Intermountain Histories

Fish Creek Massacre

2023-03-06T21:27:00+00:00

In the summer of 1869, Italian immigrants in Eureka, Nevada decided to go on strike to protest low wages. Local tensions escalated the situation to the point of violence, and, on August 18, 1879, five protesting Italian immigrants were killed.

In the 1870s, Eureka was the second largest mining town in Nevada. Eureka produced primarily charcoal, and many flocked there as new smelters increased labor demands. As was the case in many other booming western mining towns, immigrants made up a large portion of the population. Italians were by far the largest immigrant group in Eureka. Racial and cultural prejudice against Italians that was prevalent throughout the United States was mirrored in Eureka and other western mining towns. As a result, they were paid less than half of what the average miner made. On July 6, 1879, a large group of mainly Italian coal burners gathered at a local saloon to unionize. They formed the Eureka Charcoal Burners Protective Association with the goal of increasing wages. Since Italians made up the majority of Eureka’s cheap labor force, the group's resulting labor strike halted charcoal production. With a dwindling charcoal supply, tensions in town grew. Eventually, Sheriff Matthew Kyle began arresting some of the strike’s ringleaders. Further, because he did not want to involve state militia, he created a “fighting posse” to go to the charcoal camps and arrest the strike leaders. They did so over the next month, but on August 18, 1879, the posse turned violent. The posse of about 20 men set out for Fish Creek, where a large group of strikers was rumored to be camped. Despite being extremely outnumbered by the striking laborers, deputies attempted to arrest the strike leader. When strikers resisted and the posse was unable to make their arrest, tempers flared. Marshall Rich, one of the head deputies, started insulting the Italian leader, who pulled out his gun and fired at Rich. The posse then opened fire on the mostly unarmed coal burners. Five Italians were killed in the massacre, six were seriously injured, and fourteen were sent to prison. Those who died were all Italian and included: Giovanni Pedroni, Marcellus Locatelli, Todoro Zesta, Pompeo Pattini, and Anotonio Canonica. Other accounts of the massacre vary, with some placing all of the blame on the posse and others claiming that the Italians were seeking violence. Regardless, the posse ceased making arrests after this and no one in the posse was charged. The strike eventually ended, and tensions between the Italians and other groups lessened in the following years.
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The Chinese-Italian "War"

2023-03-06T19:18:45+00:00

Mounting tensions between competing Italian and Chinese mining groups in Como, Colorado climaxed on November 9, 1879 when Italian miners forced the Chinese out of their mining shaft and demanded their departure from Como.

As immigrants flocked to the Mountain West for job opportunities throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, they often faced multifold economic difficulties—low wages, lack of job availability, and the boom-and-bust nature of western industries, like mining. These conditions made for fierce competition between immigrants, who usually stuck to and watched out for their own ethnic groups. The mining town Como, Colorado provides a stark example of these dynamics. Como was founded in 1859 by mining prospectors, and became an important stop along the Denver, South Park, and Pacific Railroad in 1879 with the construction of a depot. That same year, the South Park Mining Company set up a mine in Como, and many flocked to the area. Italian immigrants were some of the first miners to move to Como, soon followed by Chinese immigrants. While many Americans and Coloradoans viewed both Italians and Chinese as racially inferior, treatment of Chinese immigrants was usually worse. The Chinese were also willing to work for less money, so other Como miners viewed them as a threat to their jobs. Hoping to minimize conflict between the Chinese and Italian miners, the South Park Coal Company divided them into two different mining shafts. However, as the number of Chinese miners began to eclipse the Italians, Italian workers began to panic that they might be altogether replaced. Italians felt these fears were substantiated on November 9, 1879, when the company fired two Italian workers and hired two Chinese workers in their stead. Later that day, a group of around 30 Italians entered the Chinese mining shaft and demanded their departure. The Chinese persuaded the Italians to wait and talk with the mine manager, Edward Thayer, before doing anything drastic. When Thayer refused to fire the Chinese, the Italians beat him nearly to death, disarmed all the Chinese workers, and marched them out of the mine and into town, where they instructed them to leave Como. The South Park Coal Company reacted by firing all of the Italians involved. In the following weeks, Sheriff D. J. Cook was sent to protect the Chinese while they worked, which largely ended any physical threat. However, the violence had scared away many freight trains needed by the local businesses. Businessmen in the area were angered by the Italian’s action. Newspapers like the Rocky Mountain News leveraged this and other events to continually fan the flames of anti-Chinese sentiments in Colorado. These forms of anti-Chinese rhetoric added to the violent atmosphere that later culminated in the Denver Race Riot of 1880 and national anti-Chinese legislation.
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The Walsenburg Massacre: Violence Against Immigrant Laborers

2023-03-06T17:56:53+00:00

When five Italian men were convicted of the murder of a saloonkeeper in Walsenburg, Colorado, a quest for revenge led to the murder of six men.

In 1895, a saloonkeeper named Abner Hixon was murdered in Walsenburg, Colorado. Five Italian miners were convicted in the case. 24-year-old Antonio Lorenzo was identified by the coroner's jury as the murderer, and Stanislaso Vittani, Francisco Ronchetto, Pietro Giacabino, and Antonio Zapetto were charged as accessories to murder. Community anger towards Lorenzo and his accomplices quickly built. On March 12, 1895, Vittani, Ronchetto, Giacabino, and Zapetto appeared in court in the nearby town of Rouse. That evening, they began their return to the jail in Walsenburg accompanied by Sheriff Earl Danford and Marshal Charles Harriman in a wagon driven by Joseph Welsby. Six to eight masked men intercepted them en route. The vigilantes told Welsby to stop the wagon and demanded that Harriman get off of his horse. As Harriman attempted to flee, the men opened fire on the group. First, they hit and killed the wagon driver Joseph Welsby. A bullet grazed Ronchetto. The others escaped and Sheriff Danford was left with the injured Ronchetto, who he returned to the jail in Walsenburg. The vigilantes eventually followed, intent to finish their act of revenge. When the two guards heard a rap at the prison door, followed by a voice stating that it was the sheriff, they promptly opened the door, only to find masked men with guns drawn. While two of the men watched the guards, two others made their way towards the back of the building where the already-injured Ronchetto had been returned by Sheriff Danford and where Lorenzo had been imprisoned throughout the night. They opened fire on the prisoners, killing Lorenzo first with a shot to the head. Ronchetto was shot multiple times and died twenty minutes later. The bodies of the escaped Vittani, Giacabino, and Zapetto were found in the following days filled with bullets. It is unclear whether the vigilantes had tracked and killed them before or after the shootings at the Walsenburg jail, but the result was the same. All five of the Italian immigrant miners were dead. Many in the town believed that the masked vigilantes were, in fact, a known group of the murdered saloonkeeper Abner Hixon’s close friends. Nevertheless, a convened grand jury failed to indict anyone for the vigilante killings. The Italian ambassador to the United States, Marquis Imperiali, was furious about the incident. He demanded reparations for the dependent families of the Italians, as both Vittani and Zapetto had wives and children who still lived in Italy. The massacre received national attention, and President Grover Cleveland addressed the issue in 1896, urging Congress to grant these reparations, which they eventually did.
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