Natives to Christianity. Russian and English explorers had continued to make contact in California and Spain was eager to stake a more decisive claim on the area. 

Though the California mission period has long been romanticized in California history, many have sought in recent decades to tell a more balanced story of the time period.

• 1803 - Louisiana Purchase

President Thomas Jefferson completes the Louisiana Purchase from the French, doubling the size of the United States. The treaty was vague and Jefferson and others weren’t quite sure if the Constitution allowed him to make such a purchase, but Congress eventually ratified the treaty and the sale. 

• 1805 - Lewis and Clark reach the Pacific

After 2 years of struggling across harsh and unforgiving terrain, the Lewis and Clark expedition reached the Pacific coast near present-day Astoria, Oregon. Along the way, the group swelled with ranks with Shoshone-born Sacagawea, who joined the expedition with her husband, a French-Canadian fur trapper. Though pregnant, Sacagawea traveled with the group and interpreted when necessary. Her son, whom she named Jean Baptiste, was born along the way before they reached the Pacific. 

• 1819 - Transcontinental Treaty with Spain

Also known by some (historians, at least) as the Adams-Onis Treaty. The treaty ceded what are now Florida and Oregon to the United States. In return, the United States recognized Spanish sovereignty in the area of Texas. 

• 1821 - Mexican Independence

The California region had been ruled by Spain from afar, largely through the presidio and mission system. Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, gaining control over formerly Spanish territory, including the California region.

• 1823 - Monroe Doctrine announced

President Monroe establishes his Doctrine, declaring that America would remain neutral in future European wars. The Doctrine also denounced European intervention anywhere in the Americas. 

• 1827 - Treaty of Limits is ratified by the U.S. Senate

The treaty establishes the Sabine River as the official border between Mexico and the United States, per the agreement laid out in the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819. 

• 1829 - The Smithsonian Institution is established

British scientist James Smithson, though he never stepped foot in America, willed 100,000 pounds (or $500,000) to the United States for the establishment of an Institution dedicated to exploration and science. The Smithsonian would be officially established with an act of Congress in 1846 and the first building completed in 1855. The Smithsonian is now commonly known as “America’s Attic) and includes 19 museums, a National Zoo, and more than 142 million items. 

• 1830 - Indian Removal Act

President Andrew Jackson signed the Act to move Native Americans off their land and west. It was the first major departure from recognizing the sovereignty of Native peoples by the United States government. The Act allowed the government to remove Native people and put them on lands further west that white men did not want to settle. A number of routes for removal were established, but the forced resettlement is collectively known as the Trail of Tears. The tribes in the Southeastern United States were particularly reluctant to be removed from their established farms, homes, schools, and trade. Known as the ‘Five Civilized Tribes’, the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole, Cherokee, and Creek refused to leave and were forcibly removed. The Cherokee removal is most often associated with the Trail of Tears, and as many as 25% of the roughly 100,000 people who were forcibly marched west perished along the way. 

• 1841 - The first wagon train heads for California

On May 1st, the wagon train departed from Independence, Missouri with 69 adults and several children. John Bidwell led 32 people and 9 wagons as they broke off from the main group in Idaho to head into uncharted territory bound for California. Bidwell logged details of the trip in his journal which would later serve as a guide for future wagon trains. Bidwell also later worked for John Sutter and delivered the news of a discovery of gold at Sutter’s mill. 

• 1846 - Elias Howe creates the the sewing machine

Prior to the 1840s a few different inventors had worked on machines meant to replicate the movement done by people to sew. Sewing and mending clothes by hand is a time-intensive and laborious process. The first major patent was filed by Elias Howe in Massachusetts. By 1860, more than 110,000 sewing machines were produced in the United States.

• 1845 - The term ‘Manifest Destiny’ is first used

Magazine editor John L. O’Sullivan is the first known person to use the term to describe what many Americans felt was their destiny to occupy the land from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. A great many Americans felt that dominating and owning the land was a particularly American right, regardless of who might be living there already. O’Sullivan used the idea to argue in favor of the annexation of Texas. (Texas was admitted to the Union in December of that year.)

• 1870 - Congress grants citizenship to “aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent”

The 14th Amendment granted birthright citizenship to all those born in the United States, but did not extend to those already here. in an Act of Congress, they extended citizenship to African Americans, but not other non-white persons, effectively excluding Asian immigrants from naturalized citizenship avenues.

That’s where our timeline leaves us for the week. Tune in to learn more about the man who became one of the first Chinese Americans and his fight for civil rights!

To read more about this period, here are some great books to get you started:

For Kids:

For Adults:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Newcomen

https://www.historycrunch.com/flying-shuttle-invention-in-the-industrial-revolution.html#/

https://www.britannica.com/technology/sewing-machine

https://www.softschools.com/timelines/industrial_revolution_timeline/40/

https://www.britannica.com/place/California-state/History

https://cal170.library.ca.gov/november-4-1841-first-wagon-train-arrives/

https://americasbesthistory.com/abhtimeline1810.html