TVZombie #11: The Fear Merchants
The below post appeared on the "TV Zombie" blog in early 2019. I've made some minor edits/additions in posting it here, to bring this post up to speed on some things that have happened over the past few years.
TVZombie #11: “The Fear Merchants” and Anti-Immigrant Sentiment Portrayed in Bonanza
Bonanza, one of television’s longest-running classic Westerns, follows the adventures of the Cartwright patriarch and his sons as they manage the Ponderosa and get into local scuffles. The family (Ben, Adam, Hoss, and Joe) has in their employ a cook named Hop Sing, an immigrant from China and a stereotypically-portrayed Asian stock character. Hop Sing rarely does more than cook for the Cartwrights in the average episode, but the writers saw an opportunity to use his character to tackle racism in the 1960 episode, "The Fear Merchants".
On his way home from his uncle Chang’s house, Hop Sing gets jumped and beaten by Jesse Tibbs and a group of white men.
JESSE TIBBS: “We’re gonna have to clean a lot more of this dirt outta here before Virginia City is a fit place to live.”
The next day, Chang prepares to celebrate his son Jimmy's birthday. He tries to buy American flags to put on Jimmy’s birthday cake, but Jesse Tibbs convinces the grocer to refuse to sell them to him. Ben and Adam buy the flags for Chang. On their way to Chang’s, Ben notices a sign proclaiming Andrew Fulmer’s candidacy for mayor. He tells Adam that Jesse Tibbs runs a ranch that Fulmer bought out and notes that targeting Asian-Americans sounds like Fulmer.
ADAM: “America for the Americans. There’s a pretty tired platform.”
Ben goes to talk to Andrew Fulmer. He asks what he means by his platform, “Virginia City for Virginia City.”
ANDREW FULMER: “It means Virginia City belongs to the folks what made it what it is. It means we don’t want outsiders.”
BEN: “Well, now, what’s your definition of an outsider?”
ANDREW FULMER: “...it means our town’s being overrun by foreigners, who’re willing to work for nothing and they’re taking the bread and butter out of the mouths of folks like us who built this country!”
Fulmer’s statement sounds eerily similar to American white nationalist arguments made today to justify hate crimes, violent ICE raids, and cruel mistreatment of people held in detention centers. Anti-immigration rhetoric has long been focused on “othering” people who come from different countries by painting them as career thieves, using them as a scapegoat for the country's problems and giving fascists excuses to give themselves more and more power. Today, in 2025, the topic of "illegal immigrants" is inescapable.
Jimmy is working in the barn when Billy Wheeler follows Sally Ridley in, harassing her. He threatens to tell Sally’s father that she’s sleeping with Jimmy, before forcing her to kiss him. Jimmy intervenes, and Wheeler pulls a gun on him and leaves. Sally tends to a cut Wheeler left on Jimmy’s face, and her father walks in.
J.R. RIDLEY: “You’ve disgraced my name, flouting yourself in front of this heathen!”
SALLY: “I was just helping Jimmy. Billy Wheeler hit him.”
J.R. RIDLEY: “And I thank Billy Wheeler for that!”
Sally protests, and J.R. winds up and slaps her across the face. Jimmy tries to help her, but J.R. pulls a gun on him. Sally, horrified, attempts to wrest the gun from her father. In the scuffle, J.R. shoots his daughter.
Jimmy’s family and the Cartwrights are awaiting Jimmy’s arrival at his birthday party. An hour after it begins, he enters, badly beaten. A gang of men throw a rock through the window, yelling that they’re coming for Jimmy. Hoss tries to talk them down, but they threaten to lynch him for the murder of Sally.
The Cartwrights safely escort Jimmy to the sheriff, who believes his story. For his own protection from the lynch mob, they decide to keep him in a jail cell.
Andrew Fulmer meets with J.R. Ridley and tries to hype him up with xenophobic sentiments, but J.R. admits that he was Sally's murderer. Fulmer convinces Ridley that Jimmy caused Sally’s death by being present and causing the argument.
At the inquest, it’s ruled that Jimmy will stand trial for the murder of Sally Ridley. Andrew Fulmer gathers business owners in town and tries to form another lynch mob. To protect Jimmy, the sheriff swears in the Cartwrights as deputies so they can take action against Fulmer.
The mob gathers outside the sheriff’s department. Adam leaves to visit Amanda Ridley, Sally’s sister, to try to change her presumptions about her sister’s murder. She admits she was jealous of her sister, and J.R. Ridley admits that Fulmer is tampering with Jimmy’s chance of a fair trial. The Ridleys go to Fulmer’s office to try to ask him to call off the lynch mob, but Fulmer talks his way out of it.
The lynch mob approaches the jail, and the Cartwrights begin shooting to dispel the crowd. They scatter and start returning fire.
In the midst of the shooting, J.R. Ridley runs out, calling for an end. On his way to the sheriff’s office to confess, Fulmer orders Jesse Tibbs to shoot Ridley.
FULMER: “Fool. Why did you kill him?”
TIBBS: “What are you saying? You told me to kill him!”
FULMER: “Murderer. You filthy murderer! Get him! He just killed my best friend!”
Tibbs tries to run, but Adam shoots him, and the mob rejects Fulmer as a possible leader.
Historical Context: 1880s
“Throwing Down the Ladder by Which They Rose,” (1870) by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly. 150+ years later, and America is still putting up racist walls.
The late 19th century, in which Bonanza is set, did in fact see heavy anti-Chinese sentiment. Chinese immigrants made up only 0.002% of the population at the time, yet were accused of causing low wages and stealing jobs from white laborers. The Chinese Exclusion Act was signed into law by President Arthur in 1882. Despite the act only being intended to last ten years, it was made permanent in 1902 - Chinese immigrants wouldn’t be considered eligible for American citizenship until 1943.
Historical Context: 1960
In 1960, the United States’ immigration policy was in need of heavy reform. Excluding all Asian countries, “Immigration was limited by assigning each nationality a quota based on its representation in past U.S. census figures”. This policy, called the Johnson-Reed Act, was enacted in 1924. A different policy from 1917 still demanded that immigrants over sixteen years of age take a literacy test, as well as defining a large “Asiatic Barred Zone” from which no person can emigrate. The Barred Zone covered most Asian countries, including all of India and half of China. These measurements were put in place specifically to prevent Asian people from settling in the United States.
Modern Context
If a lot of the things Andrew Fulmer said sounded eerily familiar, you’re not alone. The people being targeted may be different, but the reasoning and the racism remain the same. Modern fascist rhetoric targets Mexican immigrants, with the same claims Americans made about Chinese immigrants 150 years ago, and the same claims Americans made about Muslim immigrants in the early 2000s. Targets of this racist sentiment are called "rapists" and "terrorists".
"The Americanese wall - as Congressman Burnett would build it", (1916) by Raymond Evans.
In 2016, 100 years after the publication of the above political cartoon, Donald Trump ran on a platform of building a physical wall to discourage Mexican immigrants, as well as “make Mexico pay for the wall”. He also claimed that immigrants are "stealing" jobs.
Trump, after getting elected, signed Executive Order 13769 in 2017 banning people from Muslim-majority countries (not including North Korea) from entering the country for ninety days. Fulmer’s “Virginia City for Virginia City” mirrors Trump’s “Make America Great Again” in that the sentiment is exactly the same. While both of them deny outright racism, they scapegoat another race using the same exact tactics. They both invent imaginary threats to unite their voters and supporters (Donald Trump claimed that there are more than 30 million illegal immigrants).They both use attacks against others as a distraction from their own faults.
And let’s be honest, that thing Fulmer pulled at the end with Tibbs? That’s a Trump move if I’ve ever seen one.
Links and Sources
Watch this episode of Bonanza for free on YouTube
Britannica's article on the Chinese Exclusion Act
Wikipedia page for the Chinese Exclusion Act
Library of Congress' digital file for "The Americanese Wall"
Politico's list of countries impacted by Trump's 2017 "Muslim Ban"