Pigtail Ordinance

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In 1873 the Pigtail Ordinance was passed in San Francisco, California. The new law forced Han Chinese prisoners to have their queue, a waist-long, braided pigtail, cut off.

The Qing dynasty rulers of China forced Han men in China to wear the queue, as sign of submission to the ruling Manchus, and men who had their queues cut would, in theory, face execution when returned to China (The Qing Queue Order). It must be noted that death on the grounds of non-compliance was rarely enforced anymore during the late-Qing era at the time the Pigtail Ordinance, and these men would only face difficulty in reentering China.