Timeline of Chinese immigration to the United States

This timeline covers Chinese immigration to the United States, including both temporary and permanent migration. Among the topics discussed are: migration patterns, source and target regions of migration, laws (U.S. federal and state, and Chinese) that target or significantly affect migration patterns, court cases and administrative/bureaucratic developments affecting migration.

Year	Month and date (if available)	Event type	Details
1815		Beginning of migration	Migration from China to the United States begins at a very small scale, along with the opening of trade between China and the United States. See the Wikipedia page History of Chinese Americans for more context.
1834		Beginning of migration	Afong Moy is the first Chinese woman to arrive in the United States. She is brought from her home town of Guangzhou to New York City by Nathaniel and Frederick Carne, who exhibit her as "the Chinese Lady".
1848	February	Jurisdictional definitions and boundaries	The Mexican-American War concludes, and Alta California (which includes the modern U.S. state of California, plus nearby regions) is established to be part of the United States.
1850		Jurisdictional definitions and boundaries	The state of California comes into formal existence (...)
1850		Tax	The state of California passes a Foreign Miners' Tax of $20/month on foreign miners in California. The decision to focus on foreign miners reflects the majority view that the presence of Chinese in city services is appreciated but their competition in mining is not.
1851		Tax	The Foreign Miners' Tax is repealed, after failing to raise sufficient revenue, and causing impoverishment among miners, making them flee to cities with no money
1852		Tax	The state of California imposes a Foreign Miners' License Tax of $3/month on foreign miners. The amount of the tax would increase gradually and eventually get to $20/month in 1870, at which point it would be repealed.
1854		Court case	In People v. Hall, George Hall is accused of murdering a foreign miner Ling Sing, but all witnesses are Chinese. The court rejects their testimony, arguing that Section 394 (which forbade Indians and blacks from testifying against whites) also forbade Chinese from testifying againt whites. The opinion was delivered in 1854 by Chief Justice Hugh Murray with the concurrence of Justice Solomon Heydenfeldt.ref name=meloukhia>Smith, S. E. "Laying Some History On You: People v. Hall". Retrieved March 20, 2016. </ref>
1854		Prostitution	Chinese madam Ah Toy shuts down her business in response to the decision in People v. Hall. She had previously used the threat of the law to protect herself from clients who harassed her, but this would no longer be possible. See Ah Toy on Wikipedia for more.
1858		Treaty	With the conclusion of the Second Opium War, the Treaty of Tientsin is signed between China, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The complicated treaty requires China to continue to open its ports to Western access, and in turn, the Chinese have access to Western ports.
1860		Speech/writing	Pun Chi, a young Chinese merchant, delivers an impassioned appeal to the United States Congress, arguing against the decision in People v. Hall. The speech is translated from Chinese to English in 1870 by William Speer, a Presbyterian minister and missionary in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
1863		Connectivity	Work begins on the First Transcontinental Railroad, connecting Northern California with the East Coast. The increased connectivity would result in Chinese immigrants moving to other parts of the country beyond California, and would make Chinese immigration a more salient federal issue, rather than merely a California state issue.
1868	July 28	Treaty	The treaty that would later be known as the Burlingame Treaty is ratified in Washington, D.C. The treaty amends the Treaty of Tientsin by making relations between China and the United States more equal. The United States grants China most favored nation status. The treaty affirms that each country must allow people from the other country to migrate to it, but the privilege of naturalization is withheld.
1869	May 10	Connectivity	The First Transcontinental Railroad is completed, with the two teams working on the railroad from the west and east respectively meeting in Utah.