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.
[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.
Tongs attempted to corner the market on criminal activities, especially anything that would bring in a nice profit, such as prostitution, opium, gambling, and forcing Chinese merchants to pay protection fees.
The hatchet men, also known to outsiders of the Chinatown as highbinders (so called as they would bind their queue on top of their heads to prevent them from being grabbed by an opponent), were the salaried soldiers of the tongs.
It is said that many hatchet men just prior to an assassination mission or battle with a rival tong would consume wildcat meat, in hopes that they would temporarily acquire the reflexes and sight of the animal.
[10] In the 1850s and the decade succeeding it, the criminal class in Chinatown was very small, with virtually no major type of crimes such as murder, rape, armed robbery, or assault.
Petty crime was frequent in the Chinese block, and could be divided into four categories: lotteries and gambling, opium smoking, prostitution, and minor thievery.
[13] But many Chinese were unsure and cautious, and only donated what would amount to about a tenth of their first year operation costs, and it was quickly forced to dissolve due to lack of funds.
It was not only parties and groups of marauding hoodlums who took advantage of the vulnerable Chinese, as even many politicians, to increase their public audience, joined in.
Two scares also occurred in the 1870s pertaining to Chinatown, both dealing with the false rumor of leprosy and then smallpox epidemics breaking out within the block.
The Six Companies, representing practically all Chinese in California, tried to work with local governments in attempts to quell the movements against Asians.
With the Six Companies busy fighting against the groups who wished for their people to be kicked out of the country, the Chinatown police squad, after many years of little to no violence, had grown quite lax, which had lulled them into failure to act upon the creation of the tongs and their subsequent rise.
[17] Quickly the Chee Kung Tong had reaped the rewards of its activities, so much so that it was able to remove the unhappy portions of their membership base.
[1] An interesting note to the Chee Kung Tong was that in June, 1885, they welcomed an eighteen-year-old Chinese to their headquarters during his three-month stay in the United States.
[5] By 1854, three tongs had begun to flourish in the San Francisco area those being the Chee Kung, Hip Yee, and the Kwong Duck.
But attempts to send back these girls sometimes were thwarted by American businessmen with vested interests in the Chinatown Red Light District.
The Six Companies battled the tongs for fifty years, and while moderately successful from 1850 to the 1870s, the criminal elements began to grow exponentially around 1880.
The Six Companies was a paternal order that set up the rules and regulations of their society without consenting to the will of their people, in exchange for security and protection.
Many times, both the police and politicians put unwarranted blame on the Six Companies, as the organization to outsiders was shrouded in mystery.
This was later taken away by Chief of Police Patrick Crowley, who instead of focusing on the warring tongs, aided in the promulgation of the Felton Act, which removed the power of the exit visa from the Companies.
[25] The collapse of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association came about when the Geary Act passed as it was the one true occasion when the Companies pressured the whole community to protest it by not registering, as well as donating a dollar each for the employment of lawyers to fight for their rights.
The leader of the opposition to the Geary Act was Chun Ti Chu, and when the Six Companies lost the battle against the Act and many U.S. officials pointed out that the Six Companies had informed their members to violate the laws of the United States, both Chun Ti Chu and the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association had taken a huge loss of face to their society.
Immediately after the severe loss of face and prestige for the Six Companies in their protest of the Geary Act in 1893–1894, the criminal element of the Chinese finally burst its seams and the tong wars erupted onto the streets and alleys of Chinatown, as well as the newspapers of the country.
The last major blow to the Six Companies was a boycott of See Yup products and stores after the murder of Fung Jing Toy (Little Pete) in January 1897, which ground the economy of the whole Quarter to a halt.
[27] A neutral Chinese Consul General, Ho Yow, who knew that the boycott was a serious feature in the strength of the tongs, attempted to bring the two sides to the peace table and nearly succeeded.
Many people, in the face of the escalating tong wars, emigrated away from San Francisco and the United States altogether after the Six Companies was defeated.
The earthquake, on April 18, 1906, killed about 3,000 people, and its subsequent fires destroyed the Chinatown ghettos, gambling halls, and brothels.
Some of the boo how doy were extradited, some were dead, and some left for other cities such as Chicago, New York, Seattle, Portland, Oakland, and Los Angeles.
The ones in New York City and Chicago kept up the Tong Wars for another ten to twenty years, with a little bit of Chicago-style gangsterism,[further explanation needed] but they too died down.
In the fictional DC character Superman's city, Metropolis, the Tong Wars are given as an explanation for the existence of underground tunnels connecting Chinese homes and businesses in Chinatown.