Fou-Sang & 1870s board game: from New York to San Francisco via the Union Pacific Railroad

The front page of the David Rumsey Map Collection is the one to thank for this article. I noticed "From NYC to SF" image, and decided to post it to solicit some comments. Instead, I ended up commenting on it myself. Could not really help it, and the process of commenting made me think of a few thing. My thoughts are below.

Anyways, as per the source:
  • Date is estimated, not indicated in the printed materials.
  • An unusual board game based on the "new Union Pacific Railroad."
    • The original company, the Union Pacific Rail Road was incorporated on July 1, 1862
    • The Union Pacific Railway would later declare bankruptcy in 1893
    • A new Union Pacific "Railroad" was formed and Union Pacific "Railway" merged into the new corporation.
  • The game board shows forty five beautifully executed views of places along the Union Pacific route, starting with "Rail road depot in New York" and ending in "San Francisco, the metropolis of California."
  • ... and other bla-bla-bla you can read in the description section here.
LOL factor: The cover of the game box has a lovely colored litho view of two women joining hands across the American Continent, one representing America and the other Asia.

While it's somewhat funny that they are misrepresenting Gods...
... there is something very peculiar in the below image and its description. Why Asia? Are we talking about India (Indians or Indiens?) or China here?

Voyage from New York to San Francisco upon the Union Pacific Railroad.jpg

This is what in their 1870s opinion the city of San Francisco looked like. Of course, we know that it looked totally different, but they wanted to "educate" the masses, right?

4781002.jpg

And then we have a few other places in between, starting with the NYC.
  • Along the way, we have, among others, views of Pittsburgh, Omaha, "surprise by savage Indians," "wild heard of buffalloes," "railroad bridge over the Platte river," Cheyenne, Green River, Humboldt Valley, "Trukee" Valley, Sierra Nevada and Sacramento.
nyc-sf.jpg

Source
So we have this trip from New York City to San-Francisco. And then we have these two so-called "women", one representing America and the other Asia.
  • Hence, we somehow ended up with pagodas on the way from NYC to SF.
  • Additionally, we have this Horn of Plenty, and other Roman-Greek type stuff, including one of the women.
So... who lived in San Francisco just prior to the time when this photograph was made?

And one more little detail I have to add to the mix... but this is an interesting one. To understand what I'm talking about you need to disregard our regular "from within the US" orientation, and approach it globally.

east vs west.jpg

In other words East is West, and West is East, but globally. And here is what we have, as far as city founded-ation goes.

On the Right (West):
  • New York - 1624​
    • New York state - admitted to the Union in 1788
  • Boston - 1630​
    • Massachusetts - admitted to the Union in 1788
  • Baltimore - 1729​
    • Maryland - admitted to the Union in 1788
  • Charleston - 1670​
    • South Carolina - admitted to the Union in 1788
On the Left (East):
  • Vancouver, Canada - 1884, generously​
  • Portland - 1845​
    • Oregon- admitted to the Union in 1859
  • Seattle - 1851, generous date
    • Washington - admitted to the Union in 1889
  • Tacoma - 1875​
  • San Francisco - 1848, ok date
    • California - admitted to the Union in 1850
As you can see we have this wonderful ~200 to 300 year long settlement time gap. We do have an official explanation for that, but I do not trust it. Anyways, here is what the advancement looked like.

westward_1.jpg

From Here

Fusang
A country named Fusang was described by the native Buddhist missionary Hui Shen in 499 AD, as a place east of China. Hui Shen went by ship to Fusang, and upon his return reported his findings to the Chinese Emperor. His descriptions are recorded in the 7th-century text Book of Liang by Yao Silian, and describe a Bronze Age civilization inhabiting the Fusang country.
  • The Fusang described by Shen has been variously posited to be the Americas, Sakhalin island, the Kamchatka Peninsula or the Kuril Islands.
  • ...a land almost twenty thousand li, or ten thousand kilometers, away, and ten thousand li, or five thousand kilometers, across. The book also describes plants such as corn and tobacco, habits of aboriginal Americans, and geographical features that correspond so closely to those of Mexico and America’s west coast that you’d practically have to worship Fox News to call it coincidence.
  • The American hypothesis was the most hotly debated one in the late 19th and early 20th century after the 18th-century writings of Joseph de Guignes were revived and disseminated by Charles Godfrey Leland in 1875.
  • The American hypothesis was all but refuted by the time of the First World War.
1400s: Chinese/Tartarian ship vs. Columbus's ship
...food for thought...
ZHENG HE vs columbus ship-1.jpg

Source

1752 Map
Engraved colored in outline map of the northern Canada, Alaska and Arctic region Map of the northern Canada, Alaska and Arctic region showing glaciers, oceans and sea currents. and sea currents. Philippe Buache (map author) was a French geographer. He was trained under the geographer Guillaume Delisle, whom he succeeded in the Academie des sciences in 1730. Buache was nominated first geographer of the king in 1729.
  • This 1753 map by Philippe Buache locates Fusang ("Fou-Sang des Chinois", "Fusang of the Chinese") north of the State of California.
1752-fou-sang.jpg

Source

1776 Map
Engraved hand-colored in outline, double-page map of the northwest coast of North America and northeast Asia including the North Pacific Ocean to the Bering Strait and the Kamchatka Peninsula. Alaska shown by a group of islands off the coast of Russia, identified as Isole Alessiane.
  • There is a notation of the Chinese colony of Fou-Sang in the vicinity of Vancouver Island.
  • Map shows political divisions, cities, towns, coastal towns, mountains and rivers.
1776-fou-sang.jpg

Source

1778 Map
Finely colored map of the world on Mercator's projection, showing the tracks of Captain James Cook's first voyage and shows the "Corean Sea". The map shows a number of fascinating details along the Northwest Coast of America, including:
  • Fou-Sang of the Chinese, a reference to the theory that Chinese mariners colonized America in the late 5th Century that led to the mythical "Fou-Sang".
    • KD: Including 1,200 y.o. info was normal back then, right?
1778-fou-sang.jpg

Source

1781 Map
Rare map of the Northwest Coast of America and Northeast Coast of Asia, showing Cook's Tracks through the Pacific. This map is an updated version of the map which originally appeared in Philippe Buache's rare work, Considerations géographiques et physiques sur les nouvelles découvertes au nord de la grande mer, appellée vulgairement la Mer du Sud, published in Paris 1753-54, one of the rarest and most influential works on the discoveries along the Northwest Coast of America in the mid-18th Century.

1781-fou-sang.jpg

Source

1783 Map
1783-fou-sang.jpg

Source
What I also find interesting about some of the above maps is the fact that some of them have nautical routs going from the Chinese and Russian Tartaries to the west coast of the future United States states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California.

So, naturally thinking about this time gap between when east/west American cities/states were founded. Why do we have this time gap? What forces were guarding the western side of the North American continent to prevent it from being occupied by the "Declaration of Independence" Americans? And I think there could be a hypothesis to be made. Before I voice my opinion, there is one more interesting fact to be mentioned.

Anti-Chinese Activities
Now and then we would run into info about those mysterious Chinese smuggling tunnels, as well as other information pertaining to the 19th/early 20th century US West Coast Chinese laborers. Officially the cheap work force inundated Western United States coast starting with approximately 1850s. I guess the California Gold Rush which started in 1848 could be a more accurate date. Here is what we have.

LA Chinese massacre of 1871
The Chinese massacre of 1871 was a race riot that occurred on October 24, 1871, in Los Angeles, California, when a mob of around 500 white and mestizo persons entered Chinatown and attacked, robbed, and murdered Chinese residents. The massacre took place on Calle de los Negros (Street of the Blacks/Black Street) also referred to as "Negro Alley". The mob gathered after hearing that a policeman had been shot and a rancher killed by Chinese. An estimated 17 to 20 Chinese immigrants were hanged by the mob in the course of the riot, but most had already been shot to death. At least one was mutilated, when someone cut off a finger to get his diamond ring. Ten men of the mob were prosecuted and eight were convicted of manslaughter in these deaths. The convictions were overturned on appeal due to technicalities.
chinese-massacre.jpg

Discrimination had been rising against the increasing number of Chinese immigrants living in California. It has been described as a root cause of the massacre. White and mestizo residents of Los Angeles resented the expansion of the Chinese population, considering them an alien group. In 1863 the state legislature had passed a law that Asians (defined as Chinese, Mongolian, Indian, etc.) could not testify in court against whites, making them vulnerable to abuse and injustice, and putting them beyond reach of the law.

San Francisco Riot of 1877
The San Francisco riot of 1877 was a two-day pogrom (a russian word in 1877 CA?) waged against Chinese immigrants in San Francisco by the city's majority white population from the evening of July 23 through the night of July 24, 1877. The ethnic violence which swept Chinatown resulted in four deaths and the destruction of more than $100,000 worth of property belonging to the city's Chinese immigrant population.
San Francisco riot of 1877.jpg

From 1873 through the rest of the 1870s a severe economic crisis swept the United States of America known to history as the Long Depression. Economic contraction in the eastern United States proved the motivation for many to pull up stakes and try to reestablish themselves in the West coast mecca of California. Indeed, between the years 1873 and 1875 an estimated 150,000 workers made their way to the "Golden State," many of whom settled in the state's only metropolis, San Francisco.

Vancouver, CA anti-Chinese riots of 1886
The Vancouver anti-Chinese riots of 1886, sometimes called the Winter Riots because of the time of year they took place, were prompted by the engagement of cheap Chinese labour by the Canadian Pacific Railway to clear Vancouver's West End of large Douglas fir trees and stumps, passing over the thousands of unemployed men from the rest of Canada who had arrived looking for work.
In January 1886 Chinese workers were camped on the shore of Vancouver Harbour, near the present north end of Burrard Street. Chinese were hired to clear the trees and stumps then still standing in Vancouver's West End, at the usual much lower rate paid to Chinese labour. In January 1886, an angry mob of whites, who had been unemployed and hungry for weeks with no work and angered that potentially-available employment and payscales were undercut by Chinese labour, stormed the Chinese camp in the West End at night, then camped in their tents. Many were injured, and some fled into the icy sea to escape their assailants.

Seattle anti-Chinese riot of 1886
The Seattle riot of 1886 occurred on February 6–9, 1886, in Seattle, Washington, amidst rising anti-Chinese sentiment caused by intense labor competition and in the context of an ongoing struggle between labor and capital in the Western United States. The dispute arose when a mob affiliated with a local Knights of Labor chapter formed small committees to carry out a forcible expulsion of all Chinese from the city. Violence erupted between the Knights of Labor rioters and federal troops ordered in by President Grover Cleveland. The incident resulted in the removal of over 200 Chinese people from Seattle and left 2 militia men and 3 rioters seriously injured.
In the mid-1880s, soldiers were called to the neighborhood around Main Street and what was then still Second Avenue (now Occidental) in downtown Seattle to deal with anti-Chinese agitation.
  • When these soldiers were photographed, the distinguished Pacific House behind them was nearly new. It appears in the city’s 1884 bird’s-eye drawing, thanks to artists who were smart enough to include structures that were only in the planning stage.
    • LOL. It's always fun catching an unrelated construction lie.
seattle-1886-1.jpg

During the 1840s, the California Gold Rush brought many Chinese to the United States. Many had come in the hopes of improving their economic conditions, and their arrival was initially welcomed due to labor shortages. According to information from the U.S. Census, the Chinese population increased at a dramatic pace until 1890, though they never accounted for more than 0.2 percent of the U.S. population through the 1800s.

After the Gold Rush, many Chinese people moved into the northwest territories of Oregon, Washington, and Montana in search of work, especially with the new mining opportunities and railroad expansion. The Chinese workers developed a reputation for being efficient and willing to work long hours, but also for accepting less pay than white workers. This increased racial tensions in the West, as companies recruited Chinese workers in order to undercut higher-paid white workers.

Violent outbreaks against the Chinese occurred as early as the 1860s and continued to intensify in the 1870s, especially in California. As corporations continued to flood the labor market with Chinese workers, many Chinese were excluded from or refused to join unions in the fight against capital, which angered and threatened the white European immigrants who constituted these organizations. Unions such as the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor supported legislation that limited or excluded Chinese immigration. By the mid-1880s, a wave of anti-Chinese violence grew and spread into the Pacific Northwest.

1885 Chinese expulsion of Tacoma
The Tacoma riot of 1885, also known as the 1885 Chinese expulsion of Tacoma, involved the forceful expulsion of the Chinese population from Tacoma, Washington Territory, on November 3, 1885. City leaders had earlier proposed a November 1 deadline for the Chinese population to leave the city. On November 3, 1885, a mob that consisted of prominent businessmen, police, and political leaders descended on the Chinese community. The mob marched Chinese residents to a railroad station and forced them to board a train to Portland. In the following days, the structures that remained in the Chinese community were razed. The event was the result of growing anti-Chinese sentiment and violence throughout the American West.

Tacoma_Chinese_expulsion_poster_1885.jpg

This organized action became known as the "Tacoma method", and despite national and international outcry, it was used as an example of how to forcibly remove Chinese residents from cities and towns throughout the American West. The anti-Chinese sentiment in Tacoma and Washington Territory more broadly made it so that those involved did not face repercussions for their actions.


KD: Now I'm gonna try to formulate my hypothesis related to all of the above, and then some.
  • I do not believe that the official dating of the Fou-sang colony with 499 AD is accurate. Whether deliberate, or not, such dates have no proper documentation to get backed up. All the documents were either "located", or created after 1400 AD. Fou-sang colony dated closer to 1500-1600s would make way more sense.
    • I think this Fou-Sang colony could be a smoke screen used in the 18th and 19th centuries to misrepresent the presence of something like Tartary in North America.
    • On the other hand, may be Fou-sang citizens were the first ones to reclaim the area after some great 15th century catastrophe.
    • Chinese, Russians and Inide(a)ns were not immigrants. They were natives.
  • In the 1850s, the West Coast was heavily populated with Chinese Tartarians, and Russian Tartarians (taking nautical routes into consideration).
    • Their allegiance was not to the Union.
    • Russian Tartarians were different from the Imperial Russians.
  • The "reasons" cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Vancouver were established some 200 years after their Eastern counterparts are as follow:
    • These cities were not conquered by the PTB yet.
    • These cities were already there.
  • The Pacific Coast of the future United States belonged to a different established political system, or systems. Meaning there were either countries, or empires occupying the area.
  • The PTB was at war with the current political establishments occupying the West Coast of the North American Continent.
  • The area was a bloody mess, which resulted in abandoned cities like our San Francisco. Were there any survivors? I do not know.
  • To prevent any unwanted (by TPTB) architectural and/or other questions, our Pacific Coast cities went through a certain "disinfection" process known today as Urban Fires.
  • And if the Pacific area was indeed purged of its population, TPTB had enough tools to get it re-populated.
P.S. We need to remember that Cortes and Pizzarro accompanied by a few soldiers, and armed with allegedly inferior weapons, had no issues conquering millions of Aztecs and Incas. They did so in the beginning of 16th century.

Our narrative compliant indigenous population (Indians per Columbus) of the future United States either had to have some very advanced arrows and tomahawks, allowing for a very effective defense of their territories, or... or the narrative is bogus.
  • May be I live in Fou-sang, and Washington state is just a cover-up name for it.
  • If you spot any 19th century Pacific Coast pagodas, please share.
 
Hi,
I had commented somewhere on the old website about this guy who used to have a youtube channel. All the videos were just gone one day.

Anyway, it was a guy who said he was Anishinaabe and his name was Samuel Poe. He had a long series of videos were he alleged that the Cree in particular, but a large part of central and western North America, were part of a larger country that crossed over the Bering Strait and included some big part of northeast Asia.

He alleged that the Europeans armed primitive tribesmen from their Asia colonies and dropped them in America to cause trouble and weaken this country that existed back then, until finally the American part of this country was cut off from the Asia part, and then the Europeans kind of 'went in for the kill' from there.

He never said one word about Tartaria or Hyperborea or Fou-Sang or mud floods or anything like that.

It appeared that he was coming at the subject from a totally different direction. But his stuff still seemed to parallel a lot of stuff I read on the SH blog.
 

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