The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West

by Christopher Corbett

When gold rush fever gripped the globe in 1849, thousands of Chinese immigrants came through San Francisco seeking fortune. In The Poker Bride, Christopher Corbett uses a little-known Idaho legend as a lens into this Chinese experience.

Before 1849, the Chinese in the United States were little more than curiosities. But as word spread of the discovery of gold, they soon became a regular sight in the American West. In San Francisco, a labyrinthine Chinatown arose where Chinese smuggled into the country were deposited. Polly, a young Chinese concubine, accompanied her owner to a mining camp in the highlands of Idaho.

After he lost her in a poker game, Polly found her way with her new owner to an isolated ranch on the banks of the Salmon River. As the gold rush receded, it took with it the Chinese miners, but left behind Polly, who would make headlines when she emerged from the Idaho hills nearly half a century later to visit a modern city and tell her story.

The Poker Bride vividly reconstructs a lost period of history when the first Chinese sojourners flooded into the country and left only glimmering traces of their presence scattered across the American West.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, China, American History, Biography, Westerns, Historical

240 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2010

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't realize when I got this that it was going to be straight-up nonfiction. I thought it was going to be one of those books that tells a true story like a novel, what I call "biographical novels." But it's not. Instead of telling only the story of one Chinese woman who came to America, it uses her story as a focal point around which to tell the larger story of all Chinese immigration to the Old West. Which I completely dug, once I understood the book's goal.

Corbett focuses on the life of Polly Bemis, who was reportedly sold by her destitute peasant family in China when she was a young teen, sold to a procurer who brought her across the ocean. Once here, Polly was sold to a wealthy store owner who lived in a remote Idaho mining community to be his concubine. A few years later, the store owner lost Polly in a poker game to a gambler named Charlie Bemis, who married her a few years later. Her story was romanticized decades later by Idaho historians, who dubbed her "the poker bride" because she did eventually marry the man who won her in a poker game.

Along with telling this one individual's story, Corbett shows how similar her experience was to many Chinese women who were trafficked to America, and how much more fortunate she was than the vast majority of such women. He discussed why they were brought here, how they were treated, and why they would even submit to such treatment.

Overall, this was a thoroughly researched look at life for Chinese immigrants in the Old West, and I learned a lot from it!

[G · Rating 2 out of 5]

Corbett couldn't decide whether he wanted to write about Polly Bemis, the fabled Chinese bride won in a poker game, or tell the story of the brief wave of Chinese immigration to the West before political sentiment and discriminatory laws made the Chinese settlers disappear as quickly as they had come to the US territories. He can't even seem to make up his mind in the title, and the book winds on trying to intertwine these two stories, despite Polly's life not having much to do with the experience of male Chinese miners or even having much in common with the horrifying lives of female Chinese prostitutes.

To be sure, both are interesting stories, and the slavery conditions, discrimination, and racially motivated violence that the indentured Chinese laborers endured go largely untaught in American history classes. This book would have made a couple of very interesting long articles, but the scant documented information on either Bemis or her gold-mining Chinese compatriots results in information stretched thin and repeated in an attempt to fill 200 pages.

[Randall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this book had a lot of great historical facts about the Chinese in America during the 1800's and beginning of the 1900's, I wanted to read more about Poly Bemus, the poker bride. It talks of the sad plight of the Chinese in America who were often treated worse than slaves, but had the fortitude to persevere and make something of there lives in the hostile environment of the wild west. I would have given this more stars had it been portrayed as a historical piece rather than the story of Poly. Poly took up about 15% of the pages. Poly was and is a heroine in her own right, a romantic figure that found a good life despite the unimaginable odds against her.

[Cheryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

Misleading title and description since very little of this story is actually about Polly Bemis and occasional references to her often were supposition and conjecture rather than proven fact. Instead of being about the individual on the cover, this book is basically a boring and verbose account of the treatment of Chinese, especially women, during the gold rush.

When I slogged my way page by tedious page, I reached the point where the author labels other versions of Polly's life as 'bowdlerization' because of 'Victorian sensibilities carried over from the nineteenth-century into the twentieth". At that point, I felt the book had become openly insulting to me as the reader and had lost all credibility for me.

I'm very disappointed. This book had everything that indicated this would be a great book: a period of time/people I find very interesting; about a strong and interesting woman; written by an individual with substantial experience as a journalist who is a faculty member teaching English at University of Maryland Baltimore County; and the book had a recommendation by the NY Times. My expectations of high quality, interesting, fact-based biography were definitely not met.

A recently published, far more readable and interesting book about this time in history and the terrible plight and occasional success of the Chinese in America is Fortunate Sons: The 120 Chinese Boys Who Came to America, Went to School, and Revolutionized an Ancient Civilization.

[Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

To be perfectly honest, I didn't finish this book. It wasn't at all what I expected. I wanted to read the story of Polly Bemis's life in detail, which is not the direction this book took. Rather it's a historical overview of the Chinese experience in America, which I was already familiar with from the Asian-American studies courses I took for my undergrad. I never would have started reading if I had known the true focus of the book was decidedly NOT Polly. I guess they had to market it somehow. That said, the historical info is well written, but to me was just a regurgitation of stuff I'd already studied. Oh well, there's always another book waiting in the wings!

[Lex · Rating 3 out of 5]

My current obsession-- books about historical events that I never learned about in school. Corbett uses the story of Polly Bemis, who was sold into sexual slavery as a young girl, as a thread uniting his narrative of Chinese people in the west during the time of the Gold Rush.

[Paula · Rating 2 out of 5]

The history of the Chinese was interesting, but title of the book leads you to believe that it is about The Poker Bride. She only shows up as tiny glimpses and we learn next to nothing about her life. Very disappointing.

[Dawn Trlak-Donahue · Rating 1 out of 5]

The concept was interesting, but the story only mentioned the poker bride in passing. The story of the Chinese immigrants could have been good, but the author apparently did not have enough material to fill a book, as it was repetitive...and boring.

[Alexis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started off interesting, but then became repetitious and rather dull. There are better Chinese history books out there.

[Patricia Doyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Poker Bride is about Polly Bemis, the Chinese prostitute won in a poker game. Polly started out as a sex slave and eventually became a legend in those Idaho mountains, living somewhere at the end of nowhere. She lived a very isolated life with Charlie, the poker playing husband she eventually married; she kept a tidy house, a huge garden, loved to fish, and immensely enjoyed the occasional, and rare, visitor.

It’s also about Chinese immigrants and their contribution to the California and West’s Gold Rush of the nineteenth century.

Times were tough. Mining for gold was hard work. Most of the mining was done back where God lost his shoe. Food and necessities were scarce – and exorbitantly high priced – and getting them to the miners was next to impossible. Mules were packed with up to 300 pounds, but when 4-legged creatures couldn’t get through, man had to do the lugging.

This nonfiction was an interesting peek into a bit of American history of which I knew very little. I enjoyed my lesson.

[Susan Krich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book about the hard life and slavery of Chinese women in the Western US starting with gold rush days.
Other than the preface it takes almost 2/3's of the book to get to Polly's story. Much of her earlier life can only be surmised. Some parts have differing possibilities the same experience because of the time period starting before the civil war.

[Shannan Debus · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Poker Bride is a fairly well written book about a little known, but interesting piece of history. Certainly a fitting read for National Human Trafficking Awareness Month (January). Also of interest to anyone researching the history of the Chinese American community, the west coast, particularly Idaho, and the Gold Rush.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great story, with a lot of good background material. It is also, as most pioneer tales are, hard if not impossible to completely prove as true.

If you're interested in the old West, and pioneering days, I think you'll enjoy this story. It recounts a small niche that is largely forgotten and ignored west of SF.

[Anna Wassenaar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this a fascinating read, but wanted more pics/details about Polly Bemis herself. There was a lot of general information and anecdotal stories about Chinese people in the west around the gold rush up until the turn of the century.

[PHarrington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully researched. They were frugal, successful gardeners, clannish, hard-working and mostly without family, skillful handicrafters, avid readers of Chinese works. They were also abused, exlpoited, alcoholic, gamblers, prostitutes, cutthroats, pettitfoggers, charletons, quacks and hoodlums.

[Vickie Rinn · Rating 2 out of 5]

good history in general. but not enough details about polly bemis

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed all the historical information.

[Alyshia Nortmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this in high school and I loved it

[Sheu Quen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly didn't know this was a historical factual novel lol. I thought it was yet another fictional story of a woman who was won in a poker game. Oh well.

[Sheldon Chau · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s a bit of a misleading title because most of the book actually examines the overall picture of the Chinese coming into the Old West instead of a traditional biography of Polly Bemis. At first I was turned off by that, however, I realized by the end that I learned so much about the history of Chinese people in America that it was invaluable knowledge and I appreciated it very much. This will definitely go high on my shelf, and will be a firm reference for my projects involving this era moving forward.

It’s a meticulously researched book, and the info about the gold rush, mining boom, status of Chinese prostitutes, life of Polly Bemis, and the last remaining Chinese in Idaho in the 1930s is enlightening.

[Gail Cooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

History is vivified when seen through the eyes of an individual, thus it is with Christopher Corbett's story of Polly Bemis, a Chinese concubine sold by her starving parents IN 1872 then smuggled to San Francisco. Next, she was brought by her owner to an Idaho mining camp where he lost her to Charlie Bemis in a poker game.

She lived with Charlie for almost half a century on an isolated ranch in the canyon of the Salmon River, "known as the `River Of No Return." She nursed him back to health after he was almost fatally wounded, and he later did an amazing thing - Charlie married her. There is a picture of Polly in the book wearing her 1894 wedding dress. She's a small woman with her hair pulled back in a neat bun; the hand touching her skirt appears strong.

In 1923 she will come down from the mountain on horseback and be taken by car to Orangeville, the Idaho County seat. This was an amazing journey for Polly as she had never ridden in a car. "She had never heard a radio or seen a train, an airplane, a motion picture, or electric lights. Her arrival was also amazing for the populace, receiving banner newspaper headlines and being likened to Rip Van Winkle.

Polly was one of the more fortunate of the hordes of Chinese who came to California, to what they called "Golden Mountain" to search for gold. As Corbett points out the California Gold Rush was a time of madness, violence, and rabid discrimination against the Chinese. Although they worked for very low wages it was claimed that they took jobs from Americans - there were "Chinese Must Go" campaigns, and frequent brutalities inflicted upon them.

Of course, crossing the Pacific to reach our shores was travail within itself. "Steerage on the China run was damp, dark, poorly ventilated, and filthy." One ship, the Libertad, carried 560 passengers although its limit was 297, and lost 100 men on that voyage. Writers described the passage from China as a "floating hell."

A former editor and reporter with the Associated Press Corbett has researched extensively and enriched THE POKER BRIDE with details describing this little known portion of our history. It is, of course, Polly's story but it is also the immigrants' story - fascinating, often tragic, and true.

Highly recommended.

- Gail Cooke

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much as in his previous book, Orphans Preferred, Christopher Corbett's true material isn't the particular parts of history that the books are ostensibly about, but the very act of story-telling. The Poker Bride is a fascinating account of a Chinese girl who may or may not have been won in a poker game in Gold Rush-era Idaho back country, and the larger nearly-lost history of the transient Chinese immigrants who helped build the American west. But above that, it's a story of how history gets lost and twisted -- if history is written by the winners, what happens to the history of those who were less fortunate? As he finds and debates the myriad unreliable ways that the "poker bride" might have ended up living on the banks of the Salmon River at the turn of the 20th century, what Corbett is really preserving is the fine line between history and myth, and the ease with which that line is crossed.

See also: The Baltimore Sun review of "The Poker Bride"

(Disclaimer: The author is my former college adviser, so this review may not be the most objective.)

[Pamela Pickering]

As this is a book club read and we have yet to have our meeting I am hiding my review with the spoiler function.

A disappointing 2 stars. I give it the two stars based on research alone, however I was very disappointed with the execution, organization, editing, and general misleading-ness (I know that's not a real word) but it fits) of the title and synopsis. From the title, we are led to believe that this will be a book about Polly Bemis, a Chinese immigrant sold into prostitution in the 1800s amidst the great gold rush in California. Unfortunately, we hear very little of Polly's story. Being misled by titles and book jackets is a major pet peeve of mine and often times my disappointment is hard to get past. Although the author does provide some interesting facts and insights into the plight of the Chinese during this time, the organization of his work falls short and is often repetitive. He does attempt to incorporate Polly's life into his research occassionall but it is really too far and few between other facts. Other parts seem unnecessary. It's as if he is trying to find any place to put every tidbit he's discovered in his research. Still, I wouldn't say it isn't an invaluable read based on the information alone, just not the best read.

[Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a great deal from this depiction of life in the Gilded Age from the viewpoint of Chinese, particularly Chinese women in the US. Unsurprisingly, it was a world of abuse and darkness. These women were imported to serve as prostitutes and mistresses for a group of men who had come to the Golden Mountain to make their fortune before returning home. Polly Bemis, the Chinese woman who comes to the West to be a mistress to a wealthy Chinese man expects to be used and abused and is lost as chattel to an American gambler. The details of the Chinese experience in the West, something of which I was mostly unaware, are fascinating. The details of Polly's life are murky. the book could have been a lot better. There was a great deal to uncover here and Corbett does a bad job of uncovering it. By promising one subject and making that subject unarticulated, he disappoints and makes us concentrate on his prose, not a strong suit. I enjoyed much that I learned in this book. I wouldn't recommend it.

[Crystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was an interesting history of the Chinese in Idaho. It rambled quite a bit and it wasn't wasn't well researched. Most of the time we are told that there was little information on the first Chinese in the West, but that didn't stop Corbett from conjecturing, which wouldn't be bad, if it was coherent. I just finished 'The Woman Who Would Be King' about Hatshepsut, a woman we know little of, but Kara Cooney was able to bring Hatshepsut alive with her ability to draw conclusions based on what we know of Ancient Egypt.

Also, for the first third of the book, Corbett doesn't really mention Polly Bemis, the titular Poker Bride. The connections between Polly and other Chinese didn't really work, because she didn't have much contact with other Chinese, especially with those from California. There wasn't really a consistent story of Polly's life, because not much known about her- certainly nothing to warrant a full length book.

[Shruts · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating set of parallel stories rarely considered- that of the Chinese miners and laborers in the West during the various Gold Rushes, and the sad case of the Chinese women who unwillingly "served" their baser desires.

The true Poker Bride is one Polly Bemis, sold into sex slavery by her parents in southeast China, who escapes a certain death from violence or disease when won from her owner in a poker game in a dreary mining boomtown in Idaho. Bemis lives to a ripe old age as a semi-hermit with her husband (read:owner) on a secluded ranch deep in the mountains. When she emerges after his death, she is fascinated with the automobiles, trains, and other 20th Century marvels she had never seen

A fascinating exam of a subject little acknowledged. I would say, though, that Corbett does replow the same ground several times, but the repitition is not fatal.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of this book is just a bit misleading. though the last couple chapters touches on the life of Polly Bemis---a Chinese woman brought to the United States during the gold rush years---the focus of the book is primarily that of the experiences of the Chinese in the western US during the late 1800's and early 1900's. There was some good and interesting history there and well worth reading. But again, if you're looking for a ful account of the life of the title character, it's just not here. Much of what was covered about her was speculation, as there were many conflicting accounts of her ife and the circumstances that led her to be living with Charles Bemis in a remote area of Idaho.

Good ook for what it was. It was amazing to read of the lives that these Chinese women in the gold rush camps had to endure. It truly was a shameful chapter in our history.

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sub-title is the apt description of this book. The Poker Bride herself is the vehicle used to recount the history of the Chinese in the west. The preponderance of the first Chinese were gold seekers. Though the book does not seem to address the probability that traders and businessmen were quite likely the first to spend any length of time in the West. It was through them that the miners came and who obtained jobs for the Chinese males. A short time later it was the 'businessmen' who brought in the 'hundred men wives' to service the Chinese males. This book also describes this trade. It is during the last third of the book that there is any real treatment of "The Poker Bride". I found this an enjoyable read about an interesting facet of America that few hear about.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 3.5 Polly Bemis was a young Chinese immigrant, brought here in the late 1800 19s to be a prostitute. She died about 1933, having lived exclusively on a ranch in Idaho for 50 years, with the man who won her in a poker game. This is more the story of the Chinese in the Gold Rush, rather than the story of Polly. It 19s a fascinating look at the Chinese experience in America, which was not too good really. Women were mostly prostitutes and were treated worse than black slaves. Most Chinese were gone from the Gold Rush area after 50 years or so. A good part of this book was about the Gold Rush environment, and I 19m watching 1CDeadwood 1D, the TV series because of it. The fictional story of Deadwood, coincides with this book.

[Charlotte · Rating 2 out of 5]

While this book gives one a good look at the life of the Chinese who immigrated to the American West during the gold Rush and soon after, I was expecting the book to be mainly about Polly Bemis, a Chinese immigrant who was allegedly won in a poker game and eventually married the man who won her. Her story is told but it is only the final third of the book that focuses on that. There is really too little documented about her life to fill a book so first 2/3 of the book dwells on the plight of those Chinese immigrants in general - it's an interesting story but told with a great deal of repetition. Not what I expected and not as well told as I would have hoped.