Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series on the history of smuggling on Catalina.
From its earliest days under European and American rule, Santa Catalina Island has been a haven for smugglers of all shades.
The numerous secluded coves, caves, bays and canyons coupled with the Island’s proximity to the burgeoning population centers of Southern California have proven an ideal combination for those of a trade whose age rivals that of any other profession on earth.
Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series on the history of smuggling on Catalina.
From its earliest days under European and American rule, Santa Catalina Island has been a haven for smugglers of all shades.
The numerous secluded coves, caves, bays and canyons coupled with the Island’s proximity to the burgeoning population centers of Southern California have proven an ideal combination for those of a trade whose age rivals that of any other profession on earth.
Catalina’s location makes it the perfect stash point for illicit goods to be deposited on the Island and then secreted to the mainland all at once or incrementally without having to pass through U.S. Customs.
In last week’s column I introduced to you some of the earliest accounts of the “sweet trade” here on Catalina. Those accounts involved the illegal importation of goods into Mexican-controlled California on the part of Yankee smugglers who refused to pay the 100 percent tariffs imposed by the Mexican government.
While most of the merchandise smuggled over the centuries has been goods such as alcohol, drugs and a variety of more traditional consumer products, there was a brief period in our history where that merchandise was composed of human beings, namely cheap labor from the Canton region of southern China.
While technically not a slave trade, the conditions and treatment endured by these Chinese were often comparable to that of African slaves. And the wages weren’t that much better.
Chinese immigrants, mostly from the southern China region of Canton, had become quite successful in California during the 1800s, particularly in the farming and fishing industries. They had established numerous small towns and villages throughout California where they carried on their trades, all the while maintaining their customs and keeping in close contact with family back home.
Everything was fine as long as the living was good in California. But by the 1870s, tensions began to mount as more and more immigrants representing all demographics began to compete for fewer and fewer jobs.
The Chinese became scapegoats and were accused of undercutting wages and depriving white laborers of work. Therefore in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, barring all new immigrants from China.
But California was still growing and the mining, ranching and railroad interests in the state still needed cheap labor. Thus was born the illegal trade in Chinese laborers, many of whom passed through Catalina Island on their torturous route from Hong Kong to Mexico and then to the mainland of California.
Some of these Chinese workers were simply “recycled” from their jobs in Northern California. From time to time, vigilante groups in San Francisco would get worked up and would round up Chinese with the goal of sending them “back to China.” But the joke was on the vigilantes, for rather than being sent back to China, the Chinese were simply brought to places like Catalina and left here until the heat blew over up north. Then, like their newly arrived brothers from China, they would slip over to the mainland to disappear into L.A.’s Chinatown.
Ironbound Cove on Catalina’s West End, along with Lobster Bay and (where else?) China Point, were the temporary homes for many of these transient Chinese. On the Island, most Chinese were allowed a fair amount of freedom while awaiting the opportunity to get to the mainland. Though they could hardly be called villages, small settlements sprouted up where the Chinese could socialize, eat, drink and mostly just wait. (In 1966, a small cache of opium was actually unearthed by some Boy Scouts at the West End).
Although the Chinese Exclusion Act wasn’t repealed until (incredibly) 1943, Catalina as the way station for smuggled laborers from Canton only lasted a short time and by the end of the 19th century the era was all but over. (Many of the gardening and construction jobs in early Avalon, in fact, were carried out by legitimate Chinese laborers “on loan” from L.A.’s Chinatown).
But Catalina Island wasn’t done with her role as a smuggler’s paradise and the new role of Catalina as a tourist destination brought new opportunities.
NEXT WEEK: AVALON AND ALCOHOL
Jim Watson is the author of “Mysterious Island: Catalina,” available at Amazon, Kindle and in stores all over Avalon.
