The American Imagination Along the Pacific Railroad: Our New West by Samuel Bowles by J.Y.
Our New West by Samuel Bowles is a book written to recount Bowles’s trip along the Pacific Railroad. Bowles was a journalist, publisher, and editor of the Springfield Republican, a Massachusetts newspaper. He was part of a party that traveled across the U.S. in the summers of 1865 and 1866 along the Pacific Railroad and along the Pacific itself. The Pacific Railroad, the first transcontinental railroad, was built between 1863 and 1869 and stretched from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean. Considering it being the first transcontinental railroad and the hopes that Americans had for the West, it became an area of great interest for many who saw its prospects. Throughout Bowles’s writing, his enthusiasms for the West and the railroad are clear as he points out areas such as natural and man-made wonders and in exploitable resources. He likely writes to the people of New England, where he is from, to spark more interest in the railroad’s potential. He even compares New England to areas along the railroad and the Pacific on occasion. Bowles, in Our New West, demonstrates that American ideas about Pacific beaches in the mid-1860s were heavily shaped by outside powers and the California gold rush. While Our New West has numerous sections, two sections in particular stand out in helping us understand these ideas and their change over time: section 21, “The Chinese,” and section 24, “Oregon–Washington–British Columbia.”
In Section 21, “The Chinese,” Bowles talks about his views of and experiences with the Chinese who have emigrated to the U.S.. From it, we can see how Americans viewed them. Bowles writes “it is so clear that, except for them, many interests, now prosperous, never could have been developed; much wealth… never could have been harvested; many public improvements… would hardly be thought of, except as unattainable, that their value and their necessity stand vindicated and acknowledged” (Bowles, 403). Bowles also mentions numerous industries–such as the railroad, gold, farming, wool, and others–whose successes are due to Chinese laborers. He makes it abundantly clear the importance of the Chinese in the growth of the U.S. and that he does have a positive view of them. On the other hand, it is also evident that he looks down on them and that other Americans seem to as well. When talking about how the Chinese worked on the Pacific Railroad, he mentions that “their wages were about one dollar a day and board, which was half the cost of ordinary white labor. This is the usual proportion between the wages of the Chinese and other laborers” (Bowles, 401). The difference in wages and the fact that it was the norm illustrates that Americans in general did not think that Chinese people were worth the same amount as white people were. This paired with the fact that the Chinese were crucial in building their infrastructure and economy leads to one conclusion: Americans saw the Chinese as another foreign body of people to exploit. In fact, there were blatant acts of racism towards them; as Bowles explains, “ostracised and burdened by the State, they, of course, have been the victims of much meanness and cruelty from individuals” (Bowles, 401). Even in Bowles, who seems to appreciate the Chinese, there can be hints of this prejudice. He explains that the Chinese “can beat a raw Irishman in a hundred ways; but while he is constantly improving and advancing, they stand still in the old ruts” (Bowles, 397) and how “the ‘be good and you will be happy’ philosophy they know by heart. The wisdom of Confucius is on all their lips. But they are mean and nasty in their vices; cunning, revengeful and wicked in their differences with each other” (Bowles, 405). From his mixed yet often seemingly logical ideas towards them, it is undeniable that prejudice exists deeply within American society. In short, he sees them as less civilized than Europeans and Americans– even barbaric. As he himself says, their society strikes him “as a low, disciplined, perfected, sensuous sensualism” (Bowles, 405).
This view of them as tools to advance their society becomes even more clear when looking at American views of the Chinese throughout time. Dr. Kariann A. Yokota, in chapter 2 of Pacific America: Histories of Transoceanic Crossings, frames the Chinese as one of the critical components in America’s expansion and seems to almost admire them as an established country and market. First, they both agree that there was a push to connect the Atlantic and Pacific; Yokota explains the motive for the creation of the Pacific Railroad, which Bowles is examining. However, their frameworks for viewing the Chinese clearly differ. Yokota examines the U.S.’s connection with the Chinese from an overall world view and from before the gold rush or Pacific Railroad. She explains that one of the big motivations to connect the Pacific and Atlantic was for connection to China for trade. Moreover, Americans recognized China’s importance to Britain’s import trade, and so therefore trading with Chinese also symbolized their newly won freedom. Meaning, for Americans at that time, they looked to China in terms of their economy and wanting to be acknowledged as an independent nation. First, as a tool for trade, Americans had desired Chinese goods even before traveling to the Pacific. Because Chinese goods were popular with the British, Americans had plenty of exposure to them before. Furthermore, the trade not only helped the economy, but also as Yokota explains,“if British luxury imports from China… had been politicized and seen as symbols of oppression and dependence before and during the Revolutionary War, then Chinese imports procured directly by US merchants in the post-Revolutionary era became a symbol of independence” (Yokota, 36). Prior to their independence, Britain had prevented the colonies from trading directly with China and other foreign nations. Clearly, there was a difference between how Americans viewed China and how they viewed the Chinese. That is, they looked to China as a tool for growth while simultaneously looking down at the Chinese for being different. In essence, Americans viewed both China and the Chinese as tools to pursue their own interests. While both helped boost the growth of the U.S., a tool is still merely a tool.
Then, in Section 24, Bowles describes his journey from California upwards through the Pacific Northwest. He brings up the landscape and natural wealth of the area a considerable amount of times and at nearly every location that he goes through; in fact, those descriptions make up nearly half of the section. In Oregon, he even says that “agriculture is the first interest of the state” (Bowles, 458). He also mentions several cities and towns that he had stopped at that seemed to be more relevant. In particular, we can examine places that had been prominent prior to the gold rush due to the natural resources there. One place that held much significance was in Washington and British Columbia, Puget Sound and some neighboring areas. Like with the rest of the Pacific Northwest, he mentions the nature there, saying “for the most part it was a continuous ride through forests, so high and thick that the sun could not reach the road, so unpeopled and untouched” (Bowles, 461). The way that Bowles talks about this area is different than he did for California–as if this area is more uncivilized or less technologically advanced. Despite the fact that there was much trade centered around there, his idea that it is “unpeopled and untouched” makes it clear what he believes is civilized. His pessimism is also apparent, as he explains that the “population is small… and not likely to grow fast, or make it a State for some years to come, unless the chance, not probable, of rich gold and silver mines within its lines should flood it with rapid immigration” (Bowles, 463). He does, however, bring up one market in particular: Puget Sound “is the great lumber market of all the Pacific Coast” (Bowles, 464), and that lumber made up almost the entire export of the Sound. Meanwhile, in British Columbia around Vancouver Island, he similarly says “there was little or no wealth in either province but such as came from the fickle and now fading gold-mines and the also lessening fur-gatherings of the Hudson Bay Company” (Bowles, 467). Not only is the current trade and wealth there minimal, its future prospects are not good either.
Comparing this to chapters 3 and 4 of Joshua Reid’s book The Sea is My Country, around the first half of the 1800s, much has undoubtedly changed. As Reid says, “by the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the regional economy depended on the trade among indigenous peoples and newcomers” (Reid, 97). Between the 1770s and 1840s, European countries and the U.S. had begun to arrive and drew boundary lines through the PNW. Before 1853, natives had enough power to exert control over their spaces and maintain their indigenous borderlands. But, looking at the region 15 years before Bowles’s trip, the year 1853 saw a smallpox epidemic for the Makahs that resulted in a devastating amount of casualties–nearly 80% and including two prominent Makah chiefs. At the same time, the U.S. established the Washington territory that year as they continued to expand. In the 1855 Treaty of Neah Bay, Americans were successful in putting the Makahs onto a reservation. Pairing the fact that natives have been in the area for so long with Bowles’s “so unpeopled and untouched” description, cultural differences evidently caused Americans to look down at natives. Moreover, the marine mammal good trade that the economy had depended on began dying out. Dr. David Igler, in his book The Great Hunt, provides an explanation for why: the sought after marine mammals began to near extinction. The market for marine mammal goods had been so prominent that “the world’s greatest hunt for marine mammals began in the North Pacific during the mid-eighteenth century and continued throughout the eastern Pacific for the next hundred years” (Igler, 103), and now it was coming to an end. In short, between the 1850s and 1860s, natives lost their prominence and the regional economy shifted in the Pacific Northwest. This is clear even just looking at the markets that Bowles mentions–lumber is the biggest market in Puget Sound and there is barely any talk of marine mammal goods by the mid 1860s.
At the same time of the fall of the natives and marine mammal market, one market in particular had quickly taken over the Pacific coast: gold. Going back to Northern California and Oregon as well, in nearly every relevant town Bowles mentions, he also mentions gold. For instance, he states that “Shasta and Yreka are the two remaining villages of importance in California,” and their importance comes from being “born of rich placer gold diggings in neighboring valleys and gulches” (Bowles, 448), though many of the gold seekers have left.
Even so, this common theme of gold brings us to the impact of the gold rush on the American imagination. The mention of gold is the common connection between a majority of Bowles’s observations of places along the Pacific coast. Bowles also has a section just about the California gold rush: section 22, “Mining in California.” Even though some places barely had gold or their economy was not focused on it, there is still usually a mention of it. With the Chinese, he mentions how critical they were in obtaining so much gold in California. In the Pacific Northwest, he notes some cities, towns, villages, etc. that are more relevant because they have gold in them, as well as the gold potential in other places. In Puget Sound, as stated before, despite there being minimal–if any–gold in the area, he brings it up, saying that the only chance for rapid growth was if “rich gold and silver mines…should flood it with rapid immigration.” Although Bowles never explicitly mentions effects of the gold rush, the constant, subtle mentions of gold throughout Our New West clearly illustrate that the gold rush had a large impact on the U.S. and the minds of Americans.
In conclusion, the ideas about the Pacific coast that existed within Americans in the mid 1860s were filled with curiosity; prospects of foreign and regional markets surrounded the question of what impact the Pacific Railroad would have. The increased exposure to both foreign markets and foreign people was new to Americans and would go on to shape the future of American culture and economy. With the gold rush, the end of the great marine mammal hunt, and completion of the Pacific Railroad, a new era of growth for the U.S. was beginning.
Works Cited
Bowles, Samuel. Our new West. Records of travel between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean. Over the plains--over the mountains--through the great interior basin--over the Sierra Nevadas--to and up and down the Pacific coast. With details of the wonderful natural scenery, agriculture, mines , business, social life, progress, and prospects ... including a full description of the Pacific railroad; and of the life of the Mormons, Indians, and Chinese. With map, portraits, and twelve full page illustrations. PDF Retrieved from the Library of Congress, Hartford Publishing Company, 1869.
Igler, David. The Great Ocean: Pacific Worlds from Captain Cook to the Gold Rush. New York, Oxford University Press, 2013 .
Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country: The Maritime World of the Makahs. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015.
Yokota, Kariann A. “Transatlantic and Transpacific Connections in Early American History.” Pacific America: Histories of Transoceanic Crossings, chapter 2, University of Hawai’i Press, 2017.
