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Posted on @rawstates
Burlingame is named for the diplomat who wrote Chinese migration into a treaty
1868
Burlingame, California
Javelinca · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Anson Burlingame was Lincoln's minister to China, then switched sides and represented the Qing court in Washington, negotiating the 1868 treaty that recognised the right of Chinese and Americans to travel and settle in each other's countries. Two years earlier he had picked out about a thousand acres of William Ralston's Peninsula land for a villa, then sold the parcel straight back to Ralston. He died in Russia in 1870 without ever building on it, and the town that grew there took his name anyway. The migration clause he won was renegotiated away in 1880, and Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act two years after that.
That was 1 of the hidden places.
Location: city-level
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