Chinese Red Record
Documenting the history of anti-Chinese lynchings, riots, and massacres
in the American West (1850 – 1915)
What Is Chinese Red Record?
Chinese Red Record is a scholarly archive of anti-Chinese lynchings and related racial terror. It traces how lynchings, riots, massacres, expulsions, and exclusion worked together to drive Chinese communities from mining camps, railroad towns, river ports, and cities across the American West and beyond.
Drawing on a newly compiled dataset of documented lynchings, digitized newspaper archives, maps, and structured records, the archive reconstructs how violence spread across regions and how newspapers, law, and politics helped nationalize anti-Chinese racial terror.
The interactive maps, timelines, and charts presented here translate the dissertation's quantitative and spatial arguments into web form. Where possible, the visualizations correspond directly to the thesis, The Chinese Red Record: Western Lynch Law and the Nationalization of Racial Terror, 1853-1915.
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Browse lynching records by date, place, and event details.
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Open charts, maps, timelines, and comparative views.
Access structured data used across the archive.
Ask questions and trace evidence across records.
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Featured Record
Chinese Sheepherder Found Hanging in His Cabin
1886-07-02Silver Bow, Montana • Possible lynching
On July 2, 1886, a Chinese sheepherder employed by Tom Mills was found hanging in his cabin south of Silver Bow, Montana. <i>The Montana Post</i> and <i>Butte Semi-Weekly Miner</i> both reported uncertainty over whether he had committed suicide or been murdered, and a coroner’s inquiry was promised. The latter newspaper referred to the dead Chinese man as “defunct," and concluded with complete disregard for the unfortunate Chinese sheepherder: “The celestial sheep‑herder seems to vacillate between suicide and murder.” No clear resolution has yet been found, so the case remains a possible lynching in the archive.
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