ABSTRACT
Missionaries were involved in the debate over Chinese immigration from the very beginning. When Chinese immigrants first came to the United States in the early 1850s, ex-China missionary William Speer welcomed them in San Francisco, struggled to develop community resources for them, and wrote in their defense during debates over anti-Chinese municipal ordinances. In the 1870s, as the debate became more heated after the Civil War, and the federal government contemplated restricting Chinese immigration through the 1879 Fifteen Passenger Bill and, finally, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, missionary Otis Gibson became the staunchest American defender of Chinese rights on the West Coast, while no less a missionary personality than Samuel Wells Williams led their defense on the East Coast. Even after the Exclusion Act was passed and re-passed, becoming more stringent when it was renewed every decade, the missionary community continued to defend the rights and safety of the remaining Chinese community, which was subject to discrimination and occasional mob violence in the West.
