The historic Gold Country was a violent land — claim jumping, murder, theft, cheating at cards, and much more was quite common.

In October 1856, a different type of violence occurred near Chinese Camp.  It was a Chinese Tong War.

A Tong is defined as a Chinese secret society or fraternal organization.  While many Tongs were mostly social, some organizations engaged in gang warfare or ethnic revenge.

The Tongs were often rivals for control in the Chinese communities and public challenges toward one another were not unusual.  Along the Mother Lode in late Gold Rush California two Tongs were rivals for hegemony.  They were the Tuolomne County Sam Yap Company and the Calaveras County Yan Wo Company, headquartered near Chinese Camp.

The disputatious name-calling between the two companies was often very direct.  The Columbia Gazette  reported an October 1856 comment directed toward the Yan Wo faction by the Sam Yap leadership: “There are a great many now existing in the world who ought to be exterminated.” 

Fightin’ words.  And preparations began immediately.  James Hanley, a resident of Chinese Camp, provided the best description of the arrangements in a letter to the Sonora Union-Democrat.

The Sam Yap Company, Hanley wrote, had purchased 150 muskets and bayonets and muskets in San Francisco.  They had employed fifteen whites as drill instructors.  The instructors were paid ten dollars daily along with all the food and whiskey they could handle. 

Before the battle the fifteen white mercenaries painted themselves yellow, put on Chinese costumes, and hung a yard of horsehair tail down their backs in a mocking depiction of a Chinese queue. 

More than 2500 participants fought in the battle that followed.  Most were armed in traditional fashion, carrying long pikes, butcher’s knives, and tridents. 

After a hundred shots had been fired, the woefully underarmed Yan Wo beat a hasty retreat.  Thousands had watched and dueled, but the casualties were light.  Sources indicate a death toll of four.

The cost figures were much higher.  The Sam Yap Company had expended $40,000 in pursuit of victory, while the Yan Wo Company had spent $20,000 in defeat.