Digital History

Date:1852

Annotation: In 1852, a group of Chinese merchants explained how the migrants could afford their passage to the United States.

Document: Some have borrowed the small amount necessary, to be returned with unusual interest, on the account of the risk; some have been furnished with money without interest by their friends and relations, and some again, but much the smaller portion, have received advances in money, to be returned out of the profits of the adventure. The usual apportionment of the profits is about three tenths to the lender of the money…. These arrangements, made at home, seldom bring them farther than San Francisco, and here the Chinese traders furnish them the means of getting to the mines.