Horny History: Donaldina Cameron

It’s real history, as told by some horny dude in my inbox and me.

May 20, 2024

This post contains sensitive content on racism and human trafficking. Reader discretion is advised.

Donaldina Cameron is credited with helping save roughly 3,000 Chinese girls and women from human trafficking. In the late 19th century, only approximately 4% of Chinese immigrants were women, leading to a huge demand for human trafficking. Later restrictions on immigration, like the Chinese Exclusion Act, only increased this market. Chinese girls and women were told that they were coming to America for jobs they wanted, and then sold upon arrival. Slavery becoming illegal did not prevent the sale of these women. They were sold in broad daylight. No one cared, except for the police.

Just kidding.

The police would often arrest girls who escaped human trafficking to bring them back to their captors.

Donaldina Cameron cared.

The Donaldina Cameron house originally started as a mission home, and it was called one, but these women went against the church elders’ wishes to focus instead on rescuing the trafficked girls and women. They risked their own lives doing so, climbing through skylights, breaking down doors, and dealing with the constant barrage of violence the mission home faced from the men that ran the prostitution ring and the police. The corruption included the former mayor of the city, Eugene Schmitz, who profited off of protecting the forced prostitution rings. The women at the mission home and Donaldina Cameron testified at a trial, bringing a large forced prostitution ring to its end.

Their focus became on actually saving these women, instead of “saving them” religiously. They were at the time, some of the only people to care. Many people wouldn’t even help the Chinese for fear of disease. (This is in part because of the disease-ridden part of the city Chinese people were forced to live in, and in part based on the racist false idea that Chinese were inherently dirty and carried diseases.)

3,000 Chinese girls and women, and all of their descendants are better off because of Donaldina Cameron.

Sources:

The White Devil's Daughters: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown Julia Flynn Siler

Chinatown's Angry Angel: The Story of Donaldina Cameron Mildred Crowl Martin

Donaldina Cameron Julia Flynn Siler and Helen Zia

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