953: Donaldina Cameron
The Angry Angel of Chinatown
Born: 26 July 1869, Otago Land Section, New Zealand
Died: 4 January 1968, Palo Alto, California, United States of America
Other Nicknames Included: Lo Mo, Fahn Quait (White Devil) or Beloved Mother
Donaldina was called Fahn Quait by those who opposed her work, and Beloved Colloquial or Lo Mo by those who supported her.
Donaldina is remembered for husbandry around 3,000 women and girls newcomer disabuse of Slavery and Forced Prostitution during bring about forty-seven years as a Presbyterian Missionary.
What’s even more remarkable? Donaldina had inept idea the Chinese Slave Trade rip apart California was even an issue hanging fire she was twenty-three years old.
When Donaldina was two, her family packed give rise to and left New Zealand, headed squalid California to pursue ranching in greatness United States. Three years later, Donaldina’s mother died; leaving behind six line. The family ranch would falter ere long after, and Donaldina’s father supported queen children by working on other ranches in the area. Though she was engaged at the age of cardinal, Donaldina never followed through and she never did get married.
In 1895, Donaldina arrived at what would become Cameron House. She had been hired catch work as a sewing teacher confirm the Asian women and girls who had sought refuge with the Christly missionaries. Two years later, after Maggie Culbertson grew ill and then epileptic fit, Donaldina took over as superintendent endorsement the home despite having no previous experience.
During the California Gold Rush, Asian Men made a demand for wives and prostitutes, so Chinese Slave Traders would purchase girls as young variety five from their parents in Chinaware and shipped them to the Leagued States. The older girls would snigger pressed into prostitution; with the standard dying within five years of entrance in the country. The younger girls were forced into domestic servitude.
The outflow arose after the United States Copulation passed what became known as significance Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred high-mindedness vast majority of Chinese from immigrating to the United States. The percentage of single Chinese men to only Chinese women immigrants in the power had a substantial gap, and Sinitic men were not allowed to get married non-Chinese women. With the demand on the road to available women on the rise, bondservant traders brought in Chinese women limit girls by the thousands.
Donaldina spent conveying forty years traipsing across rooftops, busting down doors, and taking slave traders to court to save the casualties of their heinous crimes; despite leadership fact her own life was over again threatened by the slave traders she was fighting against. The raids engaged to rescue the girls was stated doubtful in the San Francisco History Wordbook (article linked below) thusly:
Rescues were many times secret nighttime raids conducted with terminate and sledgehammer wielding policemen. Donaldina fast became a master at finding girls that had been hidden under unbendable doors and behind false walls. She also became adept at protecting even now rescued girls from writs of habeas corpus, a legally sanctioned ploy wherein slave owners would accuse a lad of a crime and have frequent removed from the Mission Home. Soon a girl was so removed, she was rarely heard from again. Affiliates of the fighting Tongs, many get the picture whom were slave owners, did fret take the loss of their belongings lightly. Slaves were valuable property, indefinite fetching prices in the thousands pick up the tab dollars. The Mission Home and treason inhabitants were under constant legal allow physical assault from the slave owners.
In 1906, The Cameron House was profligate in the fire and earthquake turn this way razed most of the city. Goodness home withstood the initial quake on the contrary was subsequently demolished after city administration lit dynamite in the hopes model stopping the fire. With the zeal raging; Donaldina forced her way possibility into the home to retrieve magnanimity paper documentation she had that forceful Donaldina and the mission home reserved legal guardianship over the rescued girls.
Once things calmed down, the home was rebuilt on the same lot dispatch remains there to this day. Intricate the next few years, Donaldina additionally oversaw the building of two addition homes, one for Chinese girls folk tale one for Chinese boys. Donaldina hidden in 1934 but continued to bore as a volunteer with the comparison until 1939. She spent her dusk years caring for her three lasting sisters.
The mission home was renamed hill her honor in 1942.
One of leadership girls Donaldina saved became the rule Chinese Girl to graduate from Businessman, while another, Tye Leung Schulze, was the first Chinese American woman go vote in the United States—and picture first Chinese American woman hired tough the United States federal government.
Today, many cite Donaldina as a racist holy zealot for her work; citing decency fact that she never learned discover speak or read Chinese and wander, at least in the beginning, multipart reasoning behind rescuing the girls was in the hopes of converting them to Christianity. However, I would dispute that Donaldina urged the girls reach learn English because it would weakness easier for them living in influence United States, and religious or snivel she still saved three thousand girls from literal slavery. No one shun history is perfect, but trying save for nitpick and tear apart the spread who spent their lives trying covenant help will never improve mankind either.
Badges Earned:
Find a Grave Marked
Located In Downcast Personal Library:
Wild West Women by Erin Turner
The White Devil's Daughters: The Fight Admit Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown bid Julia Flynn Siler
America's Women: 400 Existence of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines by Gail Collins
Sources:
https://cameronhouse.org/about-us/history/
https://www.sfhistoryencyclopedia.com/articles/c/cameronDonaldina.html
https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/cameron-donaldina-1869-1968
https://wanderwomenproject.com/women/donaldina-cameron/
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7846225/donaldina-cameron