The Dilemma of Freedom: A Chinese Story in the Coolie Diaspora to Cuba (1847–1853)

Abstract

Chinese coolies’ hiring during 1847–1853 represents a traumatic historic moment in global labor history. First that all, British and French notions of freedom rejected slavery form of domination, but industrial economies, such as sugar Caribbean enterprise, demanded a cheap labor force. Based on public statements published in British newspapers and private documentation found in Colombian and Cuban archives related to the process of hiring the Chinese labor force, this paper pursues a profound analysis and explanation of the firsts years of coolie contracting, depicting a convulse scenario of disputes among farmers, dealers, and coolies between the frame and the meaning of freedom.

1. Introduction

In the mid-nineteenth century began a global-transnational enterprise geared to hire Chinese labor to work in farm activities in Cuba. This model received English and Spanish financial support, and the dealers radicated in Macao, Hong Kong, and Canton came mainly from Spain and Latin America.

The connection between Spanish colonies and China is not new at all. They started during the sixteenth century and prolonged to the eightieth century.¹ However, the relation here explained is entirely different.

The first expedition seeking Chinese labor support was organized by “Mrs. Matia Menchacatore and Co” (1847–1852). Afterward, the “Royal Board for the Promotion of Agriculture and Commerce,” on behalf White Population Commission, conceded to Manuel B. Poveda the introduction of 3000 Chinese coolies in Cuba.² This research focuses on the tactics and strategies delivered by the dealers, considering the vast amount of those hirings. Also, it analyses socio-economic conditions in China and understood as an explanation of the increase of coolies in Cuba. In general, the meaning of freedom acquired new interpretative dimensions with the presence of Chinese between the notions of European liberalism.³

In any case, the experience of historical labor hiring geared by British, French, and Spanish businessmen seems to receive little attention, despite their importance in the frame of abolitionism. In this sense, the Chinese coolie labor force contributed to halting the capture of enslaved Black Africans. In the 1850s, defenders of slavery explained the advantages of this system, which involved Portuguese piracy in Mozambique and the differences between the American North and South regarding the labor system. Inside the British Parliament flourished the debates about supporting the naval war against African Slavery and at the same time emerged strong ideas defending Chinese labor force recruitment.⁴

In general terms, historiography related to Chinese labor recruitment either in Spanish or British Caribbean colonies shows two different perspectives: on the one hand, coolie Chinese indenture in terms of slavery practices and, on the other hand, assumptions regarding a relation mutually approved, based on juridic documentation that implies a notion of freedom.

This article aims to discover and expose the role of agencies by dealers representing Cuban entrepreneurs’ interests. Thus, this paper tracks the association among tactics, strategies, racial significance, and ethical business. Stand out the names of Ignacio Fernández de Castro, Carlos Flotard—representing Cambell & Cia, and Caro & Cia among others—Nicolás Tanco Armero, in charge of Chinese coolies’ engagement since 1855. Also appeared well-known reckon political names such as Emilio Althaus—Peruvian vice-consul—besides Martin Pedroso and Ac MacRay, hired by Villoldo-Wardrope Company.⁵

Such economic features expose industrialized and productive models in developing countries and their colonies.⁶ Capitalist production system demands intensive free labor support, which earlier showed massive shortcomings regarding the hired system. In this frame, alternative shapes of subjection take place such as Chinese coolie indenture.

Since 1847 dealers have played a leadership role in hiring labor; therefore, they represent the terrible practice of recruiting Chinese coolies, which implemented: pillage acts, tricks, bribing, and violence. Moreover, thousands of Chinese peasants embark unintentionally on transcontinental ships geared to tropical prosperous Caribbean islands. Thus, several historical elements deepen the first relationship between dealers and Chinese coolies, because 19th moral values emerged regarding freedom promises coined by French revolutionaries.

The shipping of Chinese coolies to Cuba responded to the interest of “Junta de Fomento Económico,” responsible for sending dealers to the free Chinese ports.⁷There, the personnel in charge of hiring found Spanish legal support represented in ships and business capital. In this manner, dealers took full responsibility for promoting hiring Chinese coolies; meanwhile, Cuban entrepreneurs celebrated the profitability of sugar prices from their offices, which also found better conditions for widespread consumption.

With those ideas in mind, it is worthwhile to understand the historical position of the Chinese coolie, who fought against adverse socio-economic conditions in China. They probably also receive a slight relief from the dealers, a product of the fake promises. In any case, the dealers represented the promoting agent of this perverse system of hiring labor force; however, they were just part of an economic complex protected by a legal frame. The central hypothesis shows the existence of a superior morality conviction, covered by a simple letter of freedom: “the contracting.” This document demonstrates that the Chinese coolie is a citizen with many civil rights such as freedom of work, housing, feeding, and health, which in reality means a new manner of slavery.

2. Socio-economic conditions in the mid-nineteenth century: abolition and serfdom

The decrease in slave labor in Cuban sugar mills represented a dramatic situation for people in business and capitalist farmers, which reclaimed governmental support. In this particular situation, Cuban elites decided to promote Chinese coolie indenture, geared to replace slavery labor.⁸ Members of “Real junta de Fomento” joined efforts to repeal the sugar import tax claimed on the British Act of 1846. The profitability of the sugar business decreased because of the British Act and abolitionist policies.

The act of 1846 had completed the ruin of our West India colonist…

Earl GREY could not agree with the Noble and Learned Lord that the Act of 1846 had the effect which the petitioners attributed to it.⁹

Also, the acquisition of slave labor found more difficulties, own to British and French inspection of Spanish and Portuguese piracy on the African coast. Thus, businessmen suggested a substitution of acquisition of slave labor for Asian workers, many living in Southern China.

Asia appears as the cradle of the labor force because of the recent rivalry between China and England. Additionally, it is worthwhile to consider the previous utilization of Indian coolies by British entrepreneurs in the Caribbean colonies. Concerning the Chinese diaspora, almost 1,5 millon immigrants over 25 years went to the destinies of California, Australia, and Asian islands countries [11, 12]. In this context, the Caribbean also received many Chinese coolies. Despite fierce disputes inside the British Parliament about implementing Chinese coolies in their colonies, they became the last resource to impulse and invigorate Caribbean economies. In conclusion, the massive support to implement the Chinese labor force disrupted the global socio-economic history because it made a more complex racial representative form and the labor relationship.

The number of efficient labourers introduced into the West Indies for the last few years is quite inadequate to the demand. The Mauritius has been receiving about 6,000 per annum, and the West India colonies only 4,000.¹⁰

The whole subject of the economy of labour, by the improvements of our machinery, our implements, and otherwise, has occupied the little advance has been made in this line beyond the exertions of individuals members of the society. Horses and mules, ploughs and cultivators, have, to a considerable extent, taken the place of the native and his hoe, and it is hoped that this reform will speedily become more general.¹¹

The impossibility of the economy of labour, except at exorbitant rates, is the great difficulty which we stockholders have now encounter, and I think it is an evil that is likely to increase before it diminishes. Indeed, I expected that we shall have to depend solely on Chinese coolies, a number of whom have been lately imported, at considerable outlay, by a few stockholders, myself among the number.¹²

The effect of the discoveries of the precious metals in our Australian colonies has been to create a complete revolution in the shipping business… Besides this effect at home, our shipping has been in extensive demand in distant foreign ports, especially in the Chinese seas, for the purposes of conveying Coolie and other natives to California as well as to our own gold settlements.¹³

The slave trade and Free labour.¹⁴

The manner dealers apply work engagement with the coolies aggravated existing notions regarding freedom because they exposed racial policies and European civilization notions, combined with a deep socio-economic crisis inside the Chinese Imperium since 1839 [13].

While this race doesn't improve or mixture; while the government system doesn't change, the great work of Christian regeneration in China would become a significant problem… it is necessary for a moral revolution… the idols, the images, and any Buddhism monstrosity should fall in front of the Christian civilization [14].

Marxist interpretation of labor relations in industrial England acquired significant relevance because it problematizes the place of freedom in modern and slavery economies. Exactly, business people and Chinese coolie dealers made a particular interpretation of the concept of freedom. In this sense, the extended discussion of British abolitionist policies, their performance by dealers, and their actual implementation are essential. First, however, it is necessary to recognize the misunderstanding between social and individual liberty under the frame of possibilities of labor engagement.¹⁵ On this premise, Chinese peasants struggled between the eventful local economy or embarking on a transoceanic ship oriented to—very possibly—unknown destinations. The struggle for freedom results in a plausible consequence of precarious labor conditions, not the motivation for the diaspora [16].

3. The dealers’ strategies: moral convenience

Not long after the first Chinese coolies arrived in Cuba, the information concerning the bribe, sabotage, and violence started to leak. The media coverage of engagement practices in Cuba came to the essential political circles. Very soon, statements about inhuman conditions in the displacement from China to Cuba occupied the interest of public opinion. Many of those brave opponents claimed an expedited solution, preferably the definitive halt of this “new slavery.” No matter what, Chinese coolies became a great business with considerable profit for the investors. That would last at least three decades until the governments of Cuba and China displayed strong policies against indenture service.

It is worth saying that there is comprehensive historiography about the complexity of the engagement system; however, it is crucial studying the historical problem of the consequences of interpreting freedom in this context. The organizational structure of hiring the first Chinese coolies was possible because of the leading role of the Zuleta Family, owner of “The London Branch of Zuleta Company.” Worried about the economic situation, they pursued an agreement with the company “Menchacatorre” from Manila. Both expressed interest in hiring Chinese coolies to supply farm labor. However, under new legal conditions framed by the liberal wing of the British parliament and Luis Napoleon’s labor rights policies, explicit consent was necessary for a contract (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

First hiring of Chinese coolies. Havana, July 26, 1847. ANC (Yo fulano natural del pueblo de .. provincias… en China de edad … de oficio labrador declaro que é conbenido con el agente de los Sres Matia Menchacatorre y C(al) de Manila en que me embarcaré en el barco inglés Duke of Argyl con objeto de trasladarme a la Habana en la isla de Cuba [ofreciendome] desde mi llegada a dedicarme a ella a las ordenes de aquella junta de fomento […] y a egecutar los trabajos espresados por cuatro pesos de salario al mes, la mantención de ocho onzas de carne salada, una y media libra de platanos —de otras raices alimenticias, asistencia de medico y enfermero, dos mudas de ropa y una frazada anuales y una camisa de lana […] Cumplido el cual quedaré en libertad de obrar como mejor me parezca. Mi pasage y manutención a bordo del expresado buque será de cuenta de los señores Matia, Menchacatorre y C(a) de Manila, […] Y en fe de que cumpliré puntualmente con las obligaciones que quedan espresadas firmo en Amoy a ocho de marzo de mil ochocientos cuarenta y siete.).

It is mandatory to explore technical documentation. First, the project of those Chinese coolies indentured was sprouted initially by the Cuban saccharocracy. They also use a legal document to trick the system that recently unsaturated freedom as a civil right. It seems paradoxical here that the system acknowledges it was a trick victim. The first evidence of an abnormality in the shipping of Chinese coolies arrived after an uprising in the traditional route between Xiamen and San Francisco.¹⁶ The Robert Bowne’s cruise, under the command of Capital Bryson, experienced a significant revolt in reaction to unfair treatment by the crew.

That said ship sailed from Amoy about March 20, with a crew of 19 men including all hands, and about 410 Chinese passengers bound for San Francisco.¹⁷

Like sitting on a powder keg, Chinese coolies’ resistance expanded promptly in ships and the barracks.¹⁸ Considering the time between embarking and arriving in Cuba, approx. Four months, it is possible to deduce the rapid expansion of rumor, gossip, and sabotage in the barracks. News about the cruelty and lousy treatment came from Cuba and other regions. In addition, the discredited hiring responds to personal strategies designed by the dealers, which pursued to fulfill their mission and increase personal revenue.

Letters from Amoy of the 3d instant mention a serious disturbance there, originating in some irregularities in conducting the emigration of coolies or labourers by the Chinese brokers and their agents employed.¹⁹

The Chinese coolie indenture system shows significant shortcomings in less than a decade. John Bowring, governor in Hong Kong and consul of New Grenadian affairs in China, reported irregularities in the indenture system. The main focus of his denounces is based on the tactics and strategies delivered by the dealers and their goals of capturing Chinese coolies.

“The men are kidnapped and carried off by force, without any prudence of a contract or wages…”; “Premiums are paid in China for such Coolies as are induced or forced to emigrate, by persons who contract to procure Chinese labourers, or by captains of the ships chartered to conveyed them”; “We have received some dreadful revelations as to the trade in coolies. It appears that there is now organized in the southern parts of China system of kidnapping to the full as bad as ever practiced by the native chiefs of Africa in the worst days of the slave trade”; “The Chinese agents decoy or force their victims on board their boats, and torture them until they wring from them a consent to become ‘free emigrants”; “Native Chinese are employed to entice from their homes such as may be persuaded, from hope to profit, to leave their friends.”²⁰

Among those tactics stood out the use of Chinese natives, which had the mission of visiting the nearest poor areas, where they must capture men engaged in gambling, opium, and liquor. After the kidnapping, the dealers took the Chinese coolies to the barracks on stand-by of the highest bidder.²¹ Simultaneously, the dealers implemented new tactics of technical resistance, such as distraction, geared toward the policies of halting the indenture system. In this scene, judges found it impossible to designate the punishment and the crimes to dealers and ship captains, which allow the indenture system to survive.

“On Monday Captain Seymour, the master of the ship Duke of Portland, appeared before Mr. Selfe to answer a demand made upon him by a seaman named Smith, who claimed a balance of 40L”; “Mr Almera stated in his evidence that he had engaged with a man named Aho to supply him with 432 Coolies for the Gulnare”; “It appears that two American vessels, the Ann and Staghound, have been most conspicuous in procuring coolies, and the cruelties narrated are principally in connection with them.”²²

In any event, dealers continued supplying the transoceanic ships with thousands of men, overcoming the amount permitted by international authorities. In 1855 regulation to contract Chinese coolies gained more conditions, based on the Chinese Passengers Act agreement. Its enactment expresses the deep social crisis related to the Chinese exactions, who for more than a lustrum immigrated under severe abuses. Thus, the most common demand consisted of health and safety on board the transoceanic vessels, although it was an aspect deliberately overlooked.

while the emigration officer at Hong Kong had refused to grant a certificate for more than 81 Chinese coolies being taken to sea by the John Calvin, bound for Havana, that vessel carried away 297 such passengers, of whom 110 perished on the voyage by suicide and disease, and 23 more in quarantine and hospital at Havana.²³

For instance, a woman with a child on her back caused the child’s bonnet to fall as she passed two men; on their picking it up she expressed her thanks and offered them some cakes for their civility; these were eaten, and being drugged, the men sat down stupefied; the woman’s confederates then came up, offered to carry the two men home, but lodged them in a receiving-ship instead.²⁴

On the contrary, the hiring of Chinese coolies continued to increase, most likely following the experience of the African trade. At the same time, the dealers developed better collaboration strategies with the conveyors, excited about the rising income.²⁵ But unfortunately, kidnapping, extortion, and violence in acquiring Chinese coolies tend to rise, despite all the efforts to control the traffic.

The Chinese agents are usually outlaw… mandarins-men of no character—who speedily amass large fortunes. The brokers are the worst and most depraved of men. They obtain the coolies by various devices; they have agents everywhere who are on the lookout for men, and who kidnap and entrap as many as they can. Once in the power of the brokers, they never regain liberty.²⁶

The police made a descent upon the vessel, and the men were brought on shore. From their statement, it appeared that they were from keeping Chi, and had been hired ostensibly to go to ‘the betel plantations’ in the neighborhood of Singapore. In reality they were being conveyed to the sugar plantations of Cuba. Of course, they were set at liberty…. What became of the majority of the 120 no one knows; but of the remains of the company, 45 in all, we have some more definite intelligence….²⁷

Once again, on the Caribbean beaches of Cuba, it is essential to emphasize the profound crisis of the Spanish government on the island, in addition to the adverse conjuncture of the slavery model that led to the American civil war (1861–1865). Contemporary notions of progress and freedom enounced with bravery in the republican wars against the Spanish domain returned to the still Spanish colony. Under those ideals, shared by the Cuban landowner, the dealers, and the abolitionist, the hiring of Chinese coolies fulfilled their expectations. Chinese indenture, on this logic, maintained distance from African slavery and contributed to the Cuban economic projects.

This kind of dilemma took part of the dealers working in the Chinese islands of Hong Kong and the region of Canton because they argued their commitment to the orders issued by the prestigious landowner in Cuba. The last ones also delivered a speech on liberty, progress, and morality, related to the Western principles of civilization. In fact, important dealers such as Ignacio Fernández de Castro and Nicolás Tanco Armero, dealing from Amoy and Hong Kong, conceived their achievements as part of the civilization project.²⁸ On equal terms, the landowners in Cuba developed a punitive and paternalist manner of indoctrinating and educating the new Asian population on the Caribbean island, which even considered imparting baptism to the new people.

Contestese a este párroco que puede proceder a administrar el santo sacramento del bautismo conforme el ritual romano a los asiáticos adultos que lo deseen y se hallen con la debida instrucción, bien sea de la finca que indica o de otra cualquiera [aseptadolo] como blancos en los libros parroquiales… así en las presentes circunstancias de la epidemia reinante como en lo sucesivo: manifiestesele además que aprobamos los bautismos que… de negros de nacidos y criollos adultos.²⁹

A very serious accusation, observes the Telegraph has appeared, in the columns of the London Times, March 18th, against the planters of Cuba, by a Mr. Thomas H. Gladstone. This gentleman has given a sad startling account of the brutal treatment inflicted on the Chinese emigrant by their cruel taskmasters, of which he says he was an eye witness… The philanthropic travellers horrified at such barbarity, is inclined to ask whether it is true that the same cruelty is practiced in the British possessions of the western Isles with regard to the Indian Coolies?³⁰

At the same time it seems clear that where the coolies are taken, not to British but, to foreign colonies, they are often kidnapped for that purpose, ill-treated on the passage, and sink into the position of mere slaves on their arrival in the colony.³¹

4. Moral values in the hiring of Chinese coolies

The mid-nineteenth century turns out to be a crucial period in the consolidation of freedom notions. On the same page, consider including in the historical analysis the most populated country in the world—nearly 430 million people in 1850—contribute to comprehending the links with the morality among global capitalist relations. Just at the beginning, hiring Chinese coolies to support economic activities in the Caribbean seems barely logical. Thus, it is vital to observe the rapid manner in which constructing notions of freedom attended those financial adversities. With a piece of naiveness, it is possible that neither landowners and dealers nor Chinese coolies knew the destiny of the hiring. All of them just signed the document guarantor of rational freedom. At the end of the 1850 decade, tensions between English, French, and Spanish arose the cloak of doubt about the free hiring of Chinese coolies. On the contrary, an idea of a new slavery acquired relevance, receiving more support from the American congress, which strongly condemned any form of coolies’ contract. This terrible practice of new slavery would change with the intervention of the Chinese government, which sent a political commission to Cuba and Peru to recover Chinese statements about the humanitarian conditions of the immigrants working in the Caribbean and South America.³²

This reflection of moral conceptions would offer more elements if considering the experiences inside China. For example, in 1860, Pek-Ito Leang, a helpless 18-years-old woman from a small town (Tong Wha), received attention because of her public crucifixion. Furthermore, being still alive, she received part of Chinese torture, starting from the cut-off of her breast and her skin. The offenses attributed to Pek-Ito consisted of seducing, kidnapping, and selling 13 Chinese peasant men as coolies. Afterward, she died and her family received her guts as a present.³³ This cruel narration must tell us some ideas about global morality. Impress those tremendous actions to halt a social practice that acquired the conception of crime in recent years. Before, the Chinese coolie indenture system acted as a legitimate alternative to detaining African Slavery. Thus, it is very significant to comprehend and explain the nature of crime in the indenture system.

In the early 50s, Cuban sugar manufacturers’ dilemma consisted of reducing sugar mill production costs that recently competed against new international producers. In addition, there was technological turmoil, threatening traditional forms of sugar production. The Cuban business people exposed arguments about its economic commitments, which motivated the hiring of the Asiatic labor force, although dividing the moral guilt of the contract with all the consumers. If there was a personal and cultural desire to consume sugar, the alternatives consisted of assuming economic decisions, all of them unpopular: first, raising the prices of the product, or replacing African slave work for Chinese coolie indenture, disguised by an idea of free labor, because the document is supporting and legalizing the recruitment.

To those who are anxious to have cheap sugar –and we suppose all are, though some may not wish to have it through such sources as Brazil and the Havana, we say, support our West Indian colonies; prevent them sinking altogether, or you will no longer have cheap sugar.³⁴

The plan is simply an offshoot of the old abolitionist measure of replacing negro slaves with Indian coolies, which has since relapsed into the present profitable practice of importing Chinese apprentices to the sugar-growing fields of the tropics. Senor Meana’s plan is combined with great skill, and would effectually displace the slave trade on the coast of Africa if adopted.³⁵

In the mid-nineteenth century, the rise of liberalism invigorated the circulation of ideas related to freedom, most of them explained in the frame of philosophy, politics, and economy, implemented in a political intervention such as abolitionism and the belief in universal rational freedom. In this particular case, it is essential to analyze the place occupied by the Chinese coolies in front of liberalism policies, destinated to abolish slavery, mainly because of the strong opposition of the industrial sector in the United States, but also because of the popular insurrections in Europe, and the Cartism work policies. In the same sense, Cuban landowners adopted the obligation of contracting Chinese coolies as free workers, as is demonstrated in much documentation regarding social warranty in an industrial environment (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Habana, 23 de marzo de 1852. ANC (Habana 23 de marzo de 1852. Conforme lo acordado en Junta de Autoridades celebrada en 13 del actual a consecuencia del proyecto de Villoldo Wardrove sobre introducir colonos asiáticos en la isla, y habiendo hecho igual solicitud don Manuel B Poveda, lo autorizo para la introducción desde luego de 3000 de los colonos esperados, sugetandose a las bases propuestas por la Real Junta de Fomento y contrata en lo referente al macsimum que se fija por el traspaso de cada uno de los ocho colonos, de que se le remitirá copia con oficio relativo al particular.).

As it has demonstrated, freedom requires a certificated more than the conviction of being a free subject. During the 50s, a global system emerged based on free people’s interchange, migration, and contracting. As might be obvious, using a contract does not warrant any proximity with freedom, but the system demanded a paper to support the legal submission. In reality, this legal form fulfilled some of the British and Spanish implementations destinated to halt piracy. Also, that kind of Freedom executed a liberal principle of rational choice, once again supported by a contract. The dealers interpreted all those facts in a particular way and overloaded the ships with Chinese coolies based on the legal documentation. In any case, overcrowding and unhealthy conditions did not yet represent a genuine threat to the freedom consigned in the contracts. The global political system preserves the warranties of freedom, whereas there was a signed contract.

Going deeper into the meaning of the legal majority—among Kantian terms—adduced in the contracts originally signifies the recognition of the historical condition of the subject. The whole body of documentation emphasizes the legality of the hiring; it also defines the labor obligation, which will receive an economic reward (salary), that, no matter the amount, is still considered a payment for the work delivered (Figure 3).

Figure 3.

Chinese coolie contract. Stamp general consulate of Spain in China. Macao, Sept 5, 1851.

Once the Chinese coolie left the embarking ports in southern China, they acquired a different legal condition under the surveillance of the international system, understood as a political device invented by the Europeans in the sixteenth century “to regulate European powers’ affairs.” International laws serve in this case as the referee in implementing human resources to fulfill immigrant demands [22]. In response to this, transoceanic vessels must offer spacious accommodation, air, and ventilation, as well as doctors and translators on board. There was also the requirement of enough food and water supply to complete the notion of nutritional scheme proper of the nineteenth century.

“I am enabled to report to your lordship that there was no blame whatever attached to the masters of either vessel, that whom it would perhaps be very difficult to find more humane or competent persons in our mercantile marine….”³⁶

While all of those demands rest in the European power’s agreements about international law, the dealers continued embarking on thousands of Chinese coolies without complying with the humanitarian commitment.

But their destiny story gets worse because, no matter the dramatic traverse of 3 or 4 months through the Indic and Atlantic, they arrived in a new legal condition in Cuba. Only then they realize that promises of freedom depend on the master’s condescending. In this manner, the analysis of contracting and displacing Chinese coolies to Cuba offers a comprehensive overview of the interpretation of freedom. The earlier years of Chinese indenture received an impressive reception from Chinese and Cubans; also, many economists defended the philanthropic intention of the system because of the alternative provided to the capitalist economic relation, which was significantly affected by the persistence of slavery in some communities.

After arriving in the sugar mills, Chinese coolies started to occupy a new legal condition ruled by the established workplace standard. In most cases, Chinese coolies began to share the same authority as enslaved people. Freedom and slavery relations coexisted without much trouble. However, Chinese coolies received a different perception owing to the freedom signed; they were supposed to gain a salary, even if that meant a few amounts in exchange for their labor force. Patrons were also committed to providing clothes and food and taking care of the health in case of sickness. It is worth saying that some patrons fulfilled part of their commitments, but many aspects close to Slavery, such as overworking, physical punishment, and the loss of citizenship, were common. This analysis would gain more elements if it considered the social condition of the peasantry there in China, intending to comprehend the cultural clash for the Chinese coolie living under the state of indentured service in Cuba.

They are penned up at night, hundreds of men together, like mules or oxen, in jail-like barracoons, and guarded by ferocious bloodhounds, kept in every state for the purpose. I fully believe, “says Mr. Lamont, “That they are literally worked to death in a very few years.”³⁷

It is not probable that our Government or the officials in the Islands would permit the Coolies to be cruel or unjustly treated, as they are in Cuba, Peru, &c.³⁸

Every day I hear of new cases of atrocity connected with Coolie emigration to the West Indies. That poor, ignorant people are absolutely kidnapped, and others systematically deceived under the promise of high remuneration, has been long suspected.³⁹

All the old arguments in defence of the kidnapping, exporting, and selling of the wretched Africans will be reproduced, refurbished, and sharpened for the new war against humanity.⁴⁰

5. Rational action: motivation

Poverty in China in the mid-nineteenth century could not be an explanatory argument about the events regarding tricks, kidnapping, and extortion, in addition to physical and mental punishment executed by dealers and patrons over the Chinese coolies. The fact that many contracting firms experienced revolts, riots, and disturbances, some in the middle of the sea, shows the cruel reality of the hiring system. We must picture the scene where the innocent Chinese peasant, caught in Kwangtung or Fukien, discovers he is a deceitful victim [23]. Naturally, the alternatives were to drown in the ocean rather than continue to a tragic destiny in the Caribbean. Thus, the rational choice consisted in selecting an open resistance in the open sea against their captures or continuing on a trip geared toward a new form of slavery.

The discussion about freedom regains importance between the frame of rational risks assumed by the Chinese peasantry and business people living in adverse social conditions produced by the dramatic changes in the socio-economic field, mainly in Southern Chinese maritime ports. Corresponds, then, to find out the motivation of Chinese peasantry to immigrate, without restricting or relating the analysis to notions of European freedom, because the political process of the Chinese must be studied inside the inner conditions, although prevailing a global glance. From this perspective, overpopulation, famine, rebellions—such as the Taiping—government corruption, and unemployment are critical for the historical analysis. All those facts achieve relevance in the context of new economic conditions emerging from the European invasion of China after 1839 ([24], p. 45; [20], p. 32; [25], p. 453; [13], pp. 41-47).

Everywhere there are bands of robbers and pirates scouring the country and its waters, oppressing the rich, pillaging the poor, and seizing whatever comes their way. The natural consequence of this state of things is stagnation of trade and commerce, a general feeling of insecurity of life and property, a rise in the price of provisions, fuel, clothes, and every necessary of life, occasioning much distress, poverty, and want among the poorer classes, especially in certain districts where labour and trade are entirely suspended… It is difficult to imagine how such a vast mass of human beings as are here congregated together manage to live and support life, with so little occupation and business at their command. Foreign trade, which gives employment to thousands at this port, is now all but extinct, and native commerce must be seriously embarrassed when the great highways and channels of communication through the country are closed up and beset on every side with robbers.⁴¹

In the light of socio-economic antagonism experienced by the Chinese, it resulted in the rational reaction of the known as coolies, which sought new sources of funds. Thus, notions of freedom and independence experience performance-defining elements essential to understanding the moral investment of immigrating outside China.⁴² To accept this idea of rational motivation, we must consider the role played by the owners of sugar mills and Cuban landowners, which executed a clean process, shielding their social performance with legal protection through the use of intermediaries that applied legal conditions of hiring. It is also possible that the hiring process maintained proper freedom manners, but the contract displays slavery conditions. That would clarify the day-to-day forms of resistance, such as sabotage, desertion, and abandonment of work, in addition to gossip and revenge, that express the whole rage against the indentured service. From this perspective, there must be a slight possibility of rational motivation in the contract and the embarkment from the Chinese perspective.⁴³ However, social conditions in Cuba, which expanded very soon in barracks in China, altered the process of implementing Chinese indenture in the Caribbean (Figure 4).

Figure 4.

“Circumstantiated rotation of the existing runaway slaves in the municipal deposit of this jurisdiction”. Escaped Chinese. Matanzas, 1858. ANC.

It is, therefore, surprising the rising number of immigrant Chinese coolies to Cuba in such a short period, especially when the international political dimension attended the denouncement of violence, mistreatment, and many infringing ways to get more Chinese coolies. In this historical context, it is essential to reflect that many Chinese coolies could consider enlarging the diaspora after the exhaustion of any possibility of changing economic conditions. Thus, abandoning China express the most straightforward form of natural resistance to their government. The General Consul of Spain in Macao explained that: “the Chinese left for Cuba did so of their own volition.”⁴⁴ Naturally, those statements participated in the contemporary political debate and did not necessarily mean the whole reality.

On the contrary, the dramatic social conditions of the Chinese in Cuba show that rational choice did not emerge from “their own volition.” It was, in any case, the result of the same feeling of abandonment by the Chinese government that just in the middle 1870s sent a political mission to discover all the atrocities experienced by the Chinese subjects. In their statements, economic adversities in China operate as the mandatory situation that prompted their decision to migrate. On the other side, it is still a strong argument “lack of interest and corruption from part of the officers in Cuba.”

The mystery about the dilemma that inspires this reflection is still unknown because many tracks lead us to discover the reason for the Chinese coolies to embark on the barracks.⁴⁵ However, there are also so many gaps that the diaries and documentation in the archives could attend.

One of the Chinese examined, and, although one of the prisoners, we place considerable confidence in his story, stated that he had been foully entrapped into going on board the vessel.⁴⁶

On late years voluntary emigration from China has not been sufficient to meet the demands for labour in the various colonies. This has induced the formation of societies, which send agents to the different ports in the province of Canton and Fokien, to induce the people to emigrate.⁴⁷

The revelations which have been made during the last year or two as to the manner in which these “voluntary labourers” or “apprentices” are kidnapped and huddled on board the English or American vessel employed to carry their to market, and how they are treated on the passage and after they arrive at their destination, surpass in cruelty and atrocity anything that has been ever said or written of the horrors of African slavery and the middle passage.⁴⁸

In this sense, the purpose is to make more complex the rationality of immigrating from China to Cuba in the quality of indenture service to determine two possible scenarios: the first one explains that social chaos, resulting from the recent sociopolitical turmoil, that drives the inner economy to extreme conditions of poverty, war, passivity, lack of interest, and willingness, act as the main reason and the explanation to the rational action. The second one explores dealers’ role and tricks to raise their income by selling more Chinese coolies [27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32].

In any case, except those based on any manner of violence, ethical and moral values stand out regarding socio-economic provisions and ideological concepts, legitimating the contract of Chinese coolies to invigorate the Cuban economy. The hiring purpose executed innovative manners of dealing, led by Latin American dealers who represented British and Spanish firms, focused on the sugar and guano business. The dealers also used Chinese people to trick and engage the Chinese peasantry. In this form, hooking and hiring Chinese coolies correspond to the rational motivation of Chinese coolies, induced to choose immigration because of the harsh social conditions.

Chinese coolies are kidnapped by Chinese crimps in the most approved fashion; they are invited to gamble (an invitation that no Chinaman can resist) hocussed with shamshoo, and put quietly on board junks in the harbour at night. In the morning they awake to find themselves gliding out of the bay, bound for the Portuguese settlement of Macao. On arrival there they are transferred to barracoons –prisons under another name– where they are fed, clothed, and carefully watched till sent on board ships and consigned to Cuba, where they are sold for 250 or 300 dollars as slaves… I am also told that their gaolers have methods of inducement, into which the bamboo enters largely, for persuading them to make this declaration, and its value as a true exposition of their real feelings is extremely doubtful. They are said to cost, on an average, from the date of kidnapping to the period of shipment for Cuba forty-five to fifty dollars each.⁴⁹

It is imperative to conclude by explaining the particularity of this specific case. First of all, the historical conditions of Latin American dealers show a global connection without precedents. In this same sense, it is crucial to recognize that those dealers acted in the representation of sugar mill landowners that appropriated and implemented the use of indenture service. Freedom appears interwoven with the Caribbean agro exporters’ interest, its interpretation of the dealers, and the desire for liberty from the Chinese coolies. Ultimately, the contract of Chinese coolies as free workers stretches to the maximum capacity of the notion of freedom. The dealers, in those terms, became ingenious businessmen enriched by the economic demand of their time, although the perception of their deeds as crimes will require the judgment of history.