The Coolie Trade

Book excerpt: The Coolie Trade The phenomenon of indentured labor, which followed upon the abolition of slavery, spread throughout the Western world in the latter two-thirds of the nineteenth century, appearing in such far-flung places as Mauritius, South Africa, Latin America, Australia, Malaya, and the Fiji Islands. Indentured labor, i.e., labor contracted under penal sanctions, was essentially a compulsory system of labor, which in practice differed little from slavery. Unlike slaves, indentured workers were supposed to receive a monthly wage, and their term of service, at least in principle, was for a fixed period of from five to eight years; but these provisions were not always adhered to, and in all other respects, indentured workers were no better off than the slaves they replaced. The widespread appearance of indentured labor is not adequately accounted for by either of the two major schools of thought in the controversy over the downfall of slavery. If the primary motivations for the abolition of slavery were humanitarian, then why did humanitarians look the other way when slave owners resorted to another form of forced labor in the system of indenture? If, on the other hand, the abolition of slavery was an economic consequence of the rise of industrialism and capitalism, as Eric Williams in his Capitalism and Slavery would have us believe, then why did the same factors, which rejected forced African labor, so easily accept forced Chinese and Indian labor? Did the principles of humanitarianism not also extend to the peoples of Asia? Or did some latent racism preclude "Asiatics" (as Chinese and Indians were called), or at least preclude them from being defended with the same vigor as Africans? Or, lulled into a false sense of security and accomplishment, were humanitarians taken in by the trappings of indenture the written contract, the monthly wage, and the limitation on the period of service? The latter could be an out for the humanitarian interpretation of the abolition movement, but what of the economic determinism of the Williams school? Indenture's camouflage might possibly have fooled the humanitarians, but the same could not be said of the economic forces of determinism. Perhaps the economic factors, like the humanitarian principles, did not have universal validity, but only applied to African slavery? The question must then be raised that perhaps indentured labor was an economically viable alternative both to slave and wage labor, at least in some areas of the world? And as such, was indenture a conscious hardnosed compromise between the proponents of slavery and the abolitionists? Else, how explain the fact that England, who led the fight against slavery and whose statesmen condemned slavery as the very antithesis of progress, also led the way in sanctioning indentured labor? It is the purpose of this work to present a comprehensive study of Chinese indentured labor in Latin America. In an attempt to place the coming of over 250,000 Chinese indentured laborers to the Caribbean and South America from 1847 to 1874 in some kind of historical perspective, this study traces the gradual rise and acceptance of the indentured system of labor in the Western world following upon the abolition of the slave trade and the emancipation of the slaves. Conditions both in China and in Latin America, which triggered and sustained a flow of Chinese labor for over a quarter of a century, are examined. The transoceanic passages of the Chinese laborers is chronicled. Finally, the experience of Chinese indentured labor in the Caribbean and South America is explored. This work relies heavily upon (1) the correspondence of consuls and diplomats on the China coast and in Latin America contained in the archives of the British Public Record Office and in the British Parliamentary Papers; (2) the China coast newspapers of the nineteenth century, both English and Portuguese, including the official weekly publications of the Hong Kong and M