Chinese Migration Facts

The Chinese immigrants came from various parts of China that were being affected by civil war.

Many of the railroad workers were already settled in California and needed work because they had not been successful at mining for gold.

Many of the Chinese who worked on the railroad came to California originally to mine for gold. They all came in search of new economic opportunities.

Eventually, many of the Chinese began migrating back to China because there were very few Chinese women in America. Also, many of the Chinese went back to their homes to bring the money they earned to their families that needed it.

A number of Chinese people settled in San Francisco after they were forced out of mining camps.

The Chinese who worked on the railroads would camp at their work site. After the completion of the railroad they made permanent residences in various areas on the west coast, and some returned to China.

The Chinese were an extremely important source of labor for the transcontinental railroad. Without the labor of the Chinese, the railroad would not have been a reality and California would never have been able to connect with the East Coast.

As time went on and more Chinese began to immigrate, some Americans began to get angry because they felt that the Chinese were taking their jobs and taking too much American gold back to China. This caused racist legislation to be passed and intense discrimination against Chinese people.

As a result of the completion of the transcontinental railroad, travel to the west through the plains became much easier and more affordable. This allowed hunters to travel much more easily to locations that had a lot of American buffalo. These buffalo were easy to kill and many people wanted buffalo robes and hides. This led to one of the largest slaughters of big game in American history. Several million buffalo were killed, and by 1893 it was thought that only about five hundred buffalo still remained in the United States.