Inhibiting Missions to Chinese Immigrants in California before the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

Abstract

Scholarly analysis of hostility to Chinese immigrants in the United States of America began well over a century ago but has advanced on an uneven front. Little of a scholarly nature has been published about speci!cally Christian involvement in the conflicting efforts to evangelise these newcomers and halt their further immigration. The present article takes steps towards !lling that lacuna. It discusses efforts by various Protestant denominations and, subsequently, the Roman Catholic Church to evangelise and conduct educational ministries among the Chinese in California, especially in and near San Francisco during a period of ascending public hostility to those immigrants which led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The primary focus is on the Methodist pastor Otis Gibson and Archbishop José Sadoc Alemany as key promoters of such missionary endeavours who incurred the wrath of many other churchmen in their own and other denominations. It will be argued that both enthusiasm for missions to Chinese in California and criticism of those e#orts as futile could be found in Protestant denominations and in the San Francisco Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church.