The Angry Angel of Chinatown Descends
Donaldina Cameron came to Palo Alto in 1900 to rescue a slave girl
By the 1880s in San Francisco, untold numbers of Chinese girls had been forcibly enslaved in brothels in Chinatown, some being initiated into this horrific existence as young children. They were not given any education and barely enough to eat. Once these girls became too old, or if they were considered unattractive, they were given the option of committing suicide or being taken somewhere to be executed. The life of the average Chinese prostitute was brutal and short with most dying of the harsh treatment within five years. The police were not just indifferent to their suffering, many were bought off by the brothel owners and did nothing to stop the horrors that filled the alleyways of early Chinatown.
Then along came Donaldina Cameron who, at the young age of 25, took over as superintendent of the Presbyterian Mission House and began to lead raiding parties into Tong prostitution and slave operations. Many friends and relatives of these girls would leave secret messages for Donaldina at the Presbyterian Home indicating where a girl was being held captive. Armed with axes and sledge hammers, they would uncover secret trap doors and hiding places that concealed the girls and take them back to the Mission. For more than 40 years she faced retaliation, violence, and death threats, but she rescued as many as 3,000 girls. They were given shelter, educated and taught skills to survive in society. Donaldina’s nickname among the girls was Lo Mo (the Mother), and Fohn Quar (White Devil) by the Tongs.
She comforted the terror-stricken girl on the train ride to Palo Alto and decided to sleep on the floor outside of her jail cell that first night.
A deputy constable from Palo Alto showed up with an arrest warrant for one of the girls living at the rescue mission, her former slave master Wong Fong, now a Palo Alto resident, was accusing her of stealing jewelry – a ploy to regain his slave girl. Once in custody, “relatives” of the girl would show up with bail and deliver her to him. Donaldina was on to their evil plan and would not let the girl out of her sight. She comforted the terror-stricken girl on the train ride to Palo Alto and decided to sleep on the floor outside of her jail cell that first night. When the girl’s “relatives” showed up at 1 o’clock in the morning, the jailer found the door barricaded with lumber and furniture, he took an axe and broke through, then dragged the screaming girl out of the jail and forced her into the waiting horse buggy of a triumphant Wong Fong.
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Donaldina ran to the center of downtown, frantic to find help. A pharmacist at High St. and University took her across the street to the Larkin Hotel and they telephoned the Sheriff in San Jose in hope that he might be able to help. In the meantime, a Palo Alto judge met with Mr. Fong and his slave girl on a back road and held a road-side trial at 2:30 in the morning. Not surprisingly, the girl was found guilty and legally forced to stay with the man until her debt was paid.
By mid-day, Donaldina had succeeded in thoroughly incensing the citizens of Palo Alto and students at Stanford University, a mass meeting was held and soon the local papers and San Francisco dailies were denouncing public officials who participated in the affair and the highly suspicious road-side trial. That evening, 300 students marched down University Ave. with torches and weapons of all varieties, they ripped boards off of the jailhouse and tore down its fences, built an effigy of the judge and burned it in the center of the street.
After helping to obliterate the Chinese sex and slave trade in San Francisco, Donaldina and her two sisters (who worked at her side) retired in Palo Alto.
Over the next few days, large public meetings were held at Stanford and in San Jose. Among the crowds, numbering in the thousands, came loud calls for publicly hanging the judge, deputy constable, the slave owner and his lawyer – who had the nerve to stand up in front of the crowd and announce that the young girl had fallen in love with her former abuser and had married him.
Donaldina succeeded in bringing a case against Wong Fong in the town of Mayfield, he was quickly arrested and put on trial for kidnapping. In the midst of the trial, Mr. Fong and his lawyer fled the courthouse on horseback but were quickly chased down and apprehended by Federal agents who had come to monitor the court proceedings in Mayfield that day.
Despite the public outrage and strong evidence of a conspiracy between the slave owner, judge, and deputy constable, all were acquitted in a sensational final trial in San Jose.
On a happy note: the former slave girl, named Kum Quai, was allowed to return to the mission with Donaldina.
After helping to obliterate the Chinese sex and slave trade in San Francisco, Donaldina and her two sisters (who worked at her side) retired in Palo Alto.
She never married.
She died in 1968 at age 98.
AMAZINGLY: The first Chinese woman to graduate from Stanford University had been a resident of the mission home, and had lived under Donaldina’s supervision.
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