The origin of the phrase is not well documented. However, it is often speculated to be related to the treatment or experiences of
Chinese immigrants to America in the 1800s, with many specific incidents or situations potentially serving as an origin. An alternative theory speculates it might be related to "
chinaman", a seller of
chinaware, with ''chinaman's chance'' referring to the fragility of fine porcelain.
Chinese immigration es One early potential origin for the phrase is from the
California gold rush of 1849. The travel time for news of the gold rush to reach
China was quite long, and by the time Chinese immigrants arrived to
prospect, many of the rich mines were already claimed. These Chinese immigrants who missed out had to work with only those lands which had already been exploited or which were rejected by others, meaning these late-arriving immigrants had a slim chance of success. The historical record, however, indicates that many Chinese combined efforts with each other and did very well in the goldfields, introducing mining techniques then unknown to non-Chinese. Alternatively, in 1920 the phrase was explained to describe the low probability for the Chinese in America to make a fortune at gold mining. Although there were Chinese in the gold mining camps soon after the news broke, "they were extremely unpopular [and] the slightest excuse was sufficient to warrant their being beaten or chased away; consequently they had no chance to get a real foothold" to establish mining rights. with an earthen embankment (1877) Another potential origin of the phrase ''Chinaman's chance'' traces it to the high probability of death or injury during the construction of the
U.S. transcontinental railroad in the late 1860s. Although these accounts of construction techniques have been debunked as mythmaking after the work was complete, it is undeniable that many Chinese immigrants died while building the railroad. According to a newspaper article published in 1870, of bones from Chinese railroad workers were shipped to China for interment. The article calculated the bones were from 1,200 workers. It is estimated that 20,000 Chinese immigrants worked to build the railroad. (1885), published in ''
Harper's Weekly'' A third possibility is in reference to the low probability of a fair verdict in murder trials with a Chinese victim, assisted partly by California state law first issued in 1850. In that ruling, the
California Supreme Court expanded the definition of "black person" in the
California Crimes and Punishments Act of 1850 to exclude "all races other than the Caucasian", throwing out evidence provided by a Chinese immigrant's testimony. The law was amended in 1863 to explicitly exclude testimony from witnesses of certain races: "No Indian, or person having one half or more of Indian blood, or Mongolian or Chinese, shall be permitted to give evidence in favor or against any white person." In a second case,
People v. Brady (1870), the Supreme Court of California upheld the statute against the
Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, stating "the power of testifying is neither an object of desire, nor in any sense a right". New evidence laws were passed in 1872, superseding the prior rules and restoring the right to testify to Chinese Americans.
Bill Bryson believed the phrase could be traced to the
Rock Springs massacre of 1885, referring to the forced expulsion of Chinese American residents, whose chances of living were slimmed by the dual threat of armed mobs and freezing overnight temperatures.
Amy Uyematsu also related it to the Rock Springs, writing that the phrase had grim and bitter reality if the fair treatment of Chinese immigrants was impossible.
Delicate chinaware used the phrase in a 1914 comic The "chinaman" (note the
lowercase "c") can also refer to a dealer of
porcelain from China; the "chinaware" they sold was notoriously delicate and fragile. In addition,
Peter Tamony concluded in 1965 the phrase can be traced back to the sport of boxing in early 19th-century Great Britain. Tamony's hypothesis is based on terms such as having a
crockery chin or a
china chin, which characterize some pugilists as delicate and fragile. An equivalent American idiom would be to say a fighter has a
glass jaw. Tamony stated the lowercase phrase ''chinaman's chance
was transferred to the United States via Australia, but based this on his belief the first use of the phrase was from 1914, in a cartoon drawn by Tad Dorgan and published in the San Francisco Call''. In fact, the phrase was already in use by 1893, Under this interpretation, the phrase may have originated as local slang in California and spread via the journalism of
William Randolph Hearst and his flagship newspaper
San Francisco Examiner in the 1890s. ==Usage history==