There were many reasons why the Chinese came to America. Overcrowding, poverty, war, and other catastrophes in China were all reasons (drives) to travel to America, as were actual outside influences. The discovery of gold was a great push for Chinese farmers to come to the West Coast. America's labor needs have been the most important external catalyst for immigration. However, there were very few ways to travel to the United States. With loans from the Six Companies, the Chinese could afford to travel to America and came here to work primarily as gold miners, fishermen, or agricultural laborers; they later engaged in laundry services and restaurant work (Tsai, China Abroad 12-13). In order to cultivate and develop the large amount of Western land and resources they had obtained, they developed industry and built a railway system for transportation and communications, and To create a communication network with China, the Americans sought labor, people to carry out these tasks. The hardworking nature of the Chinese made them natural targets for such laborious tasks, and this helped create an attraction for Chinese willing to travel to America for work (Tsai, China Abroad 12). An entrepreneur named Elmer C. Sandmeyer saw transportation companies as a powerful promotional influence. Transporting Chinese labor between Hong Kong and San Francisco, accompanied by high passenger fares, allowed American shipowners to make a good profit (Tsai, China Abroad 12-13). The Six Companies played an important role in this process, as a benevolent organization dedicated to helping immigrants, the sick and the poor and returning the bodies of people who died to China. Immigrants who were too poor to pay for the charter in 1852 alone, thirty thousand Chinese who embarked at Hong Kong for San Francisco paid $1,300,000 for the voyage. In early 1856, William Speer calculated that all the Chinese in California had paid a total of $2,329,580 for the voyage" (Tsai, China Overseas 13). Often exploited by American capitalists, Chinese workers were whipped for digging mines of gold, building railroads and vegetable crops. Industry prospered in the American West as the Chinese worked tirelessly. Free immigration was suggested by the United States in the Treaty of Burlingame of 1868 due to the need for labor in America and the potential advantages of trade with the Chinese, and many forms of fraud and propaganda were employed to bring Chinese workers to the United States was also very advantageous in attracting the Chinese. Tsai, Overseas China). 13).