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.
Quick Start
Browse lynching records by date, place, and event details.
Read article images, transcriptions, and source citations.
Open charts, maps, timelines, and comparative views.
Access structured data used across the archive.
Ask questions and trace evidence across records.
New to the site? Take the guided tour.
Contribute or Share Feedback
Do you know of an incident of lethal anti-Chinese violence that belongs in the archive, or do you have a question, suggestion, correction, or comment about the website? Use the options below to submit evidence for review or send feedback.
Featured Record
Ah Fat Died After a Blow Inflicted by Wiley Knighten
1886-07-19Grangeville, Idaho • Possible lynching
In July 1886, near Grangeville, Idaho, a Chinese packer named Ah Fat died after a violent encounter with white men who had first frightened his horses and fired pistols behind his pack train. The <i>Idaho County Free Press</i> reported that the coroner’s jury found he came to his death from “a blow on the head inflicted by a missile in the hands of Wiley Knighten.” Although the paper preserved witness testimony and a formal inquest, the killing still reflects the vulnerability of Chinese workers to casual white violence in the inland West. This project found no information on the fate of Wiley Knighten, though it is likely he escaped meaningful punishment.
Read full record →