The mortgaged girls are often such as have sacrificed their own to their family's honor, according to the Chinese and Japanese notion of filial piety. The money thus advanced by the keeper is thought necessary to rescue the girl's family or some member of it from calamity or ruin. One Japanese man is quoted as saying that such sacrifice on a girl's part is "Christ-like." He should hear the voice of Christ, saying of all these sins, "which things I also hate." Revelation, 2:6.
YELLOW SLAVES IN AMERICA.
The terrible system of Chinese and Japanese brothel slavery has been imported into San Francisco, Oakland, and other cities of California. Americans and Europeans have invested money and devoted business ability to this enormous iniquity, because it pays well. Apart from the horrors of Chinatown, one thousand Japanese women are held in this form of slavery in California. The San Francisco Chronicle said of this statement: "There is not the slightest doubt of the truth of the assertion, disreputable as it may seem."
The police will generally say after investigating, that these women are willing to remain in their present condition. Doubtless this is true of most of them, but they are slaves, none the less, literal and actual slaves, bought and paid for and acknowledging the ownership. In a letter of Abraham Lincoln, written before the war, he tells of a company of negro slaves that he saw on a boat on the Ohio and he never saw such a happy company of people in his life. When John Brown made his raid into Virginia and captured 200,000 stands of arms at Harper's Ferry, he hoped that the thousands of negro slaves in that region would join him and fight for their freedom. He could only get six or eight negroes to join him, and those at the point of the bayonet. One was shot rather than seek his liberty. At the beginning of the Abolition movement a petition from slaves was sent to Congress in favor of slavery! Women terrorized by such laws as are quoted at the beginning of this chapter, and further terrorized by all the brutal treatment and threats of the slave traders, are not likely to say to the police that they desire liberty. But it is our duty to give them liberty and to punish their owners, who cannot legally own them, but do practically own them under the Stars and Stripes.
The following cases illustrate the traffic and the work of missionaries. These three girls were in the Methodist Home for Chinese Girls, located since the earthquake at Berkeley. One says:
"I am twelve years old; born in Canton; father a laborer; mother a nurse; parents very poor. Mother fell sick and in her need of money sold me to a woman three years ago in Hong Kong. The woman promised my mother to make me her own daughter. My mother cried when she left me; I have heard that she is now dead. The big ship City of Pekin took me soon out of sight. There was trouble in landing me. The woman had no trouble in landing, because she had been in California before. She told me what I was to say. She told me I must swear I was her own daughter. The judge asked me, 'Is this your own mother?' and I said, 'Yes.' This was a lie, but I did not know it was wrong to do as I was told, and I was afraid of my mistress. The Judge said, 'Did this woman give you birth?' and I said, 'Yes.' The judge said, 'did anybody tell you to say all this?' and I said 'No,' because my mistress had instructed me. She taught me on shipboard what to say if I was taken to court. She beat me with thick sticks of firewood. She beat me with the fire tongs. One day she took a hot flatiron, removed my clothes and held it on my naked back until I howled with pain. (The scab was on her back when she came to the Mission.) My forehead is all scars caused by her throwing heavy pieces of wood at my head. One cut a large gash and the blood ran out. She stopped the bleeding and hid me away. I thought I better get away before she killed me. When she was having her hair washed and dressed I ran away. I had heard of the Mission, and inquired the way and came to it. A white man brought me here. I am very happy now."
Another little slave, eleven years old, who was about to be sold from domestic slavery into a brothel, was saved by a Chinaman. She says: "A Chinaman living next door, knowing how I was treated and that I was going to be put in a brothel, when I saw him in the passageway, asked me if I wished to come to the Mission, and I said 'Yes.' My mistress had gone out into the next room, leaving her daughter and another slave girl in the room. I said I would go at once and he brought me. I am very glad to live here and lead a good life."
In the following case the rescuer was a negress. A young girl came from China to San Francisco as a merchant's wife. Missionaries visited her in Chinatown, but she disappeared and explanations were not satisfactory. A year later the door bell rang one night at the Mission and when it was opened a Chinese girl fell in a faint across the threshold, a colored girl holding her by the queue. The colored girl saw her running and, to prevent her from being dragged back by her tormentors, seized her by the queue and helped her run to the Mission. It was the merchant's young wife. The wretch had left her on false pretense in a den of shame. She was tied to a window by day and to a bed by night, a thoroughly unwilling slave. Three days before her escape, the chief of police and an interpreter had gone through the house, questioning every inmate as to whether they wished to lead a life of shame or not. She was asked the question in the presence of the divekeeper, the madam and all the girls. She had been told beforehand, "If you dare say you want to escape, we will kill you." The chief of police announced in the papers that there were no slaves in Chinatown. Though watched night and day, she rushed out at an opportune moment and, with the help of the colored girl, ran to safety.
Since the earthquake immense slave pens have been built at Oakland and in San Francisco. A photograph of one large wooden structure, to hold more than a hundred girls, is before me as I write. The girls are kept in small rooms, nine or ten feet square. Americans and Chinamen are partners in the horrible business.
This chapter is a review, in part, of the book, "Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers," written by Dr. Katharine Bushnell and Mrs. Elizabeth Andrew.