"The Champion Chinese Hose Team of America, who won the great Hub-and-Hub race at Deadwood, Dak., July 4th, 1888." Larger. Also: Deadwood Gallery.

In 1852 the governor of California, in his annual message to the Legislature, proposed curbs on the employment of immigrants from China in the state’s booming gold mines. When the “Chinamen” responded to “His Excellency” with an open letter (in articulate, well-reasoned English, no less), the result was general consternation, followed by support from a number of leading newspapers, and a consequent flurry of articles and editorials.

New-York Times / June 5, 1852

THE CHINESE IN CALIFORNIA.

LETTER OF THE CHINAMEN TO HIS EXCELLENCY, GOV. BIGLER.

San Francisco, Thursday, April 29, 1852.

SIR: -- The Chinamen have learned with sorrow that you have published a letter against them. Although we are Asiatics, some of us have been educated in American schools and have learned your language, which has enabled us to read your message in the newspapers for ourselves, and to explain it to the rest of our countrymen. We have all thought a great deal about it, and, after consultation

New-York Times / June 5, 1852

A very remarkable document, in the shape of an address from the Chinese residents to the Governor of California, may be found in another column. As the first manifesto issued by the Asiatics in America, it will be read with novel interest. The letters and language in which it is couched are fortunately not in Chinese, or we might have to nurse our curiosity. The exceeding naivete, however, of every sentiment and argument, the coolness with which the various points of the message are disposed of; the nice shrewdness of their reasoning, as contrasted with the ill-considered assumptions of that instrument; the

New-York Times / June 9, 1852

China and the Chinese seem to be looming up everyday into additional magnitude and consequence in the eyes of the nations. The edicts that shut them off from all communication with the rest of the world are gradually relaxing. By the exclusion of strangers from their empire they have hitherto remained a secret from mankind. The interior of the Flowery Land was penetrable only in disguise. We were in ignorance of their people, laws, customs and habits, except as the