Immigrants at Angel Island
Our
holdings of criminal case files from the U.S.
District Court, Northern District of California, First Division, San Francisco
(Record Group 21), include case number 6133, United States v. Franz Bopp, Ram Chandra, et al., as well as three other related
cases (numbers 5865, 5870, and 5885). Case number 6133 is fairly extensive,
filling five legal-size archival boxes. In addition, our holdings of records
from the U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco (Record Group 118) include
twenty-one boxes (twenty legal-size archival boxes and one oversize box)
relating to neutrality violation cases, 1913-1920. While these records are not
exclusively devoted to Indian nationalist activities, relevant information
appears to be included in nearly every box. We have a typewritten, hard-copy
folder list for this series in our research room.
Trial transcripts were not normally included in
criminal case files, and our holdings do not include a transcript of this
trial, though the transcript is extensively excerpted and summarized in the
U.S. Attorney's files.
As far as we can determine,
the only surviving copy of the trial transcript is part of the India Office
Records, now held by the British Library (MSS.EUR.C.138). The entry in the
British Library catalog is as follows: �United States of America versus Franz Bopp, et al. Official reporter's transcript of the trial of
the Ghadr Party conspirators, California, 20 November
1917-23 April 1918, vols. 1-40 and 61-75; also copy of indictment." There
is no information regarding the whereabouts of volumes 41-60.
Copies of the transcript held
by the British Library are available on seven reels of microfilm. A microfilm
copy of the transcript is held by the library of the University of California
at Berkeley. This microfilm is currently being catalogued; for availability,
you should get in touch with Vanessa Tait at
510-642-3434 or vtait@library.berkeley.edu.
You may also order the microfilm directly from the British Library using the
online order form at http://www.bl.uk/reproductions.
The microfilm reel numbers are IOL 2255 through IOL 2261.
Two related criminal cases were tried in U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, Chicago (numbers 6082 and 6094). One of the case files includes an apparently complete transcript of the trial, including testimony by noted cryptanalyst William Friedman. The case files �are held by the National Archives and Records Administration, 7358 South Pulaski Road, Chicago, Illinois 60629-5898; e-mail: chicago.archives@nara.gov.
You may also be interested in NARA microfilm publication M1868, �Selected
Records Relating to the Indian (Hindu)
Independence Movement in the United States, 1908-1933� (2 rolls). This
microfilm is available for viewing in our research room.
Links to other resources relating to the Gadar (or Ghadr) Party can be found online at http://people.lib.ucdavis.edu/tss/punjab/gadar.html.
Source: National Archives and Records Administration--Pacific Region (San Francisco)
1000 Commodore Drive
San Bruno, CA� 94066-2350