SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES.
During the incumbency of a certain Mayor of San Francisco a surprising
condition of things was brought into existence. There was a large
tract of land in the heart of Chinatown owned by an American family,
relatives, it is declared, of said Mayor, the passages entering
which were deliberately blocked by gates, so as to stop all entrance
excepting to patrons of the place. This section lay between Dupont
and Stockton, Jackson and Pacific streets, and included within its
enclosure Baker and New World alleys, connecting Dupont street with
Sullivan Place, which divided this tract in two. Gates were erected at
the entrance of the two alleys on Dupont street, and two gates blocked
the entrance to Sullivan Place, at the end opening upon Pacific
street. Within this region, both above and below ground, were housed
numbers of Chinese slave girls, particularly in Baker alley, where, it
is said, were placed the young girls of tender years, generally about
fifteen years old, when first brought over the water, or when first
initiated into brothel slavery, having served their apprenticeship
as domestic slaves. We are informed that fully seven-tenths of the
domestic slave girls found in Chinese homes in America--and every
well-to-do Chinese family (except Christians) keeps at least one or
two slaves--end their lives in immorality. Some of them when they
become old enough are seized by their masters as concubines, others
are sent to the brothels. Reports of conditions at Hong Kong which we
have already quoted, speak of the special celebration of the entrance
of a virgin into prostitution, and the high prices paid by patrons for
this initiation, but leave it obscure as to the nationality of the men
who initiate girls into the life of a brothel slave. But Chinese in
San Francisco do not hesitate to make the charge that Chinamen recoil,
through moral sense or superstition, from deflowering a virgin, and
that this horrible privilege is purchased at a special price by the
white, not the yellow patrons of Chinese houses of ill-fame. Baker
alley has probably been the scene of more terrible brutality of this
sort than any other part of San Francisco. Before the rubbish was
cleared away, in the oasis of a broad desert of ashes in the burned
city, we visited this region, and found carpenters busy at the work
of reconstructing brothels. The slave pen was existent again, and we
entered the gateway leading to it and gazed upon the rapidly growing
structures within. Two white men of a class called "Watch-dogs," in
the days before the fire, occupied a sort of look-out and kept guard,
more especially upon the entrance to Baker alley. This region,
so largely of American manufacture, like other sections of San
Francisco's Chinatown, was displayed, by means of Chinatown guides for
pay to tourists, who were led to believe that they were looking upon
_Chinese_ views of life. The truth is, as we have shown in previous
chapters, a display of vice is practically unknown in regions of China
uninfluenced by Western civilization. Almost any wicked man, any
tourist who would pay well, man or woman, could enter this place.
The "Watch-dogs" were kept merely to prevent the entrance of mission
workers to rescue slaves, and these "Watch-dogs" were, and always are,
American, or, at least European men, not Chinese.
There were more "Watch-dogs" than those about Sullivan Place, before
the earthquake in San Francisco,--they were to be found in many
parts, always for the one purpose,--to resist interference with the
enforcement of brothel slavery upon Chinese women. American men
undertook this part of the business, because a certain timidity in
the Chinese character when dealing with American women, and a fear of
arousing race-prejudice, unfitted the Chinaman for coping with the
American women,--Miss Culbertson, the pioneer, now sainted, Miss Lake,
Miss Cameron and Miss Davis, who have fought their brave battles for
many years, to deliver the captives from the hand of the spoilers,
often at the risk of life, unaided for the most part, unappreciated
and unsympathized with, by a guiltily ignorant Christian public, and
too often persecuted by corrupt officials. Yet they have never stood
alone, but have always had the presence of their Master, and the
sympathetic co-operation of a few ardent supporters,--Christian women,
lawyers, magistrates, and other officials.
One of the "Watch-dogs" struck Miss Lake on one occasion. On another,
a "Watch-dog" went boldly up to two policemen to whom a fugitive slave
had appealed for help, seized his prey, and without resistance from
the policemen, carried her bodily back to slavery along the public
street, in view of many spectators. At another time several of them
rushed in upon a scene of rescue, overcame the police officer, and
hurled him down stairs, dealt in the same manner with some men in
the rescue party, and then turned upon the missionary and would have
subjected her to the same treatment. She said firmly: "Do not lay a
hand upon me! I will go out by myself," and overawed, they allowed
her to walk out untouched through their midst into fresh air and to
safety. It is hardly necessary to add that the missionary did not, on
this occasion, get the poor slave.
We have already said, but it bears repeating, that white men as well
as Chinese, resort to these slaves. One rescued girl told of another
captive, bound by night to her bed and to her unwilling task. Think of
the education of the youths of San Francisco in such schools of vice
as this,--what a menace they must necessarily become to the women of
their own family and acquaintance! A young woman managed to get a
request for help sent to a rescue worker. The missionary responded
by a carefully arranged plot for the identification of the girl. It
included the understanding that when the rescuer with the officer
should enter the place, she was to have in her hands, and to raise
to her lips a handkerchief which the missionary had managed to get
conveyed to her. They entered, saw her with the handkerchief held
to her face, at the little soliciting window, but the poor girl had
endured so much that at the sight of friends she lost her nerve and
presence of mind, fluttered her handkerchief, and cried out, "Oh,
teacher!" Alas! a locked door still separated her from her rescuers,
and the plot was exposed. She was dragged back, and became lost to the
rescue party. Other girls who escaped from the den afterwards told of
the rest of the scene. Kick upon kick fell upon her poor little body,
and the enraged owner of the brothel never ceased until she was dead
and mashed almost to a jelly before the eyes of the other inmates, to
teach them a lesson of warning against trying to escape. Let us not
mourn. It was better so than to have been left alive unrescued. The
pity is that the keepers and the "Watch-dogs" hold them alive to their
task as long as they do. The angels of heaven, God's rescue party, are
not far off from such victims, nor His angels of wrath and vengeance
from such inhuman fiends. We wonder how many of the little slaves were
lifted up into a better life than this by the merciful earthquake; and
how many of their masters and outragers saw hell gape and themselves
swallowed up in the horrible earthquake,--God's deliverance or God's
judgment,--according to the character of the individual.
When the missionary enters a den, and by means of some carefully
devised scheme identifies the girl who has had conveyed to the
missionary her desire to be rescued, and attempts to take the girl,
she often screams for help, kicks, fights, bites, scratches, spits,
and sometimes swears at her liberator, but often is secretly clutching
with almost a death-grip the rescuer's hand. She will sometimes fight
at being thrust through the doorway into the street, calling lustily
for help, but whisper to the missionary, "Tell the officer to carry
me out." When once, in spite of the feigned struggle, she is carried
outside, and her pursuers are well behind in the chase, the ruse is
cast aside, and it becomes a race for dear life between the rescuer
and the rescued to make the city of refuge,--the mission home,--and
generally the fugitive gets there first. Once a rescue worker found
her girl secreted with four others in a loft, to which she had been
removed because the brothel-keeper feared an attempt at rescue. She
was so carefully guarded and watched that the poor thing dared not
signify to the missionary that she was the one who wished to be taken,
and all five struggled with equal apparent fierceness against rescue.
What was the missionary to do! She lifted her heart in the despairing
cry, "Oh, God, if ever you heard a human prayer and answered it, for
Christ's sake hear me now! Tell me which one to take!" She instantly
seized one of them, who fought savagely, and bit and scratched and
swore. Out she went with her, and all the way to the mission the girl
abused her terribly. But the instant the door closed behind them and
they were safe inside the home, she fell to the floor, seized her
deliverer's feet and bathed them with her tears, crying bitterly as
she said: "Oh, forgive me, forgive me! You know I did not mean it,
but it was the only way to do to be safe." God had guided aright. No
mistake had been made in the choice. Do you believe God did that,
reader? Try such heroic work for yourself, and you will find
a miracle-working God who seldom reveals His identity to the
self-indulgent. That rescued girl has turned out to be a wonder of
grace and of natural gifts, and is pursuing a professional career now,
after fine opportunities in training. It is worth while to save such
material, even from a slave-pen; such as she enrich the community in
which they live.
This slave-trade could not go on between Hong Kong and the United
States but for the white men who are in it, one way or another. White
lawyers defend the traffickers in court, and secure the return of
slaves by writ of habeas corpus, or by means of false accusations of
various sorts, such as of stealing. It is significant that, with rare
exceptions, the policemen seem not to have been trusted with definite
information as to the place about to be searched or raided, when told
off to accompany a rescue party, lest word be sent ahead, allowing a
chance to spirit away the girl for whom search is instituted. American
men are said to go all the way to Hong Kong to get girls and smuggle
them into the country, as better able to cope with the strict
immigration laws than Chinese. Sometimes they go a long way around to
get a girl into San Francisco,--by Victoria, B.C., through Mexico
and El Paso (Texas), and by other routes. But the price paid for the
slaves assures a good profit to the traders. Since the laws against
Chinese immigration became more stringent, the market price of these
slaves has risen to three thousand dollars, while the more beautiful
ones bring a much higher price. Judges, lawyers, seafaring men,
hirelings of the Immigration Bureau, Chinatown guides, "Watch-dogs,"
officials and policemen, have all been accused of having imbrued their
hands at different times in the slaughter of the virtue of Chinese
women through this wretched slave business, besides the white patrons
of the Chinese slave-pens. But probably none are so guilty of
complicity as the property-owners, who build the places for housing
the slaves, and make enormous profits in the business.
There seems to be a misapprehension as to the status of these Chinese
prostitutes, to which the mind recurs again and again, in spite of
careful explanations. Some imagine that only those who are rescued,
or at least those who have managed to convey word to the missionaries
that they desire to be rescued, are the literal slaves, and that those
left behind are free. Such is not the case. We have already shown that
nearly all the Chinese prostitutes at Singapore and at Hong Kong are
literal slaves, the only exception being, in fact, a small percentage
(estimated at 10 per cent by the Chinese merchants at Hong Kong),
composed almost entirely of women who have mortgaged their own bodies,
or who have been thus mortgaged by relatives, for a limited time
in payment for a debt, and who, at the end of the stated time, are
generally set free, though sometimes they find themselves in a trap
from which there is no escape. It is through the misfortune of debt,
and in countries where Chinese women are cheap, that this mortgaging
of the person takes place. Such conditions do not surround Chinese
women in America, so that this form of service in houses of ill-fame
must be correspondingly rare, and this is according to the testimony
of the missionaries. For this reason, therefore, we may rule out the
temporary servitude, and assert without fear of contradiction from
those who understand the situation, that practically all the Chinese
prostitutes in the United States are literal slaves. Some are
_willing_ slaves, some _unwilling_; and a small fraction of the
unwilling slaves have managed by stroke of good fortune, and because
of unusual courage, to get a request conveyed to a mission, and thus
in some instances they have secured their freedom. But not all who
have appealed for help have been rescued, for they cannot always be
found upon search, and often, when they have been found and their
cases brought up in court, they have been again consigned to the care
of their former owners because courage has failed, and they have
refused in open court to acknowledge that they wished to go free.
One girl who desired to escape fell under suspicion, and her master
decided to remove her to Watsonville, and so defeat her rescue. At the
San Francisco Ferry Station she made a dash for liberty, pursued by
the two men who had her in charge, and ran to a policeman, handing him
a crumpled piece of paper, which proved to be a note that a missionary
had placed in her hand when she landed in America. The officer could
not read the note, in its old and crumpled condition, but divining its
nature he hailed a cab and drove with the girl straight to the mission
door, where she was welcomed.
There were at least five hundred Chinese brothel slaves in San
Francisco before its destruction, and none in Oakland up to that time.
Since the calamity, there have been many in Oakland. They have been
estimated at as high a figure as 300, and must have numbered until
quite recently at least 150. The frontispiece represents a structure
erected for their housing. This building is three stories high, and
occupies every foot of one-half square. It contains more than 600
rooms, and is built throughout of rough boards, one inch thick, on
flimsy beams and studding. It is unlathed and unplastered, a veritable
fire-trap, within four blocks of the County Court House. It could
never have passed inspection had it been erected for _decent_
purposes. When the photograph was taken the building was not
completed. A row of shops has been added at the left, over which is a
large Chinese theatre. A respectable Chinese man of literary pursuits
informed us that the theatre was "to attract custom there." A very
broad stairway, scarcely less imposing than the front entrance to the
theatre, leads down into the alley, and to the brothel. The seats for
women in the theatre are reached by a special door leading to this
alley. The heart of this building is approached through "Washington
Place," an alley, at the entrance of which one encounters a sign, "No
White Men Admitted Here, Only Chinese." This notice, which has been
put up at the entrance of Oriental brothels in Chinatown, has been
ordered by the Chief of Police, it is claimed, to prohibit Americans
associating with Orientals in vice, so as to prevent demoralization
and race quarrels. We do not dispute the motive, but the _effect_
is, that those who would work for the rescue of slaves are kept at a
distance, and no one who is likely to make a complaint against abuses
and law-breaking can approach the place without permission from
the police, which gives ample opportunity for getting everything
objectionable out of sight. As far as prevention of the commingling
of the different races is concerned, that may be hindered at certain
points, but American men are on the inside track here, as to making
money through these slaves. The building has been erected and is
owned by Americans, and one man of European name is a partner in the
immediate management of the place. On our first visit to this building
we were informed on reliable information that there were 125 Japanese
and over 50 Chinese girls in the place, and 100 more were expected to
arrive within a few days. Besides these, there are also Chinese slaves
in almost every Chinese settlement throughout the United States. In
California, they are to be found largely at San Francisco, Oakland,
Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno, Bakersfield, San Jose, Watsonville,
Monterey and Los Angeles. Willing or unwilling, the Chinese prostitute
is none the less a slave, bought and sold at pleasure from one to
another, earning wealth for others and never for herself. Recently,
three girls who were taken from a den in San Francisco, declared that
they had been sold for three thousand dollars apiece to the keeper,
and that they were flogged when their earnings for the keeper fell
below three hundred dollars each a month. If the prostitute were not
willing to be a slave, that would not procure her liberty,--it would
only procure her more abuse than the willing slave. On the ship
coming over, the slaves are well drilled in their task on arrival, of
swearing themselves into slavery, and well threatened if they dare
to disobey. Then they are packed with stories as to the terrible
character of Americans, particularly the rescue workers. One Chinese
girl concluded she would take all the abuse of the rescue home rather
than forego a chance for liberty, though she knew of no reason to
disbelieve the fearful warnings she had received. On the first night
of her arrival she did not undress nor go to bed when the other girls
retired. Someone found her standing about, and asked her why she
was not off for bed. She replied pathetically: "I am waiting for my
beating." She had been informed that it was in that fashion all the
girls were put to bed each night. At a very conservative estimate,
there are not less than one thousand Chinese brothel slaves in
California alone, besides those in the Chinese settlements all over
the United States. When children are born to Chinese prostitutes, they
are seized by the brothel keepers as their own property, the girls
being sold into domestic slavery to be passed on into brothel
slavery at the age of about 15, and the boy babies sold for a good
price--several hundred dollars--to become "adopted" sons. Very many
Chinese men of the United States secure their wives by purchase from
brothels, and as a consequence often have no children by them, hence
the high value of a child who can be purchased for a son. The real
wife and family of the Chinese man generally remain in China, the
matrimonial relations of the man in America being wholly spurious.
This admixture of the brothel element with all Chinese home life in
the United States makes this country very undesirable as a residence
for virtuous Chinese women, and largely discourages the immigration of
respectable Chinese wives, whose presence with their husbands might
greatly tend to the uplifting of the entire Chinese community.
There are probably as many domestic slaves as brothel slaves among the
Chinese of the United States. Every well-to-do heathen Chinese family
keeps a slave or two, and the rich Chinese keep a large number.
Polygamy is practiced, as at Hong Kong, to a larger extent than
prevails generally in China, and it is not uncommon to find a Chinese
in California with from five to seven concubines. The Chinese man
in the United States takes his domestic slave, if he wishes, for a
concubine, or sells his concubines into brothel slavery, if displeased
with them, or wishing to raise a sum of money. It is a burning
disgrace to the United States that this polygamy is not stamped out.
In one case related to us, a girl was taken from a rescue home by a
writ of habeas corpus, and returned by the judge to her position as
second wife of a Chinaman.
During President Hayes' administration, Mr. D.H. Bailey, United States
Consul-General at Shanghai, sent a message to him relating to Chinese
slavery, and the menace to our country from it. He enclosed in his
communication a translation of the Chinese laws relating to slavery,
which is permitted under certain restrictions in that country. Nothing
could exceed their stringency at the point of any resistance on the
part of the slave to the condition of servitude. From that set of laws
we quote the following:
"If a female slave deserts her master's house she shall be
punished with 80 blows." ... "Whosoever harbours a fugitive wife
or slave, knowing them to be fugitives, shall participate equally
in their punishment." ... "A slave guilty of addressing abusive
language to his master shall suffer death by being strangled....
If to his master's relations in the first degree he shall be
punished with 80 blows and two years' banishment. If to his
master's relations in the second degree, the punishment shall
be 80 blows. If in the third degree, 70 blows. If in the fourth
degree, 60 blows." "The master or the relations of a master of a
guilty slave may ... chastise such slave in any degree short of
death, without being liable to punishment. Nevertheless, if
a master or his aforesaid relations, in order to correct a
disobedient slave or hired servant, should chastise him in a
lawful manner on the back of the thighs or on the posteriors, and
such slave or hired servant should happen to die, or if he is
killed in any other manner accidentally, neither the master nor
his aforesaid relations shall be liable to any punishment in
consequence thereof."
"All slaves who are guilty of designedly striking their masters
shall, without making any distinctions between principals and
accessories, be beheaded.
"All slaves designedly killing their masters, or designedly
striking so as to kill their masters, shall suffer death by a slow
and painful execution.
"If accidentally killing their masters, they shall suffer death by
being strangled.
"If accidentally wounding, they shall suffer 100 blows and
perpetual banishment to the distance of 3,000 li (1,000 miles).
"Slaves who are guilty of striking their master's relations in the
first degree ... shall be strangled.... All slaves who strike so
as to wound such persons shall ... be beheaded."
The "painful execution" which is the penalty of killing a master,
means execution by slicing the criminal into 10,000 cuts. Foreigners
who have witnessed it say it is too horrible to recite.
It is under such slave laws as these that the young girl is trained
as a brothel slave before she is brought to California. After such
tuition, it seems hardly credible that girls do, in San Francisco,
dare to escape from their masters, and flee to the missions for
protection. Governor C.C. Smith, who was for years the Registrar
General of Hong Kong, previous to being knighted and sent to Singapore
as Governor of the Straits Settlements, replied to the Secretary of
State for the Colonies, in reference to the freedom of prostitutes,
"out of an experience of over a quarter of a century":
"There are no restrictive regulations on the part of the
Government which go to prevent or interfere with the entire
freedom of the inmates of brothels, and they can go abroad alone.
This statement will not, I hope, deceive you into believing that
as a consequence they are really free agents ... such is actually
not the case. A child who strikes its parent is liable to a death
sentence. The girls in brothels are in the position of daughters
to the keepers, and ... call them mother. There is no sense of
freedom, as we understand the term, possible in such a state of
affairs. The women are fearful of the unknown; of what should
happen to them if they should disobey their pocket-mothers, and
are terribly ignorant of everything connected with the Government
under which they nominally live. It is out of the question to
educate them up to the English standard of liberty of the subject.
They stay but a few short years in an English Colony, seeing
nothing but the worst phases of a life of vice and immorality, and
only know of the officers of Government as 'foreign devils' or
'barbarians'."
This is all only too true as regards California also, excepting that
the experiment of educating them by just treatment in the "English
standard of the liberty of the subject," has certainly never been
tried either in Singapore or America. The brothel keepers, however,
have learned to understand that matter of "liberty of the subject"
only too well, and take advantage of the habeas corpus act at every
turn to capture a slave who is trying to escape their clutches.
These words of Governor Smith should be borne in mind and brought to
attention every time our law officers in California put brothel girls
through the farce of asking them if they are desirous of liberty, and
when they say no, proclaim triumphantly to the world that "there isn't
a slave girl in Chinatown." These officers deceive others by these
falsehoods, but they know too well the conditions to be themselves
deceived.
When certain Chinese girls appeared before a committee appointed to
investigate conditions at San Francisco, the members of the committee
were put under promise not to divulge their names or stories, as
"their lives would not be safe for five years to come," if the
brothel-keepers and their former owners knew that they had informed
against them. It is a little difficult to describe the various secret
societies of Chinatown in full, but for practical purposes and as
relates to the welfare of Chinese women, it may be said that the
secret society, or tong, is a sort of mutual benefit society and has
generally a very commendable sort of name; but it exists to divide the
profits of the trade in women, among other villainies. When anyone
gives any evidence against such a society, or informs a rescue worker
where a girl will be found who desires her liberty, then some one from
the tong that has a special interest in the profits of that girl's
slavery, deposits a sum of money in a place mutually arranged for, and
the highbinder society undertakes for the sum paid to see that the
informer is assassinated within twenty-four hours. That is the length
of time usually claimed for the act. But sometimes years may pass
before the marked victim can be traced and killed.
We will next give a few cases from the records of the Presbyterian and
Methodist Mission Rescue Homes of San Francisco, which will clearly
show the similarity between the state of affairs in Hong Kong and
California.