Opium was the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of 19th and early 20th century drugs. It was a legal, important medication used extensively for pain control and as an antidiarrheal. It was also referred to as a “loathsome moral leprosy” that would hyper-sexualize innocent women, leading them to degradation and shame. The difference was in the type of opium used, liquid, pill form or a tar-like powder that was smoked, and who was using it. If it was taken as a liquid or pill by a white person, that was acceptable. If it was smoked by a Chinese person that was “loathsome.”
The two most addicted segments of American society in the 19th century were Civil War soldiers who used morphine, a derivative of opium, for lingering war injuries and middle-class white women who used it in freely available patent medicines, such as Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup. In Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, the morphine was used to “sooth” both themselves and their children. Mrs. Winslow’s and other opioid-based patent medicines became known as “baby killers” and were eventually outlawed.
The Chinese became associated with opium because most opium in the U.S. was imported or smuggled from China. To be clear, not all Chinese smoked opium. Some authors estimate that only about 20% of the Chinese in the U.S. used the drug. Those who did use it mostly smoked it recreationally. Of course, there were some Chinese who saw that dealing in illegal drugs as a good career move. The opium that was smoked was of a lower grade than the liquid, which was the medical grade opium. Smoked opium was used in social settings as a relaxant and as a pain killer. It is more difficult to become addicted to smoked opium than it is the liquid opium.
However, you wouldn’t know that from the popular literature and newspaper articles of the era. According to Diana Ahmad, newspaper reporters and editors used the press to “encourage the progress and moral tone they considered desirable for the United States.” In Arizona and Nevada they saw themselves as protecting the public from evil, and to do that they had to be warned of the evils of smoking opium. In February 1882, a breathlessly angry article titled simply “Opium” appeared in the Arizona Weekly Citizen about an innocent verdict in the trial of “Chinese opium smokers.” The reporter railed against the overwhelming proof against the Chinese, as well as the evils of smoking opium. He reported that a “gentleman of this city” had a son who was an opium addict: “This gentlemen said that he had rather pick up his son from the gutter, drunk with alcoholic liquors every day in the year, than to see him thus depraved.” In addition to local opium den raids, Tucson newspapers regularly carried articles about raids in other Arizona towns and throughout the country. A quick review of the Ayers Chinese index reveals that mentions of opium peaked between 1882, the year the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, and 1885. It was mentioned less often by 1896 and in 1897 not at all. After that, except for a blip of articles in 1904, there were only a small number each year. In 1909 the Opium Exclusion Act passed. It banned the importation and possession of opium for smoking. In 1910 and 1911 there were several articles regarding the smuggling of opium, but after entries that mention opium dropped off steeply.
Another way to protect the innocent American public from the evils of smoking opium was vice mapping. One of the most infamous vice maps was of San Francisco’s Chinatown done in 1885 at the request of the city supervisors. A group organized by the supervisors visited Chinatown to investigate conditions there. The map and the report were vehemently anti-Chinese. They were part of a plan to rid the city of the Chinese and their vices of gambling, opium smoking and prostitution.
Sanborn Fire maps also practiced vice mapping. They were more subtle, but in some ways their effects were more insidious. The purpose of Sanborn maps was to map liabilities, especially fire hazards, for insurance companies. They are extremely detailed and accurate because they were drawn based on property records as well as on site surveys. They are still used by genealogists, urban historians, construction companies, and others to get a snapshot of structures above and below the ground, in urban areas from the 19th to the mid-20th century. Researchers trust the Sanborn maps and normally do not question them.
The 1883 and 1886, and even later, Sanborn fire maps for Tucson show vice mapping in relationship to the Chinese. The area in the map image was referred to locally as Chinatown. It grew around Chan Tin Wo’s store and his other properties. In the 1886 map, which is nearly identical to the 1883 map, notice:
1. “Chinese Opium Den” on Pearl. In 1879 Tucson passed “Ordinance 23: Prohibiting the Keeping of Places for Smoking Opium.” It is doubtful that the City of Tucson would have ignored this large “opium den” for years. It is unlikely that a property record would have referred to the building as an opium den. Certainly, there would not have been a sign on the door saying, “Opium Den – Come on In!”
2. The “opium den,” the Chinese dwelling and store across the street, the Chinese store and wash house on Main are colored green. Green was used by Sanborn to indicate that a building was a special hazard. These buildings were made of fire-resistant adobe. Other buildings just to the north are noted as “Chinese,” “Chinese Grocery,” but with no special hazard warning. I understand why a laundry could be a special hazard. However, the room labeled as “gambling” which has a door directly into the “opium den,” is not marked as a hazard, but the “opium den” is. It is random and makes no sense.
3. The “Mexican Shed Wash Ho” is the only time I’ve ever seen a building noted as “Mexican” on a Sanborn of any date for Tucson. It’s not just in the 1883 and 1886 maps that buildings are marked as “Chinese.” This designation goes on for decades. With the lone exception above, I’ve never seen buildings designated as Mexican, Black, Indian or white in the Tucson Sanborn maps. Although I believe this designation was originally based on racist views of the Chinese, I have to say that it has proven useful to later researchers in the Tucson Chinese community.
Did opium smoking in Tucson involve exotic opium dens full of innocent white people lounging on pillows while succumbing to the evils of opium? No, it did not. White people did smoke opium in Tucson but what happened here did NOT in any way resemble the popular fantasy of opium smoking. These fantasies were fueled by the odd Victorian phenomena known as “slum tours.” During the tours white, middle class clients toured Chinatowns in large cities to see for themselves the degradation and violence caused by opium. What they didn’t realize was that the tours were a form of immersive theater where the unwitting audience (the tourists) were a part of the production. They were like today’s Halloween haunted houses where you pay to be frightened. And, just as in today’s haunted houses, if you pay to be frightened, you will be frightened – that’s the business. In addition, many of the photos of 19th century opium dens are now believed to have been staged.
So, what was the “opium den” really used for? I believe it was used as a community meeting space, a place where Chee Kung Tong meetings were held, a place where religious practices occurred, and a place where holidays were celebrated. Was opium smoked there? Yes, it likely was. Arrests made show that the Chinese in Tucson did possess and smoke it in groups, in violation of Ordnance 23. Prior to about 1900, newspaper articles show those arrested for opium smoking were mainly, but not exclusively Chinese men. After about 1900, arrests show more racial variety. In the archaeological investigation of the Ying On Compound/Tong House on Main before it was torn down, Lister and Lister found enough items related to opium usage in the compound that it makes up a whole section of their report. The residents of the Ying On Compound were mostly elderly Chinese men without families to care for them. These men, like Ah One, the man I wrote an article about, had likely worked in jobs in their youth that required heavy labor over long periods of time, leading to an old age of muscular/skeletal pain from which they sought relief and escape by smoking opium.
Again, one long lasting effect of this skewed, racist vision of opium smoking in Tucson is that these maps are still used and trusted today. Unfortunately, they perpetuate the myths of opium smoking in Tucson. Either the 1883 or the 1886 Sanborn map was likely the basis for the 1941 George Hand’s map of Tucson drawn by Gus Schneider. George Hand is Tucson’s most famous diarist. His diaries, written with candor and humor, are an accurate reflection of daily life in Tucson and southern Arizona from his service in the California Column in 1861 to his death in Tucson in 1887. The Hand map contains the “Chinese opium den” in the same location indicated in both Sanborn maps. This map is taken as fact and has even been uploaded to the City of Tucson’s Maps and Records website.
Resources
“II (J) Opium.” Chinese in Northwest America Research Committee (CINARC), viewed 9/14/2022 http://www.cinarc.org/Topics.html#anchor_406
Ahmad, Diana L. “Nevada, Arizona and the Campaign Against Smoking Opium, 1875-1900,” Arizona History Convention, 2010, available at the Arizona Historical Society Library and Archive, Tucson, AZ.
Ayers, James. James Ayers Newspaper Index: Early Southern Arizona Newspaper Index 1859-1911: Topic: Chinese, viewed on 9/14/2022, https://www.arizonahistoricalsociety.org/wp-content/upLoads/library_Ayres-Index_Chinese.pdf Note: There are articles in the Chinese index that date to as late as 1929.
Berglund, Barbara. “Opium Dens in Chinatown,” FoundSF, viewed on 9/14/2022 https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Opium_Dens_in_Chinatown (Originally published in chapter 3 “Making Race in the City: Chinatowns Tourist Terrain,” in Making San Francisco American: Cultural Frontiers in the Urban West, 1846-1906, by Barbara Berglund, University of Kansas Press, 2007.)
Bronson, Bennet and Chuimei Ho. “Chinese Opium in America 1850-1920,” Chinese in Northwest America Research Committee, Seattle, Washington, 2023.
Chan, Sandra. “The Incredible Life of Ah One: Tucson’s Chinese Sailor,” Journal of Arizona History, vol. 56, no. 4 (Winter 2015).
Fisher, George. “The Drug War at 100,” Stanford Law School, viewed on 9/14/2022 https://law.stanford.edu/2014/12/19/the-drug-war-at-100/
Frost, Natasha. “Chinatown Duped ‘Slum Tourists” with Faked Danger and Depravity,” Atlas Obscura, October 2, 2017, viewed on 9/14/2022 https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/slumming-chinatown-new-york-history-fake-opium-dens
Ghosh, Amitav. Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2023.
“Introduction to the Sanborn Map Collection,” Geography and Map Reading Room, Library of Congress, viewed on 9/14/2022 https://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/sanborn/san4a1.html
Jones, Jonathan. “Civil War Veterans and Opiate Addiction,” C-SPAN, taped October 27, 2020, viewed on 9/14/2022 https://www.c-span.org/video/?477833-1/civil-war-veterans-opiate-addiction Women are also discussed as the most addicted group in 19th century America. See 1:07:05 of the text for the presentation for a discussion of white women opium addicts.
Lister, Florence C. & Robert H. Lister. The Chinese of Early Tucson: Historic Archaeology from the Tucson Urban Renewal Project, Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona Number 52, University of Arizona Press, 1989, viewed 9/14/2022 https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/582059
Miller, Gregg. “1885 Map Reveals Vice in San Francisco’s Chinatown and Racism at City Hall,” Wired, September 30, 2013, viewed on 9/14/2022 https://www.wired.com/2013/09/1885-map-san-francisco-chinatow/
Poon, Linda. “Opium Dens are a Terrible Theme for Bars,” Bloomberg CityLab, May 31, 2017, viewed on 9/14/2022 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-31/the-problem-with-opium-den-themed-bars-and-restaurants
Schneider, Gustave van Hermert. George Hand’s Tucson Between 1870 And 1880 Historic Hand Drawn Map, City of Tucson, Maps and Records: Construction Plan HS-1870, viewed 9/14/2022 https://www.tucsonaz.gov/apps/maps-and-records/construction-plans/details/53
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, Tucson, Pima County, Arizona, Image 6. Sanborn Map Company, July 1886, viewed on 9/14/2022 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g4334tm.g001801886
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, Tucson, Pima County, Arizona. Sanborn Map Company, 1883. Arizona Historical Society Library and Archives, Tucson, AZ.
“Sanborn Keys and Colors,” Geography and Map Reading Room, Library of Congress, viewed on 9/14/2022 https://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/sanborn/san12.html