Chinese arrived in Tehama County in the early days of mining to the north, and by 1890 there were 892 of them--more than eigh percent of the population. But now there are only haunting relics left behind to remind us of their brief presence.

When the first Chinese came to California in 1852 they were looked upon with curiosity and interest, but then sentiment grew that they were displacing white laborers. By the time they were coming into Tehama County on the riverboats in increasing numbers they were no longer accepted by the white population, and were forced to stay forward in the "China hold." Many of the Chinese who came up the river were hoping to make a quick fortune in the mines of the neighboring areas to the north and then return to China. Some tried their hand at mining in the China Chutes above Red Bluff. But then a lot of them drifted into other occupations."

By 1860, there were as many as 104 Chinese in Tehama County. Most were employed as cooks or washmen in the Red Bluff area. Others were employed as doctors, laborers, merchants, and twelve had no listed occupation. Most of them were young men.

In the ten years between 1860 and 1870 the Chinese population more than doubled to 294, more than eight percent of the population in Tehama County. During the ten-year interim, however, the majority of the Chinese population had shifted from Red Bluff Township to Tehama Township. They were mainly employed as laborers in the orchards, fields, and gardens for the local white ranchers. But it is reported that the Chinese operated nine of their own market gardens in 1870. Many Chinese made a considerable profit raising peanuts in poor soil.

Between 1870 and 1890 the Chinese population again doubled, from 294 to 774 persons, and they still represented more than eight percent of the total population of Tehama County. The location of the largest group shifted back to Red Bluff, with 291 persons. There were 237 Chinese in and around Tehama and 167 in Vina.

The occupations of the Chinese were diversified. They first came for mining, then were laborers for the railroads and ranches. The Central Pacific Railroad employed many Chinese to lay track on its transcontinental line. Large logging and lumber companies, like the Sierra Flume and Lumber COmpany in Red Bluff, employed them to grade and stack lumber for shipment. On the large ranches like the COne Ranch and Leland Stanford's Vina Ranch they were employed in large numbers.

Laundrymen soon found competition in the Chinese, who developed a way to wash clothes without shrinking them. This enabled them to corner the market on washing ladies' fine clothes. They worked for little and did fine work.

As their population grew they became more independent and were able to fulfill all the needs of their own communities or "Chinatowns." They became barbers, accountants, bookkeepers, butchers, chairmakers, wood choppers, dishwashers, doctors, gamblers, hotel keepers, merchants, peddlers, lumber stackers, servants, grocers, storeclerks, store keepers, and tailors. The women were employed as dressmakers, prostitutes, or were married and kept their own homes. But most of the Chinese were still employed as laborers (291), gardeners (185), or cooks (164).

In Red Bluff, the Chinese concentrated in what became known as Red Bluff's Chinatown. Chinatown was in two blocks along High Street, now Rio Street, above the Sacramento River. Old cabins there were leased from white owners.

Chinatown became the center of much curiosity for the citizens of Red Bluff. Stories of murders, gambling, opium-smoking, underground tunnels, secret tribunals, and illegal Chinese slaves were frequently printed in the local newspapers.

A few Chinese lived across the river from Chinatown on the grounds of the Sierra Flume and Lumber Company, where they were employed as laborers at the mill.

The tunnels under Chinatown were used for various purposes, including smoking opium and burning incense. Imposing iron doors were set at intervals. The true purpose of the tunnels has most likely been exaggerated. It is likely that they were most often used for escaping Red Bluff's summer heat.

By no means did all of the Chinese smoke opium; they considered it immoral.

Opium smoking kept the Chinese at peace, though. If denied their opium it is likely that they might have rebelled against the treatment they received. The opium had to be smuggled in by Chinese immigrants. The ritual smoking was to produce good dreams for the user. It is believed that they did most of their smoking in the tunnels. Small bunks were placed there for the smokers to lie on so they would not fall down and injure themselves. The opium usually came in the form of a small pill that was heated and placed in the bowl of the pipe. The vaporized opium could then be inhaled.

The diversity in opium pipes is amazing. They came in various sizes and were made from various materials. Some of the pipes were made of jade, but most were made of bamboo. They were often adorned with pewter, leather, ivory, or jewels. The pipes ranged in size from six inches to nearly two feet in length.

Chinatown was a favorite location for Chinese and white gamblers. When the Chinese wanted to start a game, they began a queer chant to signal others. Only at time such as these did the Chinese and whites interact on a social level.

Chinese believed that labor was honorable, and they were excellent workers for almost no pay or benefits. They watered trees by hand with large wooden tubs on the orchards in Tehama County. The Cone Ranch east of Red Bluff employed a number of Chinese. They constructed miles of stone walls there, carrying the rocks in yoked wicker baskets or in wooden cradles with long handles. The cradles required as many as eight Chinese. The stones were individually hand-fitted without the use of any kind of mortar. For the construction the Chinese were paid fifteen cents a rod (16 1/2 feet) of completed wall. These walls are standing today virtually intact. Chinese rock walls can be found in many parts of Tehama County.

The private gardens that were owned or leased and operated by the Chinese were a wonder to the people in the area. One Chinese market garden in the Deer Creek area produced $75,000 worth of dried fruit annually. This garden was considered to have been cultivated in very slipshod and imperfect manner by the local whites. It is estimated that in 1885 the Chinese were leasing at least 3,000 acres. The leases often provided a source of violence between rival groups of Chinese gardeners. The Chinese rarely owned the land that they cultivated.

A group fo Chinese in the north end of town along the railroad tracks formed Vina's Chinatown. Some Chinese in the Vina area were employed in Leland Stanford's vineyards. They tended vines, picked and packed grapes, and worked in the winery. There was also a Chinese store selling groceries, clothing, medicine, and "China goods" on the Stanford property.

Some Chinese were not "employeed" officially. They gleaned a living in semi-honest or dishonest manners. Some purchased new 20-dollar gold pieces from the bank and placed them in a sack. When they shook the sack vigorously, a small amount of gold was worn off. They would trade the coins at the bank and sell the gold. Others used small drills to remove a small amount of gold from the rim of the coin. They would fill the holes with a metal of almost equal weight to prevent detection. The majority of the "unemployed" Chinese were occupied at gambling, selling opium, or dealing in illegal Chinese slaves. A small portion of the remaining "unemployed" men were theives.

In Sierra and Cascade Townships a number of Chinese were employed as cooks and laborers in the 1880's. They graded and stacked lumber before sending it down the flume to Red Bluff. They had their own quarters known as "China Camp," and they kept to themselves except at payday, when they gambled with the white lumbermen.

In is reported that they also had their own graveyard at Lyonsville, although sometimes the dead and injured were shipped on rafts down the flume to Red Bluff. THe dead were buried in the Chinese graveyard at Oak Hill Cemetery or sent back to China.

The Chinese funeral was a curious procession. The mourners would scatter thousands of little pieces of paper with holes in them as they went. They believed that the evil spirits would have to go through all of the little holes to reach the graveyard. They also left an enormous quantity of food for the gods to feast on. These things were to insure an everlasting peace for the dead. Hobos looked at these funerals as a time of rejoicing, for after the mourners left they would go down and feast on the food. This made the Chinese happy because they thought the gods had eaten the food.

The "Chinese cemeteries" in Tehama County were small sections of the major cemeteries in Red Bluff, Vina, and Tehama. Most of the remains were later exhumed and sent back to China, but a few graves are still present in Oak Hill Cemetery. All of the graves at Tehama are gone, and the only thing left in Vina is an oven for burning the belongings of the deceased.

Anti-Chinese agitation in and around Tehama County began about 1855. The Chinese eviction from the Lower Springs Mines of Shasta County by the white miners was the first open act of an anti-Chinese crusade. In 1867 the first full, ugly fervor of anti-Chinese propoganda was brought out in the elections. The Red Bluff Sentinel accused the Republicans of "favoring" the Chinese, of trying to drive out white labor, and of wanting to give the Chinese the vote. On the other hand the Sentinel said that the Democrats wanted to "send the pig-tailed Celestials and flat-nosed wollyheads beyond the confines of the state."

The anti-Chinese fervor did not affect everyone in the area. It was felt that many sections of the state must have Chinese labor or no labor at all. This opinion was held by many of the ranchers who had benefitted the most by the cheap Chinese labor.

The Chinese were never organized in their own behalf, but they did have leaders and tightly-knit organizations called tongs. It is estimated that there are nearly as many tongs as there are dialects in China. In this country all a tong needed was a leader who could command respect from his followers. The tong had a very strong code of honor, and anyone who seriously wronged the group was likely to end up with a knife in his back.

During the early 1870's there were a few incidents of violence in Tehama County. In 1971, two white men set fire to a building in Chinatown, and a white farmer was beaten by a group of Chinese railroad workers after he killed a Chinese. There was never an organized anti-Chinese movement, however, until the mid 1870's.

The first anti-Chinese organization was formed in Red Bluff in 1876. It called itself the Working-Men's Union, its stated purpose protecting white laborers from the Chinese. The Red Bluff town trustees passed two ordinances directed at the Chinese. One was a license fee on laundries, the other a fee on anyone transporting goods (vegetables) across town.

The Red Bluff People's Cause began an attack on the Chinese merchants and gardeners. It felt that it was the duty of all whites to see that any business competing with the "saffron-colored sons of the Flowery Kingdom" must succeed. The Cause also tried to dissuade readers from purchasing fruits and vegetables from the Chinese gardeners. It reported that the Chinese pushed their vegetables to maturity "by the free sprinkling of filthy water upon the parts of the plants consumed by the customers" and that they put arsenic on their vegetables to preserve them.

A series on "Anti-Mongolian" meetings in Tehama in 1886 resulted in formation of a new anti-Chinese group, the Citizens' Anti-Chinese Association of Red Bluff. It was comprised mainly of business and professional men. It declared that the whites could not compete with these people that could subsist on rice and rats.

In February, 1886, an anti-Chinese organization was formed in Tehema which joined in a boycott of the Chinese and the white who employed the Chinese. In this same month, the working men of Red Bluff formed their own organization, the Anti-Coolie League. The League wanted more direct action against the Chinese, and in 1886 the League's president led at least 2,000 people in a march on Chinatown. The procession went from house to house and ordered the occupants to leave within ten days. Some agreed and some did not, but there was no violence.

Another anti-Chinese group formed in early March of 1886, calling itself the Moderate Law and Order Anti-Chinese Society. It stood for the peaceful removal of the Chinese from the county. In mid 1886, the Anti-Chinese Convention was held in Tehama County at the county court house. No one who employed or did business with the Chinese was allowed to attend. The convention was the final act of the Anti-Chinese Association. The businessmen were reluctant to use the boycott against their fellow businessmen employing Chinese. For the first time the members began seriously to discuss disbanding.

A new secret society replaced the Anti-Coolie League in March of 1887. It was the Anti-Coolie Brotherhood, Council Number 1. The council still called for the displacement of Chinese laborers in order to benefit white working men, but its principles were more modified.

The foremost cause for modifying the agitation was the lack of need for it.

Congress had yielded under pressure from the West. A series of treaties and restrictions on immigration stopped the incoming flow of Chinese that had replaced the ones who left, died, or were killed.

Also, all through the worst periods of agitation there were supporters of the Chinese. Some of them had been residents of the county for 20 years or more, and some whites considered them necessary members of the community. After 1890, though, the Chinese population in Tehama County went into an irreversible decline.

No more were coming in, and those still here gradually went to larger cities or China. They left little more than rock walls, tombstones and legends.