| Massacred for Gold: The Chinese in Hells Canyon Contributor(s): Nokes, R. Gregory (Author) |
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ISBN: 0870715704 ISBN-13: 9780870715709 Publisher: Oregon State University Press OUR PRICE: $17.06 Product Type: Paperback Published: October 2009 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | United States - State & Local - Pacific Northwest (or, Wa) - History | United States - 19th Century - True Crime | Murder - General |
| Dewey: 979.573 |
| LCCN: 2009008651 |
| Physical Information: 0.49" H x 5.74" W x 9.18" (0.74 lbs) 208 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1851-1899 - Ethnic Orientation - Chinese - Geographic Orientation - Oregon - Ethnic Orientation - Asian |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In 1887, more than thirty Chinese gold miners were massacred on the Oregon side of Hells Canyon, the deepest canyon in North America. Massacred for Gold, the first authoritative account of the unsolved crime, unearths the evidence that points to an improbable gang of rustlers and schoolboys, one only fifteen, as the killers. The crime was discovered weeks after it happened, but no charges were brought for nearly a year, when gang member Frank Vaughan, son of a well-known settler family, confessed and turned stateas evidence. Six men and boys, all from northeastern Oregonas remote Wallowa county, were chargedabut three fled, and the others were found innocent by a jury that a witness admitted had little interest in convicting anyone. A cover-up followed, and the crime was all but forgotten for the next one hundred years, until a county clerk in Wallowa County found hidden records in an unused safe. Massacred for Gold traces the authoras long personal journey to expose details of the massacre and its aftermath and to understand how one of the worst of the many crimes committed by whites against Chinese laborers in the American West was for so long lost to history. |
