PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — It may be too late to seek justice for the 19th century massacre of nearly three dozen Chinese gold miners by white frontiersmen, but one group of friends says it’s never too late to honor their memory.
The friends, who call themselves the Chinese Massacre Memorial Committee, plan to bring a monument to the Snake River cove where the gold miners were robbed and killed on May 25, 1887.
The killers were believed to be a gang of Oregon horse thieves, ranch hands and a 15-year-old schoolboy.
R. Gregory Nokes of West Linn tells The Oregonian (http://bit.ly/shVufG ) that the killers could have robbed the unarmed miners without killing them but acted in “a savage act of racial hatred.” Nokes wrote a book about the massacre and is helping with the memorial.
