The Chinese Massacre of 1871 was the worse public lynching in U.S. history. Antonio F. Coronel, was a state treasurer and former Los Angeles mayor who owned the main block of rundown adobe stores and apartments in this area. Once home to the town’s most prominent families (Californios), the neighborhood had deteriorated into a slum by the time Los Angeles’s first Chinatown was established there in the 1860s. Coronels adobe is the white building on the left. There was no area more colorful than Los Angeles’s Calle de los Negros, a short dirt thoroughfare located just off the eastern edge of the historic Plaza and considered to be the center of the town’s “red light” district. Saloons, gambling dens, brothels, and other entertainment venues were said to proliferate on the Calle; the same could also be said for crime. Los Angeles Street was first named in 1854. Before the first official survey of the area in 1849, most of this thoroughfare was called Calle Principal (Main Street). Other sections were known as Calle de la Zanja (Ditch Street), Calle de Los Vinas (Vineyard Street) and--much to the south--Calle de los Huertos (Orchard Street), which is now San Pedro Street. These formed the principal highway running south to the Embarcadero of San Pedro. At its northern end, near the Plaza, a 500-foot stretch was known as Calle de Los Negros, which had a racially diverse population. The Chinese massacre of 1871 was a racially motivated riot on October 24, 1871 in Los Angeles, when a mob of over 500 men entered Chinatown to attack, rob and murder Chinese residents of the city after a saloon owner was killed by gunfire of two opposing Chinese gangs. The riots took place on Calle de los Negros (Street of the Negroes), also referred to as Nigger Alley, which later became part of Los Angeles Street. The street got its name from the dark-skinned Californios that once lived there. A total of 18 male chinese immigrants were systematically killed; 8-9 were hung, by the mob, making the so-called Chinatown War the largest incident of mass lynching in American history. When news of this reached the east coast, it was front page news even over the raging Chicago Fires. East coast newspapers called Los Angeles a blood stained Eden.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 16:27:41 +0000
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