Bellingham riots
The Bellingham riots, occurring in September 1907 in Bellingham, Washington, were racially and economically motivated events targeting Sikh laborers, primarily Asian Indian immigrants. These immigrants had arrived in the United States seeking better economic opportunities to support their families and contribute to India’s independence movement. By September 1907, around 250 Sikh workers were employed in local lumber mills, facing increasing hostility amidst a broader atmosphere of anti-Asian sentiment, which had intensified following movements against Chinese immigrants.
On Labor Day, union members marched against the Sikh laborers, mistakenly labeling them as "Hindus" and demanding their expulsion. This culminated in a violent mob attack on Sikh residences, forcing many to seek refuge in city hall. Despite promises of protection from local authorities, the Sikh community felt unsafe, leading to a mass exodus from Bellingham shortly after. The riots not only highlighted the racial tensions and economic fears of the time but also set a precedent for anti-immigrant sentiment that would resonate for decades. The legacy of these events continues to serve as a cautionary tale about discrimination and the social consequences of exclusionary practices, with echoes of that turmoil discernible in contemporary discussions around immigration and race in the United States.
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Bellingham riots
THE EVENT: Racially and economically motivated riots and expulsions directed against Sikh laborers
DATE: September 1907
LOCATION: Bellingham, Washington
SIGNIFICANCE: During the first decade of the twentieth century, Asian Indian immigrants, most of whom practiced the Sikh faith, working in the United States (US), met organized discrimination and even violence.
Asian Indians began to leave India around 1900 to earn money for their families in India and for India's independence movement against Great Britain. Most were men and identified as members of the Sikh faith. Between 1900 and 1905, several hundred immigrated to the US and British Columbia, Canada. Since Sikhs often understood English and were hard workers, some Canadian employers began to promote Sikh immigration. In 1907, more than two thousand Asian Indian men, most Sikhs, arrived in Canada. Over one thousand Asian Indians immigrated to the US in 1907, including Sikh laborers crossing the border from Canada. Just south of the border, the town of Bellingham in Washington State had about 250 Asian Indian immigrants, mostly Sikh, working in its lumber mills by September 1907.
Prejudices against Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Filipino immigrants along the West Coast were strong by 1907, and the Asian Indian workers in Bellingham became targets, too. Movements against Chinese immigrants during the nineteenth century were driven by White workers’ racism and fear of economic competition with the newcomers. These movements expanded into broad anti-Asian agitation during the twentieth century. In 1905, in San Francisco, the Asiatic Exclusion League was formed to block Asian immigrants, particularly those from China and Japan. In Bellingham, the league had eight hundred members by 1907. While the radical Industrial Workers of the World criticized anti-Asian hostility, most unions supported it. On Labor Day, September 2, 1907, hundreds of union advocates marched in Bellingham against the Sikh immigrants. Calling the Sikhs “Hindus” (falsely believing that Asian Indians all practiced the Hindu religion), marchers demanded that mill owners fire all “Hindus” immediately.
Sikh workers reported for work on September 3, but that night, roving vigilantes targeted Sikh residences. The next evening, September 4, a mob of 150 men and boys formed and surged through Bellingham, assaulting some Sikhs, and forcing others from bunkhouses and mills into the basement of Bellingham’s city hall. Up to five hundred participants eventually joined in the coercive roundup. Police officers cooperated, claiming that this calmed the vigilantes and reduced violence.
On September 5, with up to two hundred Sikhs held captive, Bellingham’s mayor claimed that the city could protect anyone who wished to stay in Bellingham. However, the obvious failure of the police to stop the previous night’s coercion convinced Sikh laborers not to trust the mayor. A Sikh spokesperson stated that all “Hindus” would leave Bellingham by September 7. Approximately half went to Canada and half to California.
No attackers were brought to trial, and most White people in Bellingham apparently supported the expulsion, combining racism with economic fears to justify their approval. A few falsely claimed that Sikh men deserved expulsion because they insulted White women. Still, most argued that by accepting lower pay and inferior housing, immigrant Asian Indians undercut unions’ efforts to improve economic benefits for White laborers. Waves of anti-Sikh, anti-Asian Indian protests spread from Bellingham north to Alaska and Canada and south to towns in Washington State and California. Asian Indian immigrants would not return to Bellingham for many decades after the 1907 expulsion. Immigration from India and other parts of Asia to the US was stopped entirely during the 1920s. However, by the early twenty-first century, Bellingham was a more welcoming home for Asian Indian immigrants and recognized the one hundredth anniversary of the Bellingham incident with apologies and commemorations against all anti-immigrant discrimination.
The legacy of the Bellingham riots serves to remind contemporary Americans of the dangers of anti-immigrant discourse, which can quickly devolve into adversarial and violent behavior, serving as a warning against exclusionary labor practices. Several critical issues of the Bellingham riots linger in the US in the mid-2020s. Immigrant populations continue to shoulder the blame in the minds of many Americans for the struggles of native-born Americans to obtain employment. The riots also serve as a warning regarding institutional discrimination. The anti-Asian sentiments that fueled the Bellingham riots can still be found in the US in the 2020s, and these sentiments were especially concerning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bibliography
Allerfeldt, Kristofer. Race, Radicalism, Religion, and Restriction: Immigration in the Pacific Northwest, 1890-1924. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003.
Cahn, David. "The 1907 Bellingham Riots in Historical Context - Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project." The Seattle Labor Rights and History Project, 2008, depts.washington.edu/civilr/bham‗history.htm. Accessed 26
Hyde, David. "Eerie Parallels between 1907 Bellingham Riots and Anti-Sikh Hate in 2017." KUOW, 7 Mar. 2017, www.kuow.org/stories/eerie-parallels-between-1907-bellingham-riots-and-anti-sikh-hate-2017. Accessed 26 Aug. 2024.
Jensen, Joan M. Passage from India: Asian Indian Immigrants in North America. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988.
Lee, Erika. "Hemispheric Orientalism and the 1907 Pacific Coast Race Riots." Amerasia Journal, vol. 33, no. 2, 2007, pp. 19-47.