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Dr Elizabeth Sinn explained at intervals during the three-day trip something of the history of Amoy. Together with Ningpo, efforts were made by the British to establish the two towns as centres of trade before Canton secured commercial dominance in 1757. The Canton monopoly was broken in 1842, with the Treaty of Nanking, by the opening of not only Amoy and Ningpo but also the Treaty Ports of Foochow and Shanghai. From and to these ports, among other commodities, were shipped tea, silk, and opium.
But before then, in the late 17th century, Amoy had been the lair of freebooting, swashbuckling Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong), who not only drove the Dutch from Taiwan to make it an anti-Manchu base but also attempted to wrest power from the Qing Dynasty. Today, the People's Republic is trying to proclaim that Koxinga, who had a Japanese mother, was no common pirate but a national hero.
Amoy also played a big part in the infamous, so-called in Chinese, 'pig business'. The first Chinese contract coolies left Canton in 1845, but they were soon being shipped from other ports in southern China. Recruiters frequently shanghaied labourers who departed for various countries, including Hawaii, Trinidad, British Guiana, Jamaica, and British Borneo. The journey to Peru or Cuba took about 130 days. Conditions aboard, because of overcrowding, were unimaginable. With a lack of food, unsanitary conditions, and harsh treatment, and 500 men crowded into a hull with barely room to lie down, riots and murders sometimes occurred. Over one-quarter of the labourers are said to have died aboard in their 'pens'.
Many others, however, emigrated from Fujian under somewhat better conditions, and today most families in Xiamen have relatives living overseas. But the Province's most famous son has to be Tan Kah Kee (1874-1961), well known for his philanthropy, which is evident in several parts of town, including Xiamen University. This was completed in 1919 on its 100-hectare campus. Tan (pronounced Chan in Cantonese) was born just north of Xiamen to a father who had emigrated to Singapore and was engaged in the rice, pineapple, and rubber business. At an early age, Tan Junior also transferred to the British Colony, as it was then, where he later had four wives and fathered 17 children. Although he spoke neither Mandarin nor English, for business convenience, he became a British subject in