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A California Businessman Contracts for Chinese Immigrant Labor
This labor contract between a Chinese worker, "Affon," and California businessman Jacob P. Leese, was made in Hong Kong on July 28, 1849, and witnessed by A. Shue, C. H. Brinley, and Henry Anthon, Jr., acting U.S. Vice Consul in Hong Kong. The [...]
Rock Springs Massacre Victims Plead for Justice
Even in the late nineteenth-century American West, a notably violent region, the violence directed against Chinese immigrants was shocking. The Union Pacific Railroad employed 331 Chinese and 150 whites in their coal mine in Rock Springs, Wyoming. [...]
An American-Born Chinese Man Complies with the Chinese Exclusion Act
Wong Kim Ark, a Chinese-American born in San Francisco, was required under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to acquire this Certificate of Registration before leaving the country on an 1894 trip to China so that he would be allowed back into the [...]
A Would-Be Immigrant is Excluded for Being a Potential "Public Charge"
This memorandum records the recommendations of the Immigration Service Commissioner of the District Office of San Francisco regarding the fate of Samuel Kaplan, a would-be immigrant from Russia. The Commissioner upholds a previous ruling by the [...]
Mexico's President Herrera Decries the Annexation of Texas
In March 1845, shortly before leaving office, President John Tyler signed a Joint Resolution of Congress offering to annex the Texas Republic to the United States. Mexico, which had never recognized the Republic and still claimed Texas as its [...]
The United States Declares War on Mexico
On April 26, 1846, following a tense stand-off between U.S. and Mexican troops on the banks of the Rio Grande (which the U.S. now claimed as its border with Mexico, having annexed the state of Texas), a small patrol of sixty-three U.S. soldiers was [...]
A Mexican General Issues a Proclamation at Matamoros
Before being replaced by General Arista, General Francisco Mejía was the commander of the Mexican army at Matamoros, facing the American forces at Fort Texas on the opposite side of the Rio Grande. In this elaborately-worded proclamation, General [...]
A Radical Patriot Urges "Common Sense and a Plain Understanding" in the Pennsylvania Constitution
In 1776 Pennsylvania organized a convention to write a new state constitution. James Cannon, a radical patriot leader, advised Pennsylvania militia members to be sure to select delegates to this convention who would respect the rights and authority [...]
A Revolutionary Veteran Describes His Experience (with text supports)
Massachusetts shoemaker Sylvanus Wood served the Patriot cause in the American Revolution in a variety of ways. He fought as a Minuteman at the battle of Lexington and Concord, served three tours of duty in the Continental army, and made shoes for [...]
The Hickenlooper Amendment Limits U.S. Aid to Latin America
In 1962, the U.S. Congress passed an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 named for the Republican Senator from Iowa, Bourke B. Hickenlooper, who proposed it. The law not only restricted aid to communist countries, but to any country that [...]