Archaeology Magazine - July/August 1989 - 51

Gold Rush waterfront, a curious,
incongruous juxtaposition of East
and West, and a certain inspiration
for newspaper articles and Gold
Rush Boswells. Yet, the periodicals
of the day, as well as the abundant,
often richly detailed, firsthand diary
accounts of life in Gold Rush San
Francisco are almost eloquent in
their silence with regard to the Chinese fishing enclave at Rincon Point.
For more than a decade, the little
village maintained an obscure existence on the city's southern fringe,
until finally, around 1865, a combination of social and economic factors, including the southward expansion of the San Francisco waterfront,
rapidly escalating real estate prices,
and an intensifying prejudice toward
California's Chinese minority (as
exemplified by selective taxation),
forced its abandonment. By 1870,
Rincon Point had become an integral part of San Francisco's booming
waterfront. Much of the hill upon
which the cabins of the Chinese settlement once stood had been blasted
and graded away, its rock and rubble
dumped into the bay as landfill. For
the next century, continuous development around Rincon Point would
significantly alter the area's natural
landscape, leaving the remnants of
the little fishing village buried and
forgotten.
The historical record of the village and its people is sketchy. The
identities of the inhabitants are lost.
So too are many social and economic
details of their lives. Yet this obscure
settlement, while largely invisible
against the fast-paced historical
panorama of Gold Rush San Francisco, played an important, if belatedly recognized, part in California's early history. For one thing,
the little village was the prototype
for many Chinese fishing camps that,
by the close of the nineteenth century, dotted the California coastline
from the Mexican border to the
northern shores of San Francisco
Bay. (It has been estimated that by
1888 there were more than 2,000
Chinese living in some 30 fishing
camps.) In addition, the village may
be the spot from which California's
commercial fishing industry was

launched.
Ironically, the intolerance and
scorn experienced by many of the
newly arrived Chinese sojourners
may have been the catalysts that led
them to become California's first commercial fishermen. Upon arriving in
America, many Chinese quickly
found themselves barred from preferred employment opportunities.
Anglo-Americans resented their willingness to work harder and longer

From top: retired vessels, readyfor dismantling by Chinese workers; a timber
from a dismantled boat with number
"15 "carved byshipwright, indicating its
placement within the hull; three scale
modelsof Chinesefishing boats.

for less compensation. Forced from
the goldfields by burdensome taxation and threats of physical violence,
many sought jobs that involved a
minimum of competition with whites.
The Rincon Point settlers were
soon catching a variety of fish and
shrimp, which they salted, dried, and
packed into boxes for sale. Always
alert for innovative ways to earn
their living, they were the first to
recognize and exploit the commercial potential of abalone, a marine
mollusk that had previously been
deemed of no practical value. In
Gold Rush days, abalone was abundant in the waters around San Francisco Bay. The inventive fishermen
ate the meat, then sold the colorful
shells, which soon became a popular
source material for jewelry and trinkets. Dozens of fragmentary abalone
shells have been excavated from the
Rincon Point site. A substantial
number have also been recovered
from the remnants of a Gold Rushera Chinese store recently excavated
near the southern edge of San Francisco's Chinatown. These remains
suggest that the Rincon Point fishermen and Chinese merchants, working in the heart of the city, may have
exchanged foodstuffs and marine
products for manufactured goods.
The Rincon Point villagers also
sought other forms of work. Documentary sources indicate that some
of them worked for an energetic,
English-born entrepreneur named
Charles Hare, who founded one of
Gold Rush San Francisco's most
novel business ventures. Soon after
his arrival in the city in 1852, Hare
established a shipbreaking business
at the tip of Rincon Point, some 300
yards to the northeast of the fishing
village.
Excavation of the shipbreaking
yard was undertaken concurrently
with the work at the Rincon Point
fishing village. The site has yielded
more than 100 oak timbers and other
remnants of Gold Rush vessels, including a small anchor, a range of
brass and metal nautical fittings, and
several pieces of the copper sheeting
with which the old hulls had once
been sheathed to protect them from
the ravages of marine worms. Most of
July/August1989 51

Archaeology Magazine - July/August 1989

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