112 CHAPTER 4:
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE COOLIE TRAFFIC, C. 1860-1874
This chapter illustrates the configuration and the main features of the Macao coolie trade in its “mature” phase, approximately between the early 1860s and 1874. It is divided in three sections, corresponding to the three stages of operations of the traffic: the recruitment, the “middle passage” over the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans, and the settlement in the venue societies of Latin America. Special emphasis is given to the issue of “agency” of the coolies and their resistance against involuntary bondage. In this sense, this chapter builds on a number of underemployed or untapped Italian and Portuguese sources, which allow us to recover in many cases the “voice” of the contemporary actors.
4.1 The recruitment network
In a recent contribution to the field, historian Evelyn Hu-DeHart has underscored the growing sophistication of the coolie trade organized at Macao during the 1860s, picturing it as a prime example of the burgeoning nineteenth-century global capitalism. The need to secure a steady supply of people to sustain the demand of manpower from the labor-hungry Latin American planters, she maintains, nourished a complex and multilayered network of agents, contractors and subagents, which elaborated advanced practices of outsourcing and subcontracting to pursue their business.1 The following paragraphs examine in detail this structure, and its modes of operation.
4.1.1 Corretores, agentes, encarregados, empregados, corretores avulsos
A particularly valuable source to investigate this ample constellation of interests is provided by the records of Macao’s judicial archives (Cartorio do Juízo de Direito da Comarca de Macau, Registros Jurídicos e Orfanológicos 1754-1977, CJDCM). This collection, consisting in 357 microfilms taped by the Genealogical Society of Utah in the
1
“So it was that the yellow trade also made use of outsourcing or subcontracting, now so prevalent in the current era of globalization, to the point of crimps’ subcontracting with sub-crimps” Hu-DeHart, “La Trata Amarilla,” 169.
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late 1970s, has been so far almost ignored by the scholarship on Macao, despite its particular value for the study of the colony’s nineteenth-century society, where it supplements the losses of the colonial administration’s archives, most of which were destroyed by a typhoon in 1874.
A notable exception has been so far Beatriz Basto da Silva, former director of the AHM, who also worked on these collection’s originals, stored in the former Arquivo do Tribunal, in the early 1990s. 2 As she displayed in her pioneering work, these documents are of special value, despite their often difficult readability and disorganization,3 to observe the interaction of Macao’s authorities with the coolie emigration brokers, and the actual workings of the system of regulations set up by the Macanese government along the twenty years of activity of the coolie traffic in Macao.
As Silva pointed out, the Portuguese authorities tried to rationalize the participation in this business by drawing artificial legal categories and boundaries. The general frame was to divide two main classes of emigration brokers: the corretores, or “as pessoas que se empregam em engajar chinas”, and the agentes, or “os encarregados do embarque” of the coolies “que lhe dao destino para fora de Macau.”, and subject them to a system of license and regulations.45 The main problem was that between these two categories emerged a range of intermediaries, circumventing the regulation’s purposes. Agentes, for example, could employ a number of encarregados or empregados to correspond and negotiate with the corretores. Moreover, a small number of licensed corretores and empregados—319 corretores and 163 empregados for 17 barracoons, according to the 1867 census—was effectively assisted by a much larger network of contractors and subcontractors, often named in the contemporary sources “contratistas” or “corretores avulsos”,6 in explicit but widely tolerated violation of the emigration’s norms (Fig. 4.1).
2 According to Beatriz Basto da Silva, who accessed these originals in the 1990s in her capacity of director
of the AHM, the Arquivo do Tribunal has disappeared, possibly lost, during the transition of Macao from the Portuguese to the Chinese administration; personal communication, Macau, April 2013.
3
The microfilms are of low quality, and the documents filmed are often fragmentary and poorly preserved; they lack a consistent chronological or thematic order, and urgently need some form of cataloguing. Among the few scholars who have employed these sources we count Silva, Transiçao de Macau para a Modernidade; and, using twentieth-century sources, António Manuel Hespanha, “O direito e a justiça num contexto de pluralismo cultural,” Administração VII, no. 23 (1994): 7–26.
4 Portaria n.39, 5 June 1856, in BO, 7 June 1856,
5 Silva, Emigração de cules, 91–123. A practical example in Barreto v. Severim AHM, CJDCM, C0165
(1871-1874).
6 It is the position of Antonio Barreto (sometimes spelled Barretto) in the aforementioned case. Barreto v.
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Fig. 4.1. Contract of Chion Chai, secondary corretor, borrowing 70 patacas from Lam Lin Quai, primary corretor, to recruit coolies in the Guangdong province, 25 October 1869 (translated by Pedro Nolasco da Silva). AHM, CJDCM, C0163, MP vs. Lam Lin Quai and Tam Chai, pelo crime de raptador e encobridor de roubo. These contracts were prohibited by the regulations of 1856.
4.1.2 The profits of the trade
In this complex chain of transactions, then, profits were not allocated equally. In Macao, the top of the pyramid was occupied by the agentes and the owners-managers of the emigration depots, commonly called barracões. The two occupations could coincide. Typically the encarregados and barracoon-owners were members of the highest layers of Macao’s Sino-Portuguese community: filhos da terra like José Vicente Jorge, Bernardo Estevao Carneiro, Maximiáno António dos Remedios, Antonio and Luis Barreto and so forth, whose names can still be spotted in the most sumptuous nineteenth-century buildings of the ex-colony. The role of agentes or shipping consignee was more often covered by foreigners of South American or European origin: the most active were undoubtedly the cited Tanco Armero, the Tuton family (José Aquilino and Fernando), Ricardo Calderon, the French entrepreneurs Vitor Brosmiche, Charles Caro. Some of these agents were working directly under foreign based firms, while others worked independently with a number of partners.
At the bottom of the pyramid, about 10,000 to 20,000 corretores and corretores avulsos, or unlicensed brokers, were in charge of the most important, but also most risky
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part of the recruitment business. Unlicensed brokers animated the bulk of the traffic until its final years, when stricter regulations, it seems, forced a larger portion of them to ask for, and obtain, licenses.7 According to Macao’s statistics department, for instance, the single barracoon of Bernardo Estevão Carneiro listed 1754 licensed corretores in 1871, more than the overall number registered for all Macao four years before, when the emigration was of comparable size.8
Finally, several hundreds of families in Macao profited indirectly from the subsidiary activities flourished around the traffic and the necessity to feed, clothe, lodge and
“entertain” hordes of potential emigrants, as well as Western sailors and agents; the
“migration industry” in its broader sense.9 At times a last element of the brokering system was composed by occasional crimps, often acquaintances, clansmen, friends and even close relatives of the recruited people.10
7 The judicial records in Macao contain a large number of requests by corretores to regularize their position
after the 1870. For example, in 1870: Auto de justificação do corretor Cao Lan Chi, AHM, CJDCM, C0163 (1870-1886); Auto da justificação requerida pelo china Sam Chiang Fac para obter licença de corretor, AHM, CJDCM, C0163 (1870-1886); In 1873: Auto de justificação do encarregado Lao Sing, AHM, CJDCM, C0166 (1866-1875); Procuratura dos Negócios Sínicos, Auto de justificação em que é justificante o china Vong Chuy Long, AHM, CJDCM, C0166 (1866-1875). This collection requires a serious effort of re-organization and cataloguing.
8 The Statistical department of the Macau government recorded 482 people employed by 17 emigration
depots in September 1867. These numbers were subject to constant fluctuations since new barracoons were opened or closed according to the demand of the moment. Manuel de Castro Sampaio, Relatórios da Repartição de Estatística de Macau acerca da população chinesa da mesma colónia, (Macau: Typ. de José da Silva, 1868). Arnold Meagher estimates in 20.000 the people directly involved with the coolie traffic in 1874: Meagher, The Coolie Trade, 122.
9 “Vi guadagnano infatti gli arrolatori o mezzani, detti corretores, facendosi pagare una buona gratifica ai
agenti per ogni coolie da essi consegnato : e questi si calcolano a circa 10.000. Vi guadagnano i sotto-agenti d’emigrazione che riscuotono dagli sotto-agenti un prezzo di oltre 50 piastre. Vi guadagnano naturalmente gli agenti che o sono stipendiati dalla casa che rappresentano o prendono una partecipazione ai guadagni. Vi guadagnano pure le case di commercio che provvedono il riso, gli abiti. Vi guadagna quella parte di popolazione cinese impiegata alla fabbricazione del vestiario e dei piccoli arnesi dati al coolie al momento della sua partenza e si calcola che un 200 famiglie maciste vivano di questi lavori. Vi guadagnano infine il governo e i suoi impieganti, mediante la tassa di 2 piastre e 1/2 per ogni emigrante che parte.”Sallier de La Tour, “L’emigrazione cinese,” 21. Chinese and Western sailors and merchants enjoyed as well Macao’s burgeoning gambling industry, and promoted the growth of several inns and “hotels”: “...those men of unknown nationalities, who live by kidnapping, claiming to be Portuguese [...] gamble very much; and the Pactolus that flows in Macao is drained away by the gambling houses.” Mesnier, “A Reply to ‘Macao and its Slave Trade,’” 125. On the concept of migration industry cf. Hernández-León, “Conceptualizing the Migration Industry”; Light, “The Migration Industry in the United States.”
10
As emphasized by a contemporary anonymous placard, translated by the British consulate at Canton in 1866, “there are cases of friends deceiving friends, relatives deceiving relatives, brothers deceiving brothers”, Mr. Sampson to Emigration Committee (copy), Canton, 30 October 1866, AMNE, CCPP. In the same year British sources recorded appalling rumors about a native of Sunon, southwest of Canton, who allegedly tried to sold his very father to the coolie agents. Having failed in his intent, he was punished and murdered by his relatives in a banquet. “An anecdote hawked in the streets of Canton”, in FO 881/1738, Confidential Prints, Correspondence Respecting the Engagement of Chinese Emigrants by British and French Subjects 1865-69, reported by Wang, The Organization of Chinese Emigration, 62. Similar narratives, built on the Confucian values of brotherhood and filial piety, are common in many contemporary sources.
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Another large share of the trade’s profits, if not the largest, was distributed to the actors involved in the transportation of the coolies to their final destinations in the Americas. The consignee firms based in Peru or Cuba derived their revenue directly from the difference between the costs of buying and transporting a coolie from Macao to his destination, and the price they could fetch there from the local planters, a differential that could easily exceed $250 to 300 per head. As calculated by La Tour,
Questo prezzo varia naturalmente secondo i tempi ed i luoghi, ma si calcola in media a 300 a 400 piastre, somma assai ragguardevole se si confronta col prezzo di acquisto quale si può ricavare dal seguente calcolo:
- Al sotto-agente: piastre 57
- Per vestiario, trasporto a bordo, tassa al governo di Macao: piastre 17 - Per provviste di bordo: piastre 17
- Per nolo del viaggio: piastre 70 - Totale: piastre 161.
La quale cifra, valevole per le spedizioni all’Avana, è naturalmente minore per il Perù: onde se ne può dedurre che il guadagno medio dell’intraprenditore, anche tenendo conto della mortalità, è almeno del 100%, ma si calcola che molte volte il profitto sia asceso anche al 200 e al 300%.11
This greatly exceeded, as shown by Meagher, the returns of other commodities in the China trade: an average cargo of coolie could be sold for a net profit of $50,000-100,000 compared with the five or ten time’s smaller value of a typical tea load, $10,000.12 On the other hand, the marginal profits of the coolie trade decreased steadily after the 1860s in response to the increase of intermediary costs at Macao. In the early years a coolie could be purchased from the corretores for approximately $15, but by the 1870s this price (preço da corretagem) in China had grown to an average of $70 to 80, with peaks of $150, or even $550, in times of scarcity.13 As a consequence, selling prices at Havana and Callao fluctuated accordingly. In the last years of the traffic, the direct involvement of the great Cuban planters and their representatives (for example, the societies Allianza, Colonizadora, and the Compañía de hacendados)14 managed to reduce the margins of profits of the intermediaries on the Cuba route. This partly explained the late shift of the
11
Sallier de La Tour, “L’emigrazione cinese,” 34.
12 Meagher, The Coolie Trade, 141–144.
13 Ibid. The figure of $550 given by Meagher appears exaggerated, and is most likely referred to the price
paid at destination, rather than in Macao. According to a more conservative estimate by the trafficker Abella, these peaks could reach $150 . The value of $70 was proposed by the “sociedade dos agentes” promoted in the last stages of the traffic to impose fixed prices and prevent the competition among the corretores: “Representação ao Leal Senado de Macau pelos contratistas e empregados na emigração chineza”, Corvo, Relatorio e documentos, 134. Also in AMNE, Assuntos diversos, cx. 1057. See also Brosmiche v. Carneiro, causa commercial, in AHM, CJDCM, C0164 (1868-1871).
117 trade toward the Peruvian coast.
Other crucial actors in the coolie trade were the captains of the coolie ships. Many of them managed directly the business operating simultaneously as captains and ship owners, and directly buying some or all the coolies of their load.15 When chartered by third parties, instead, they fetched extremely rewarding wages and prizes to compensate the perceived risks of rebellion or epidemics. A typical wage in these cases included a monthly salary of $150 , a prize of $2,000 for completing the voyage, and a bonus of $5 for each coolie safely delivered at destination. According to Lovera,
I capitani delle Navi Coolies hanno paga di 150 dollari al mese, regalia di 2000 dollari per viaggio, qualunque ne sia l'esito, e di altri 5 dollari per ogni Coolie, che consegnano salvo a destino. Ciò spiega siccome un capitano di Nave Coolie possa, dopo pochi anni di tale traffico, essersi ritirato a Quarto sua patria, disponendo di un capitale di 450,000 franchi [c. $80,000].16
For the same reasons, sailors aboard coolie ships were paid higher salaries than the average–starting from a minimum of $15 monthly (but usually well over $20) against the $8-12 earned in the tea trade.17 Twelve sailors of the Teresa received an advance pay of $30 each in 1866 at the departure from Macao.18
The sailors of the coolie ship Galileo, in 1867, also had received an advance premium of $30. Even higher earnings could be made by acquiring individually shares of the ship’s cargoes, carrying sundries and exotic chinoiserie for the Peruvian market, or other goods for the Chinese emigrants already settled in Peru or Cuba.19
15
For example, on the Italian ship Teresa in 1866, captain Sebastiano Bollo personally bought 24 of the 624 coolies embarked; the rest on behalf of the firm Bianchi e Profumo of Lima; Estratto del giornale nautico della barca Clipper Teresa, enclosed, Castelli to MM, Lima, 12 October 1866 ACS, MM, DGMM, Miscellanea Uffici Diversi 1866-1869, b.271.
16
Lovera, “Sulla tratta...,” 567.Another source raises to $3,000 the average passage prize: “L’arruolamento e trasporto dei Coolies”, La Borsa, 8 August 1874, quoted in Ferrari, “Sulla tratta dei ‘coolies’ cinesi a Macao,” 131.
17 Meagher, The Coolie Trade, 144. 18
“Il capitano Bollo immediatamente avanzò a dodici marinari scudi forti 30 ognuno ed il giorno 2 giugno gli mandò a bordo.” Estratto del giornale nautico della barca Clipper Teresa, enclosed, Castelli to MM, Lima, 12 October 1866 ACS, MM, DGMM, Miscellanea Uffici Diversi 1866-1869, b.271.
19 For instance, the head carpenter of the Luisa Canevaro (paid $35 per month) asked by the British agent
Cecil Smith in 1873, stated that “wages were no object compared with what he could make each trip by carrying things to sell in Peru. The Chinese there would give anything for what you told them had come from China. A thousand dollars could easily be made two thousand each voyage”; Memorandum from Cecil Smith, 3 February 1873, BPP, Papers relative to the Measures taken to prevent the fitting out of Ships at Hong Kong for the Macao Coolie Trade, 1873, 327. Paradoxically, the anonymous carpenter claimed he did not want to profit directly from the sale of coolies because, as reported by Smith “ he did not want to deal in slaves.”
118 4.1.3 Methods of recruitment
In the next two paragraphs, going back to the Macao-centered recruitment system, we examine the practices of the coolie brokers and the features and operations of Macao’s infamous coolie depots.
The practices and stratagems of the corretores varied considerably over the duration of the traffic, encompassing a wide spectrum of options. As we mentioned in the previous chapters many corretores acted as amphibious marauders, accessing the internal waters of the Guangdong province and the coasts of South and Southeastern China through their junks and lorchas. Deceit and decoy were, according to Hu-DeHart,20 the terms most commonly associated with the action of these brokers:
I corretores, montati sulle loro giunche e forniti di vettovaglie e di qualche denaro, si spargono lungo le vicine coste della Cina e specialmente della provincia di Canton, avendo cura di scegliere quei luoghi che sono meno sorvegliati dalle autorità cinesi. Giunti colà, non tardano a mettersi in comunicazione con la gente di campagna che cercano di attirare alle loro barche, adescandoli, con trattamento di riso, pesce fresco e carne (mangiar di lusso) ed anche con qualche moneta. Allora si comincia a far loro balenare l'idea di poter continuare per sempre cosi bella vita e di farsi ricchi, purché acconsentano a recarsi per qualche tempo alla terra degli europei che viene loro dipinta come un vero paradiso terrestre. Talvolta invece si fa loro credere di condurli ad un’isola distante poche miglia dalla loro patria. 21
Alternatively, gambling and opium debts could be used to induce or force people to sign contracts of emigration. In connection with the extension of the traffic, lawful and unlawful gambling houses flourished in both Macao and the whole Guangdong province. This allowed various forms of pawn-brokers and money-lenders to exploit the system:
Sometimes the Coolie catcher [another widely used derogatory term for the coolie brokers] purposely lends money to ignorant country people to go and gamble with. This is called “gambling for Coolies.” If the man wins no interest is required, the capital only has to be returned. If he loses, he has to sign a paper making over his body to the Coolie catcher. The manager of the gambling-house is an accomplice of the Coolie catcher. They league together to deceive, and use every effort to make the poor countrymen fall into their trap.22
In other cases, and mostly with occasional recruiters, the bait to entrap people in the emigration scheme was a deceitful job offer in Macao. As stated in an anonymous placard in 1866, “sometimes old women are employed to kidnap. They commence their
20 Hu-DeHart, “La Trata Amarilla,” 169.
21 Sallier de La Tour, “L’emigrazione cinese,” 22.
22 Cecil Smith, “A Correct Statement of the Wicked Practice of Decoying and Kidnapping”, enclosed in
Kennedy to Kimberly, Hong Kong, 7 June 1872, BPP, Papers relative to the Measures taken to prevent the fitting out of Ships at Hong Kong for the Macao Coolie Trade, 1873, 1-4; copy in AMNE, Assuntos diversos, cx. 1057.
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operations by saying that work is easily attained at Macao at wages of $8 or $10 a month. Many unemployed persons on hearing this hasten to go, fearing to be too late.”23 Once in the Portuguese colony, these displaced peoples could be compelled to sign migration contracts to repay the expenses sustained for their transfer.24
According to some testimonies, recruiters could also drift to Cuba and Peru prospective emigrants who genuinely wished to emigrate towards different destinations in Southeast Asia, Australia or North America, with better reputations, wages and labor conditions. It is the illuminating case, for instance, of 124 emigrants arrived in the British colony of Hong Kong “with the intention of proceeding to the Betel-nut producing country or the coast of Sumatra”, but then hijacked and imprisoned in Macao by a deceitful coolie broker, assisted by several Portuguese and foreign accomplices.25
It is in fact evident, from these and other primary sources, that many native inhabitants of Southern China possessed a detailed geographical knowledge of the different countries reached by Chinese immigration and showed strong preferences for some destinations— including California and many Southeast Asian locations—over others. It is worth reinstating here that accounts and anecdotes about the harrowing fate of Chinese laborers in the Peruvian guano pits, or the Cuban plantations had circulated widely in South China, through a number of formal and informal channels including oral communication,
placards, public petitions, and even the first “modern” Chinese newspapers;26 while the lack of “success stories” among returnees, despite the sparse advertising efforts promoted
23 Anonymous Placard, in Mr. Sampson to the Emigration Committee (copy), Canton, 30 October 1866,
AMNE, CCPP.
24 See the statements of Ayung (blacksmith), Lim Apack (boatsman) and Wong Ahfaht (barber), coolie
emigrants saved from the wreck of the Peruvian ship Don Juan to Hong Kong Magistracy, May 1871, in CO129/150. More specific and witty schemes were also tailored on the openings of the changing Portuguese legislation on the emigration system, as we will discuss below.
25 Statement of Ing Asong to Caldwell, Protector of Chinese, Hong Kong 19 January 1860 (copy), in
CO129/77. The British authorities regularly sent agents to visit the Macao barracoons in the attempt to rescue individuals and groups in solicitation of relatives and friends. In this case, Ing Asong had successfully escaped from the Barracoon, but his attempts to rescue his comrades was frustrated as the Barracoon owners conveniently shipped them away right before the British envoy’s (Caldwell himself) inspection. In other circumstances, coolies were released in exchange of bribes paid to Portuguese officials: as in the case of How-A-Fat, “the servant of a respectable European” in Hong Kong, and Kwong-A-Hing, “rescued by the praiseworthy exertion of his friends and payment of $38 to a Portuguese employee of Your Excellency’s Government”, MacDonnel to Horta, Hong Kong, 1 June 1867, CO129/128. Enclosed in the same exchange, the Emigration Superintendent Azevedo denied any record of the sum paid, confirming a supercharge (bribe?) from the regular reimbursement fee of $12-16; Azevedo to Pereira (copy), Macao, 6 June 1867, CO 129/128.
26 See Irick, Ch’ing Policy Toward the Coolie Trade, 57–60, 198. In numerous cases, Chinese officers
mentioned either Chinese or English newspapers when dealing with the coolie abuses: see for instance, Viceroy Ruilin to Sousa (Portuguese translation), Canton, 4 September 1871, in AHM, Administração Central, Secção Administrativa, Processos P-81, quoting the Shenbao over the Don Juan disaster.
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by some recruitment agencies,27 gave further confirmation to the worst rumors. For this reason, coolies inveigled to Cuba and Peru had to be often deceived about their real destination. Like we saw in the last chapter, this was especially true in the early stages of the traffic, when the concomitant takeoff of the Californian emigration created obvious confusions. According to De La Riva, recruiters could exploit on this behalf the quasi-homonymy between Cuba (Big Luzon: Da Lusong, 大吕宋, also used for Mexico) and the island of Luzon in the Philippines (Little Luzon: Xiao Lusong, 小吕宋), site of a prosperous Chinese community.28 Witnesses from the 1874 Cuba commission also reported having been deceived about the length of the contract, “being told that the eight foreign years specified in the contracts were equivalent to only four Chinese.”29
Amidst the turmoil of the 1850s and 1860s, coolies were sometimes recruited under the pretext of enlisting as “braves”, hired militiamen and auxiliaries, for the loyalist or rebel armies.30 Other schemes of deceit, more sporadic, included the hiring of cooks,31 translators, or ship doctors for the voyage, which could be therefore abandoned and sold as coolies once at destination, instead of paying them their promised wage and return passage. The poor Chen Ming, for example, recounted his story in a petition to the Cuba commission of 1874:
I trained to become a doctor since I was young […] Mr. Yang [a crimp] said a foreigner asked him to find a doctor to treat people on a foreign ship until it arrived at the city. I then went to Xinhe Hang [a foreign firm] with him. After I negotiated with the owner of the ship, he promised to pay all the expenses including salary,
27
See for example the statement of Iu Sieu Chion, coolie repatriated after a short stay in Cuba to recruit 100 more countrymen for the firm of Mr. Ferran and paid to describe the Chinese experience in Havana with rosy tones: “The city may be called a capital, and it is a country where gold and silver are the only currency […] On every week we receive $1 and great satisfaction seems to exist amongst our countrymen. Any of my countrymen wishing to go to Havana and be employed there, it is really good. I do not know anything of the former trades. […] Havana produces gold and silver, and also provisions of the best description.” The statement is advertised on the Hong Kong newspaper the Friend of China, 4 July 1857, as a contribution to the coolie trade debate.
28
After this practice, according to one author, Chinese in the Caribbean colony were popularly derided as “Chinos de Manila.” Pérez de la Riva, Los culíes chinos en Cuba, 1847-1880, 144. “cuando los culíes desembarcaban en La Habana, muchos de ellos creían haber llegado a Luzón, y preguntaban si nuestra capital era de verdad Manila. Al ver su rabia, al saberse tan miserablemente engañados, el pueblo los comenzó a llamar por irrisión ‘Manilas’, voz popular que sirvió desde entonces para designar al asiático, y que ha llegado hasta nuestros días, diferenciándolo así del ‘chino’, que en léxico criollo es una variedad del mulato. La expresión lo engañaron como a un chino de Manila, que se originó entonces, también se ha mantenido entre nosotros para significar la más tremenda burla, el más sangriento escarnio”
29
Petition of Cheng A-Mou and 89 others, mentioned in Helly, The Cuba Commission Report: A Hidden History of the Chinese in Cuba. The Original English-Language Text of 1876, 37.
30 It is the case of about fifty men from Wuzhou in Guanxi province intercepted by the Chinese authorities
in 1866, reported in Mr. Sampson to Emigration Committee, Canton, 30 October 1866 (copy), AMNE, CCPP.
31 Petição of Ling Xiu pedindo soltura pelo contracto d’emigracão, AHM, CJDCM, C0162 (1845-1876), in
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traveling fee and others. On the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, I signed a contract, which stated that I was responsible for medical treatment on the ship, and after arriving the destination, I could return by taking the same ship; if not I would be compensated for one hundred and eighty yuan [copper money] and I could take another ship as I wish. After arriving at Havana city, I took out the contract; however, the owner of the ship was evil! He tricked me to give him the contract, but he refused to give me any money. Moreover, since I did not speak the language, I did not know where to go. The suffering and humiliation I experienced cannot be described with words.32
After similar cases were denounced by the Portuguese consuls in Cuba Fernando de Gaver e Fiscar specific instructions were issued by the Macao’s authorities to prevent such occurrences,33 but episodes continued to be reported. 34
The meshes of the legislation adopted by the government of Macao and their constant changes suggested new creative stratagems of recruitment. Scrutinizing the documentation of Macao’s tribunal, it appears that subtle forms of deceit generally supplanted open kidnapping in the 1870s, years that also saw an increased proportion of voluntary emigrants. There were however still many reports of coercive and deceitful schemes. The most common, according to the documentation available, was the exchange of identity. This scheme rested on the partial complicity of presumed emigrants,
paid to impersonate other people in the examination procedures; but it backfired in many
cases, as the deceivers ultimately became the deceived:
The persons who have been kidnapped never appear at the office at the time of examination. When the time comes to go on board, the real Coolies are sent to the ship. Perhaps the officer goes on board the ship to examine the people. When this is the case, they do not change, the real Coolies for those who assumed their names until the vessel has weighed anchor, when they carry the Coolies in large boats and intercept the ship at sea and make the exchange, putting the real Coolies in place of the false ones. If at any time the state of the winds prevents them reaching the ship,
32 Petition n.9 by Chen Ming, to the Cuba Commission, translated in Yun, The coolie speaks, 61. 33
“Sendo constado ao Exmo. Sr. Governador desta cidade que alguns capitães dos navios que conduzem colonos não cumpre para com intérprete e médicos dos mesmos os seus contractos abandonando-os em terra sem meios e sem lhe liquidarem sua contas, S. Exa. encarrega-me de recomendar a V. Sa. como digno agente da emigração para que da sua parte concorra para a exacta observância dos referidos contractos.” Scarnichia to J.A. Tuton, Macao, 20 October 1868, in AGM, Núcleo 916, cx. 46, r. Correspondência Expedida; “Idênticas se expedirão aos outros agentes.”
34 The Portuguese Consul in Havana José Maria Eça de Queiroz (the famous novelist) reported a case in
1873 of a Macanese doctor seized by the Cuban authorities as a “colono sem papel” and sent to forced labor: “Há dezoito meses chegou á ilha um china, não como colono, mas livremente como súbdito de Macau, medico de profissão e como tal empregado a bordo de um navio de emigrantes. Este desgraçado foi preso pela polícia, em seguida ao seu desembarque, como colono sem papeis. Há dezoito meses que está no presidio; ultimamente, conseguiu vir ao consulado, referiu-se como português. Está consumido de trabalho e quase idiota de terror. Há um mês que reclamei, energicamente pedindo a sua imediata liberdade, não houve resposta alguma, e o miserável continua no presidio!” Eça de Queiroz to MNE, Havana, 17 May 1873, AMNE, Assuntos diversos, cx. 1057; also in Corvo, Relatorio e documentos, 118.
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the false Coolies find themselves converted into real ones, and are carried to foreign countries. This sometimes happens.35
In almost any occasion the bait of these scams was the advance money of $8 given at the signing of the contracts. The victims were meticulously instructed on how to answer the examination of the Superintendencia, de facto nullifying the effectiveness of the regulations.36
When subtleness and deceit were not sufficient, conversely, recruiters resorted to openly coercive means. First of all, people could be sold and bought by third parties in collection or discharge of personal or family debts. Revolts, repressions, and inter-ethnic feuds in Southern China, the so-called Hakka-Punti war of 1856-1868,37 also produced masses of captives ready to be sold for a good price to the Macao based coolie brokers.38 Contemporary Portuguese newspapers reported about British boats (lorchas?) deceiving
35
Cecil Smith, “A Correct Statement of the Wicked Practice of Decoying and Kidnapping”, enclosed in Kennedy to Kimberly, Hong Kong, 7 June 1872, BPP, Papers relative to the Measures taken to prevent the fitting out of Ships at Hong Kong for the Macao Coolie Trade, 1873, 1-4; copy in AMNE, Assuntos diversos, cx. 1057.
36
See for example the interrogation of Chan Afoc, 28 years, married, taken to Macao “pelo corretor Chan Ah […] seu patricio” with a promise of employ for 2 dollars daily (a large sum), and then sent to the Superintendencia, with a pretex. Chan Ah told him “que havia de assignar um contrato e depois de receber o dinheiro e o vestuário viria depois para bordo onde elle Ahchan iria busca-lo e traze-lo para terra. Declarava mais que na superintendência lhe fizeram todas as perguntas se elle migrava de livre vontade e […] respondera afirmativamente declarando que não estava enganado, que chegando a bordo e vendo que não lhe faziam desembarcar ficou muito contristado por isso passou todo os dias chorando; disse mais que é a primeira vez que veio a Macao e elle mesmo nunca fallou em migracao nem mesmo em sua terra..” This testimony is taken after four suicides on the coolie ship Fray Bentos, anchored in the inner harbor. AHM, CJDCM, C0164 (1868-1871).
37 Hakka (Kejia,
客家 lit. guest families) were the descendants of Northern communities migrated in South
China in several waves between the fourth century CE and the late Qing era. Settled principally on marginal and hilly lands, they carried different cultural and linguistic traditions and frequently clashed with the local Cantonese-speaking Punti (Bendi,本地) for the control of natural resources. Clashes turned into an open
conflict for about a decade in the aftermath of the Punti-lead Red Turban Revolt. Hsu, Dreaming of Gold; Mei, “Socioeconomic Origins of Emigration: Guandong to California, 1850-1882”; Leong, Migration and Ethnicity in Chinese History: Hakka, Pengmin, and Their Neighbors. Cf. also the work by Liu Ping 刘平, Bei yi wang de zhan zheng : Xianfeng Tongzhi nian jian Guangdong Tu Ke da xie dou yan jiu 被遗忘的战
争 : 咸丰同治年间广东土客大械斗研究, [The Hakka-Punti war in Guangdong, 1854-1867] (Beijing:
Shang wu yin shu guan, 2003).
38 “Years of positive warfare followed, each village fighting for its own hand, the Hakkas mostly on the
defensive, but the Puntis determined not only to oust but to actually exterminate the hated intruders. Thousands were carried off, either singly or in batches, and sold to the manstealers of Macao; thousands were massacred in cold blood.” China Mail, 8 February 1866; Another article reported the decision of a local mandarin in the Xinning (cantonese: Sunning) district to sell 1,000 Hakkas to the coolie brokers: “an elderly man of the rank of kuyan, states as a matter requiring no concealment, that last year the late magistrate (Cheuk) sent or allowed to be sent a thousand able-bodied Hakkas to be sold as pigs; and then expressed his opinion that this course was wise and proper, because it released the country of 1,000 malcontents, and saved the lives of 1,000 fellow men; the operation, he added, received a check from the indignant opposition of the Hakkas at thus having wives and families left destitute. Similar acknowledgements were made by Wong, in allusion to his tenor of office in Hok-shan and I endeavoured to shew the short-sightedness of the view by the argument that as long as careless belligerents can make a profit by ‘selling pigs’ so long will ‘pigselling’ foster and encourage ‘lawless belligerency.’” “An Excursion in the Kwangtung Province”, China Mail, 1 March 1866.
123 war refugees about transporting them to safer places.39
Finally, a large proportion of the recruitment business relied on open kidnapping of individuals by armed corretores or pirates. The capture of people for ransom, enslavement or forced enlistment had been a traditional business for Chinese pirates in the South China sea—and indeed a flourishing slave trade had accompanied the very foundation of Macao in the sixteenth century.40 According to La Tour,
… i corretores se la sono intesa talvolta coi pirati, e da essi ebbero senza molto cercarne a più centinaia gli emigranti, dei quali con una grazia da jena dicevano:
sono pesci che abbiamo pescato in mare. Il metodo poi tenuto dai pirati è questo:
essi cominciano dall’avvicinarsi alle coste del mare, dei fiumi o de i canali navigabili, e sotto pretesto di voler fare acquisti di vettovaglie o di aver bisogno di operai per riparazioni alla giunca, attirano gente a bordo. I marinai dell’equipaggio che si erano tenuti nascosti, agguantano allora gl’incauti e, gli legano e gli chiudono, ed allorché il bottino è sufficiente gli trasportano a Macao.41
Testimonies of the local practices of kidnapping vessels can be drawn from sparse accounts in the copious archival documentation in Macao, Lisbon and Hong Kong, as well as from the contemporary press. We will examine these practices with greater depth in Chapter 7; here we limit to sketch a broad picture of these modes of operation.
To this end we can quote, for instance, the correspondence of the captain of the British gunboat HMS Drake, Mr. Hunt, in February 1867, reporting the seizure of a lorcha chartered to deliver kidnapped coolies to Macao by Portuguese brokers. This was a relatively uncommon—but not unique—episode of direct and active intervention of the British Navy in the suppression of the coolie trade, generally discouraged by the British authorities for diplomatic concerns.42 According to the reports of Captain Hunt, the
39
“Continua nos districtos do Oeste a guerra d'extermínio intentada contra os rebeldes Hakkas. As forças Punti preparam-se a atacar fortemente Taiyusan um deste dias. Os sitiados tinham resolvido impedir a emigração para leste com receio de se enfraquecerem na defeza desesperada [...] Parece que uma barca ingleza, fundeada n’aquelle porto, abusava da triste situação dos habitantes, recebendo adiantamentos avultados de dinheiro para os tomar de passagem no caso de quererem fugir, e negando-se depois a transportá-los ao ponto que indicava. A emigração que se promove de Cantao, Hong Kong e Macao têm oferecido um benéfico inesperado abrigo aos miseráveis fugitivos que acabem do oeste definhados por longas privações de todo o género. Consta-nos que os estabelecimentos da emigração nesta cidade teem recebido e contratado muitos d’elles mais por compaixão que por esperança de bons resultados do aproveitamento do trabalho deste homens por oito annos. É certo porem que a maior parte, bem tratados e alimentados se restabelecem em breve do estado lamentável em que se apresentam.” Ta-ssi-yang-kuo, 3 December 1863. Note the pro-coolie trade and anti-British rhetoric, typical of the Ta-ssi-yang-kuo and its main sponsors José da Silva and Antonio Marques Pereira (cf. Chapter 3.2).
40 Lúcio de Sousa, “Slave Networks and Their Expansion through Macao to Europe and America,” Review
of Culture (International Edition) 35 (2010): 84–94.
41 Sallier de La Tour, “L’emigrazione cinese,” 23. 42
Cf. the correspondence of the Foreign Office’s undersecretary Hammond and the Admiralty in response to the Drake’s actions, suggesting that “it would be better to leave the Chinese authorities to enforce their own laws against Chinese boats, and as regards foreign ships engaged in the transportation of coolies it is of
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Chinese authorities in Swatow had informed the British consul Cooper of the imminent departure of two lorchas, from the Foreign controlled Double Island (Mayu) at the mouth of Swatow’s natural harbor. This was part of a bargain made by some Portuguese, “several of whom have been seen from time to time at this port, but who take care not to bring themselves conspicuously forward”, with “some Canton men” and “a Chinese Hong in Swatow”43 to ship over two hundred men per week, 90 from Double Island, 70 from the Southern entrance of the port, 90 from the Namoa strait (it is not clear for how long) for a price of about $40 a head. Hunt pursued and captured one of these lorchas on 3 February 1867, freeing 25 kidnapped coolies:
At 10 A.M. she [the lorcha] having taken in her cargo proceeded to sea. I at once weighted and steaming out overtook her and found that she had twenty five of the unfortunate creatures on board all of whom at once exclaimed that they had been kidnapped and entreated me to take them back to Swatow.44
4.1.4 The Macao barracoons
The lorchas and junks of the corretores, however, were not the only means of transport to reach the Macao emigration depots. This was another section of the broader “migration industry” developed around the Macao coolie trade. Small local passage boats, botes de fruta, and Chinese vessels profited from the transportation of coolies, voluntary and involuntary, to the Portuguese port.45 The regular river steamers connecting Macao, Hong Kong and Canton, in particular, were suspected of connivance in this system, and reported by several testimonies as a one of the main channels for the transferal of emigrants from the interior of Guangdong province to Macao. As noted by the British acting vice-consul at Canton Mayers in 1866,46 who boarded the British steamer Fire Dart to inquire about the state of this traffic,
Chinese crimps were in the habit of travelling up and down in the river steamers between Canton e Macao and of purchasing from the second rate crimps at this place all the coolies brought to the steamer just before her departure in the morning, the price paid being $10 or an advance of $7 beyond the rates formerly given for
course not competent to HM naval forces to interfere with them without the consent of the consular authority of the power to whom such ship belongs and even with such consent it would be scarcely desiderable to do so […] it would be difficult to interfere with a vessel under a foreign flag without running the risk of raising a question as to the right of search which for obvious reasons it would be undesiderable to raise.” Foreign Office to Admiralty (copy), London, 8 April 1867. CO 129/123.
43 Hunt to Commodore Oliver, Swatow, 22 February 1867, CO129/123. 44
Hunt to Commodore Oliver, Swatow, 4 February 1867, CO129/123.
45 Corvo, Relatorio e documentos, 50.
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similarly obtained victims. On arrival at Macao each coolie was said to be worth $30 to the broker.
Once at Macao, in the interval between their arrival in the colony and their actual embarkation, the prospective emigrants were generally fed, tended and lodged in semi-permanent structures called in Portuguese estabelecimentos da emigração or, more commonly, barracões (barracoons), rented at each departing season by the government to local or foreign agents.
A majority of present-day historians agrees to describe the barracoon system as a highly coercive and humiliating institution. They were genuine “factories for processing human commodities,” according to Yen Ching-Hwang, aimed at the “dehumanisation of the human beings”,47 through forceful reclusion, dispossession of personal belongings and individual characters—coolies were provided new clothes, assigned or painted with a number of identification,48 and often provided with false identities—and other sorts of physical and psychological abusive treatments.
In the year 1860, 8 barracoons were opened in the Cuban and Peruvian migratory
season;49 this number rose to a peak of about 30 in 1866-1867 and stabilized between 10-20 for the last years of the traffic,50 depending on the conditions of the supply and demand. Especially in the early years of the traffic, the official barracoons were supplemented by several smaller clandestine depots, often improvised in smaller shacks
47 Yen, Coolies and Mandarins, 57.
48 “Appena il povero cinese è entrato lì dentro cessa per così dire di essere un uomo per trasformarsi in un
numero, perché riceve di fatti un numero sotto il quale soltanto verrà d’ora innanzi conosciuto e perde il suo nome.” Sallier de La Tour, “L’emigrazione cinese,” 23. From the regulations of the first opened barracoon in Macao, owned by José Vicente Jorge: “Os chinas inspeccionados , serão logo levados ao poço para se lavarem e rapar o cabello, dando-lhe huma muda de roupa, huma toalha, e fios novos para cabello, pente, e escova para dentes, e lavarão elles mesmos immediatamente a roupa ou trapos que tivessem trazido que postos ao Sol serão recolhidos para hum deposito para servirem de trapos para fazer asseios. Os chinas inspeccionados pelo facultativo serão considerados como emigrados assalariados logo que forem numerados com huma lâmina de chumbo pendente ao pescoço.”
49
1) Tarrafeiro, of the Peruvian agent J.M. de Ugarte, shipping 2,518 coolies to Peru and Cuba; 2) Ponta de Rede, also Peruvian of Camino & Ca. shipping 330 coolies to Peru; 3) Gamboa, Vargas & Ca., shipping 1,430 coolies to Cuba; 4) Rua de S. Lourenço, also of Vargas & Ca., shipping 1,671 coolies to Cuba; 5) Praia Grande, H. de Clesmandeuc, shipping 716 coolies to Cuba; 6) Travessa da Palanchica, also of Clesmandeuc, shipping 511 coolies to Cuba; 7) Largo de Santo Antonio, opened by P.F. de Castro, shipping 602 coolies to Cuba and Peru; 8) Rua do Hospital, L. Boye, shipping 371 coolies to Cuba. 218 coolies were rejected for various reasons; 21 coolies died in the barracoons, 49 were rescued by relatives, 2,248 refused to sign their contracts in the Procuratura at least once, although it is probable many of them were forced to sign a second or third time under threat from the corretores.
50 A list of the 17 barracoons active in 1868, with their relative managers and main employees, was
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and building (cun-tau) 51 or kept under the hatches of junks and lorchas anchored in the port or in the nearby islands of Taipa and Coloane.
The very nature of the barracoon and its prison-like appearance was aimed at ensuring the ultimate departure of involuntary emigrants through intimidation and violence. Still in 1860, intelligence agent Alfred Langley, sent by the British Government of Hong Kong to investigate the practices of the coolie traffic in the neighboring Portuguese colony, remarked how the barracoons’ doors were guarded by menacing dogs and clubsmen:
They are like prisons in every respect, each having rooms upstairs as well as down, the walls are from two to three inch thick, the outside being granite stone. There are strong crossed iron gratings at the windows. The thick heavy doors are strenghtened by iron frappings and double bolts, also guarded by from five to ten ruffians dressed in rough European clothes. It would be difficult to say to what nation they belonged, but they looked like Portuguese or Manilamen, some of them having also large fierce
dogs apparently of the mastiff breed. They were armed with heavy bludgeons and in
some cases muskets. Attached to the barracoons are yards with walls ten feet high.52
In these places the coolies were “instructed” with physical and psychological violence or threats, on how to behave in front of the authorities in the Procuratura or Superintendencia. In many cases, they were “taught” by rough practice; as reported by a committee appointed by the Chinese mercantile community of Hong Kong, upon leaving the barracoon, coolies
are brought up before a pretended foreign officer, and are asked to declare if they are willing to go. If they say they are unwilling to go, they are immediately punished for having received their money and then backing out […] The pretended foreign officer sentences them to even a heavier punishment. They are then transferred to another place and undergo a repetition of the punishment, and are subjected to a more severe beating, and this continues until they express their willingness to go, and then it ceases. The next day they are taken before a real foreign officer to be examined.53
Several other sources confirm similar pedagogies of fear as a way to circumvent the examination system.54 As recounts the surprisingly lucky Sac Dui Wing, customs officer
51 “Cun-Tau significherebbe letteralmente deposito primo e viene adoperato dai cinesi nel senso di casa ove
si fa la prima cottura, perché era lì che si conducevano i Tchu-Tsai al loro primo giungere a Macao.” Ibid., 25.
52 Intelligence Report, Alfred L. Langley, Macao, 5 March 1860, CO129/77 53 Ibid.
54
As in the case of the aforementioned Annamese, which proved not only the inner flaws of the system but the active connivance of many of its supposed guardians: “When in the Barracoons we were badly fed. At one time we only had rice, and another, we were only allowed water. We were taken before the officer, before whom Contracto had to be signed (i.e. the Procurador) and were told through an interpreter that we must go to Peru - we refused, and were told that if we did not want to go, we should be made to work on the roads, and (or) be imprisoned”; Deposition by Foong a Fook, fisherman, Hong Kong, 24 July 1867, in CO 129/123. Another witness: “I was asked if I would go to to Peru, because I refused I was beaten and was not
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and lower rank mandarin at Canton, rescued by the interference of the American Consul in Macao Gideon Nye after three months of permanence in a Macao barracoon, these methods were of particular effectiveness when dealing with victims of kidnapping with strong reasons to oppose the traffickers’ schemes:
Before sending, the men all are mustered in a large room or a compound, and the keeper cries out that those who are willing to go are to take one side and those not willing the other; then the unwilling ones are flogged until acquiescence. I was so flogged myself. There were men of family and men of literary pretensions among the captives, these were most reluctant to go and were most flogged; men among them told me of them having houses and land of their own, of them having no need to labor. In one occasion there were four or five of the most reluctant flogged until nearly dead and then put into a sick room and fed in congee for weeks. 55
It seems that only after the mid-1860s, when the kidnapping business decreased in intensity, the character of the barracoons, or at least the official ones, changed nature.56 In part, that was the effect of the governmental regulations, which from April 1860 had imposed the opening of the barracoons to external visitors, including relatives of the emigrants, for a certain number of hours daily (10a.m to 4 p.m).
The Italian ambassador La Tour, who visited some emigration depots in the Portuguese colony in the late 1860s and early 1870s, reported the positive change, noting, however,
the new strategies used to bind the coolies to their destiny;
…vi fu un tempo nel quale si aveva la franchezza di usare addirittura la forza per impedire la fuga di chi era entrato in un baraccone […] Oggi il sistema è mutato: alle violenze fisiche si sostituirono quelle morali, ma il risultato è press’appoco lo stesso. I barracones devono ora stare aperti agli emigranti ed al pubblico dalle ore 10 alle ore 4: i loro regolamenti interni devono essere approvati dall’autorità; sono proibite le pene afflittive di qualunque specie; il vitto e il trattamento sono assai buoni ed anzi si permette agli emigranti il giuoco, la crapula ed ogni specie di vizio; ma queste insolite larghezze possono chiamarsi delle invisibili ma inestricabili catene onde viene avvinto l’animo del povero coolie, quando non servono d’incentivo per
given enough to eat. Finding that I was starving, I afterwards agreed to go.” Deposition by Sing Yat Kum, sailor on a Cochinchina junk, Hong Kong, 24 July 1867, in CO 129/123.
55 Consul Nye to Secretary of State Cass, Macao, 28 November 1859, in US National Archives, Department
of State, Despatches from US Consuls in Macao, 1849-1869. Before being rescued by Nye, Sac Dui Wing recounts, he had fortuitously avoided embarking on the infamous American ship Flora Temple, sank after a revolt with 850 casualties and no survivors, thanks to an accidental injury that had kept him ashore.
56 Moreover, there were insisting rumors about the persistence of unlawful clandestine barracoons, or
cun-taus, in Macao or on the islands of Taipa and Coloane, where the kidnapped people were kept outside the view of the emigration officers. Exchanges of persons could therefore be executed on the high sea, after the departure of the vessels from Macao’s harbor. See, e.g. Viceroy Ruilin to Sousa, 30 March 1870 in AHM, Administração Central, Secção Administrativa, Processos, P-67, Oficio do Vice-Rei de Cantão pedindo a prisão de um individuo proprietário de uma casa de emigração situada em Macau, o qual comprava chinas a uns malfeitores que os raptavam no território Chines e os traziam á força para Macau, aterrorizando-os com as maiores barbaridades.
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attirarne altri, che sebbene non troppo volenterosi di emigrare si lasciano adescare da questa cuccagna.57
This way, the Italian Captain Lovera added, women, opium and gambling debts became the new instrument to tie the coolies to the emigration brokers: “fra l’oppio, le
donne ed il giuoco, dimenticano il turpe mercato fatto di loro stessi; ed al momento di
vincolarsi innanzi alla Superintendencia trovansi talmente indebitati verso i sensali da non avere scelta che fra la carcere Cinese o l'accettare la sorte, alla quale più non è in loro mezzo dì sottrarsi”.58
At this time the barracoons had become a characteristic landmark feature59 for the foreign travelers visiting the Portuguese city, even reported on contemporary touristic guides.60 As a form of propaganda, they were often shown to foreign envoys and officials in the attempt of displaying the orderly proceedings of the “reformed” emigration system.
Al tempo in cui passammo da Macao ve ne erano dodici e ognuno di essi poteva contenere qualche centinaia di emigranti. Una grande insegna in caratteri cinesi appesa su di una porta guarnita di fiori che dà adito a un grande edifizio indica che quello è un baraccone. Entrando si trova generalmente un cortile, messo a giardino.
57 Ibid., 26. 58
Lovera, “Sulla tratta...,” 566. There is some sort of censorship among the contemporary sources in openly acknowledging the links between the barracoon system and the flourishing prostitution industry of the Portuguese colony. Lovera is one of the few authors to openly name them; another is the Portuguese consul in Cuba Eça de Queiroz: “Logo que o chino chegava á caserna, ou barracão, em Macáo, o agente não só lhe dava algum dinheiro, mas vendia-lhe a credito pequenos artigos de vestuário, doces, opio, e, — porque se não há-de diser — ? — proporcionava-lhes mulheres.” Eça de Queiroz, A Emigração como Força Civilizadora (Relatório sobre a emigração), ed. Raul Rego (Lisboa: Perspectivas & Realidades, 1979), 132. According to Macao’s statistic department, the number of prostitutes in the city plummeted from 1,867 in 1867 to 416 in 1878 as a result of the end of the coolie trade: BO, Supplemento, 31 December 1880.
59 “Au haut du Monte, nous visitons d'abord les ruines d'un couvent de jésuites, puis nous étudions en détail
la chose la plus caractéristique de Macao : les ‘barracons’, entrepôts célèbres de la prétendue ‘émigration des coulies’, plus justement flétrie du nom de traite des Chinois. La première boutique du marchand d'hommes chez lequel nous entrons se présente sous les dehors les plus riants : des terrasses ornées de fleurs, de grandes poteries chinoises, des salons à meubles d'acajou ; ce sont les salles de réception... pour les fonctionnaires. Un petit bureau dans un coin, avec des piles de gros livres usés, vient seulement nous rappeler que c'est là que se fait ‘l'enregistrement de la chair humaine’. Les murs sont couverts de tableaux à grand effet (ce peuple aime tant les arts !), représentant les fortunés navires destinés à transporter lesdites cargaisons de ‘fils du Ciel’ sous le soleil meurtrier de plantations de Cuba ou dans les puits fétides de guano du Pérou. Je regrette d'avoir à dire que le pavillon français se montre beaucoup trop dans ces tristes annonces. Au premier abord, cela paraît donc magnifique. Mais après les civilités d'usage faites aux moricauds maîtres de céans, nous apercevons de longs corridors où, de droite et de gauche, sont entassés dans des hangars tous les Chinois ‘en partance pour l'émigration’. Ils sont là, attendant le départ, la figure décomposée, le corps aux couleurs blêmes ; à peine vêtus de guenilles pourries, ils portent le cachet hideux de la misère sale, et gisent dans la plus abominable infection.” Ludovic Hébert De Beuvoir, Voyage autour du monde. Australie, Java, Siam, Canton, Pékin, Yeddo, San Francisco, vol. 3 (Paris: H. Plon, 1870), 348– 448.
60Pinheiro, “Macao’s Coolie Trade: One City, Two Cultures, Three Communities. Social Harmony,
Separate Development and Taxing Vices,” 70–71. There are unfortunately no remains of these buildings in modern Macao, although it is possible to trace back the location of several of them, especially since their presence has been carved up into the local toponymy (rua, and patio dos cules, rua dos colonos, etc.) See Silva, Emigração de cules, 52–54.
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Si direbbe che, come si usava nei tempi antichi, si voglia coronare le vittime di fiori. Ma non più così ridente è la vista quando si penetra nelle stanze destinate all’abitazione dei coolies. Queste sono sovente una specie di cantine, poste al di sotto del livello del cortile. Lungo le quattro pareti, secondo l’uso cinese, corre un divano di legno o pancaccio che serve di letto comune.61
La Tour and other observer’s descriptions of the interior of the barracoons, however, raises the doubt that in some cases such visits were staged, with corretores posing as emigrant.62 Moreover, the defenders of the coolie trade contested the measures of control enforced by the government, arguing that coercive methods of recruitment were necessary to prevent the coolies from taking advantage of the legislation to misbehave. They were particularly concerned, in this sense, with the specter of hundreds of wretched coolies moving from depot to depot to get free meals and lodging—that is refusing to sign the emigration contract every time brought to the Superintendencia. As la Tour explains,
Succede pure che dei sedicenti emigranti, la schiuma della canaglia, dopo essersi fatti arrolare ed aver lucrata una anticipazione, rappresentino la commedia di entrare in un baraccone, mangiare e bere gratis per alcuni giorni, per poi ritirarsi, entrare in un altro e ripetervi la stessa storia, e fare così il giro di tutti i depositi di Macao, vivendo allegramente per diversi mesi […] In oggi però la vigilanza dei corretores, non così spesso lascia che si producano fatti simili. Sinora ogni agente teneva i suoi coolies in distinti baracconi. Adesso per agevolare la pratica e diminuire le spese, l’agente che ha un legno pronto alla partenza accetta anche gli arrolati dei suoi colleghi, che alla loro volta gli renderanno la pariglia quando si troveranno nelle medesime condizioni. Questa solidarietà fra gli agenti produce poi l’effetto che i corretores, i quali formano una sola corporazione, non prestano mano ma anzi invigilano per impedire l’uscita da un baraccone col fine di entrare in un altro.63
In fact, as well pointed out by a comment of the Peruvian charge of affairs in Lisbon Pedro Galvez in 1874, it was virtually impossible to sustain a profitable business of labor exportation without some sort of assurance that once reached the departure port the prospective recruits would not escape their duties.64 All the regulations since 1856, whilst
61 Sallier de La Tour, “L’emigrazione cinese,” 26. According to Yen Ching Hwang, inside the barracoons
“basic human needs such as food, clothes and lodging were inadequate. The facilities […] were generally very bad. They were poorly ventilated and their floors were damp.” Yen, Coolies and Mandarins, 59.
62 Intelligence Report, Alfred L. Langley, Macao, 5 March 1860, in CO129/77. This is even more evident
for the visit to a barracoon organized in 1872 for a group of three Japanese inspectors, in the aftermath of the Maria Luz incident, where they only found “5 chineses fumando deitados sobre esteiras” and interrogated “um pobre agricultor de quantung”, to whom “duas secas sucessivas haviam destruídos os seus haveres” and “privo de meios de subsistência viera a Macau com seu irmão para emigrar, lera no alto duma porta casa para chinas que emigram e entrara.” “Visita dos Japoneses à Superintendencia da emigração,” Gazeta de Macau e Timor, 20 September 1872.
63 Sallier de La Tour, “L’emigrazione cinese,” 26–27.
64 “Las empresas hacen su adelantes y sus gastos contando con la seguridad que les da el contrato, que,
después de firmado, no les deja duda de su cumplimento; mas desde que el contrato de servir no se ha hecho ante la autoridad local, todos los adelantados no repusieran sino sobre la palabra del emigrante, que no cumplida dejaría sin base todo el cálculo del empresario.” Pedro Galvez, Observaciones sobre el Reglamento de Pasajeros Asiáticos del Puerto de Macao, Lisbon, 10 April 1874, AMNE, CCPP. This
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prohibiting open forms of coercion before the signature of the contract, had always recognized the desire of the coolie agents to enforce the compliance of the contracts once validated by the officials of the Procuratura or the Superintendencia. According to Galvez therefore, the obvious countermeasure to the unwilling emigration would have been empowering the emigrants with the right to withdraw until the very moment of their
departure, by mediation of the harbor master and police; in other words, it was necessary
that “la autoridad Portuguesa no considere de ningún modo al emigrante como à un hombre obligado a irse, sino como a un hombre que quiere irse” [emphasis in the original].65 As can be easily confirmed by the study of the correspondence of Macao harbor master held in Lisbon’s Arquivo Histórico da Marinha (AGM),66 by not putting ashore hundreds of evidently desperate men—crying, shouting and trying to jump overboard—in accordance to a narrow and unsympathetic interpretation of the letter of such laws,67 Macao’s port authorities shared with the officials in the Procuratura and the Superintendencia a large slice of the responsibility for the protraction of the so-called abuses of the traffic until its very end.
4.2 The “middle passage”
By boarding the deck of a coolie ship, and setting sail toward an unknown destiny, the emigrant left the “protection” of Macao’s authorities to enter the domain of the peculiar and often brutal jurisdiction of the informal “laws of the sea.” It is by no means a surprise, therefore, that some of the most atrocious and shocking reports of mistreatment were linked with the picture of the maritime voyage, engraved in the imaginary of the contemporaries as rivaling the infamous “middle passage” of the Atlantic slave trade.
In fact, the term “middle passage” has been extended to these journeys by both contemporaries and historians, to render the heavy similarities and connections carried by
contrast with the authority exercised in some case by Hong Kong’s harbor master, allowed to cancel the emigrants’ contracts even after embarkation, as reported for about sixty men on the French ship Marie Therese in 1867; Gov. MacDonnel to Bruce, Hong Kong, 9 July 1868, in CO 129/131; Thornton Warner, Report on Chinese Emigration, (Calcutta, 1868), 10, enclosed in CO129/134.
65
Pedro Galvez, Observaciones sobre el Reglamento de Pasajeros Asiáticos del Puerto de Macao, Lisbon, 10 April 1874, AMNE, CCPP.
66 AGM, Núcleo 916 (formerly Macau: Serviços da Marinha), especially cx. 44-48. This fund, which
extends to the twentieth century, has been subtracted from the Arquivo Histórico de Macau (AHM) in the years of the Luso-Chinese handover; Beatriz Basto da Silva, personal communication, Macau, April 2013.
67 For instance: “on the 3rd of May four emigrants came on deck while the Harbor Master was on board,
fell on their knees and cried, saying they had been deceived by the agents and that they wanted to go ashore. The Harbor Master told the Captain to put them in irons and the boatswain handcuffed them.” Statement of Albert Herker at the Magistracy of Hong Kong, 19 May 1871, enclosed in Whitfield to Kimberley, Hong Kong, 24 May 1871, CO 129/150.
