The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed into law by President Arthur on May 8, 1882, following revisions made in 1880 to the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. Those revisions allowed the U.S. to suspend immigration, and Congress subsequently acted quickly to implement the suspension of Chinese immigration, a ban that was intended to last 10 years.
Chinese immigrants came to America in large numbers during the 1848 California Gol...
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The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed into law by President Arthur on May 8, 1882, following revisions made in 1880 to the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. Those revisions allowed the U.S. to suspend immigration, and Congress subsequently acted quickly to implement the suspension of Chinese immigration, a ban that was intended to last 10 years.
Chinese immigrants came to America in large numbers during the 1848 California Gold Rush and in the 1860s when the Central Pacific Railroad recruited large labor gangs to build its portion of the Transcontinental Railroad. Large-scale immigration continued into the late 1800s, with 123,201 Chinese recorded as arriving between 1871 and 1880, and 61,711 arriving between 1881 and 1890.
At first, when surface gold was plentiful, the Chinese were well tolerated and well-received. As gold became harder to find and competition increased, animosity to the Chinese and other foreigners increased. After being forcibly driven from the...
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