Research has argued that a problem in homicide research is the explaining of differences in patterns of violence among different racial or ethnic groups and the need to compare groups that have not been extensively studied. Studies of Asian violence in the United States are very uncommon. However, there is substantial historical information about Chinese social organization in parts of the United States. In order to extend the understanding of how features of Chinese social organization influenced patterns of homicide, this study focused predominantly on homicide cases involving Chinese victims and offenders that occurred in Seattle from 1900 to 1940. It was found that the majority of violence in the Seattle’s Chinatown emerged from conflict between tong organizations, and that tong violence continued until the organizations became more involved in the legitimate tourist trade. They were also brought under control by other organizations gaining more power from the shifting economy. For purposes of this article, it was assumed that tong organizations were founded on complex sets of rules that influenced how the groups resolved disputes within and between organizations. It is concluded that historical and ethnographic generalizations of ethnic-specific social organizations can be used to understand homicide cases in one city across four decades, and that current Chinese immigrants created Chinatown organizations; these, in turn, patterned violence in predictable ways across place and time. Notes, references