It should be noted that the Knights of Labor, an organization formed for white labor interests in western states and territories, and often the instigating agent for violence against the Chinese, did have a large Irish Catholic membership.

The look was repeated in The Chinese Question, 18 February 1871. Though he is not drawn as overtly Irish, the working man fits the look that Nast establishes for white labor – gruff, bearded, burly and dominating. Shapes of skulls were thought to be indicative of intelligence and placement in an evolutionary hierarchy by stretching out the skull of a Chinese man, the perpetrator, and perhaps the artist offers the Chinese different than the standard perception for human normality. The force of pulling on the hair elongates the Chinese man’s head. His left hand grips the Chinese queue and prevents the Chinese from escape. He has lifted his left leg to counterbalance his swing and prepares to strike his Chinese victim. In his right hand, he raises a whip – a variation of a cat-o-nine whip, believed to have originated to punish African slaves during the U.S. Wearing a hat that bears the name California, the white laborer bears his teeth in a determined grimace. Unknown terror awaits this Chinese figure as he attempts to flee from a white aggressor. In the United States, the queue was a subject of fascination that added to the mystique and perceived feminization of Chinese men who were often “depicted as lacking virility.” In the male-dominated world of western gold mining “Chinese men became targets of white men’s fears of homosexuality or the objects of their desire” (Pfaelzer 13). Chinese men faced execution if they did not grow a queue (Spence 38). In times of battle, the “queue” helped to distinguish Manchu warriors from the enemy. During the Manchurian takeover of the Ming Dynasty, it was decreed that Chinese men shave their heads with the exception of a part of the back of the head where a long ponytail, often braided, would remain. Pacific Chivalry sets the western locale and places a central focus on the unique hairstyle or “ queue” of Chinese men. Pacific Chivalry, Harper’s Weekly, 7 August 1869 The cartoon establishes Nast’s sympathies toward the Chinese. This is Nast’s first cartoon of a Chinese immigrant or sojourner in the West Coast.

Chinese queue hairstyle