Tong Wars

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The Tong Wars were a series of violent disputes beginning in the late 19th century among rival Chinese Tong factions centered in the Chinatowns of various American cities, in particular San Francisco. Tong wars could be triggered by a variety of inter-gang grievances, from the public besmirching of another Tong's honor, to failure to make full payment for a "slave girl", to the murder of a rival Tong member. Each Tong had salaried soldiers, known as boo how doy, who fought in Chinatown alleys and streets over the control of opium, prostitution, gambling, and territory.^[1]

In San Francisco's Chinatown district, the Tong Wars lasted until 1921, with the various criminal Tongs estimated between nineteen and as many as thirty at the peak of the conflict, though the actual number is uncertain, with frequent splintering and mergers between the various Tongs.^[2] While a loose alliance, consisting of the Chinatown police, Donaldina Cameron, the courts, and the Chinese community itself tried to stem the tide of the fighting Tongs, it was the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fires caused by the earthquake that was the death knell for the Tongs in San Francisco, as it destroyed the brothels, gambling dens, and opium houses that the criminal organizations had used for the majority of their revenue. Recovery was slow for most Tongs, so they abandoned the old Chinatown.