Latin American and French Miners Protest the Foreign Miner's Tax

French- and Spanish-speaking miners posted this notice around Sonora County, California in May, 1850. The month before, the California legislature had passed a Foreign Miners’ Tax that required immigrant miners to pay $20 every month for the privilege of mining in the state. In reality, the tax was only collected from non-white miners, while English, Irish, German and Scandinavian miners were not forced to pay it. In protest, Sonora miners raised their nations’ flags over their camps and advertised a meeting to decide what to do. After a mob of alarmed Americans marched into Sonora, the foreign miners drafted a statement to the governor, saying they would accept a lower tax of $4 or $5.

It is time to unite: Frenchmen, Chileans, Peruvians, Mexicans, there is the biggest necessity of putting an end to the vexation of the Americans in California. If you do not intend to allow yourself to be fleeced by a band of miserable fellows who are repudiated by their own country, then unite and go to the camp of Sonora next Sunday: there will we try to guarantee security for us all, and put a bridle in the mouths of that horde who call themselves citizens of the United States, thereby profaning that country.