Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora(1846-1874)

The same thing happened for three nights in a row. The mate eventually asked them to show him where this devil was. They pointed out a position and the mate shot at it. He did this for several places, and then invited the Chinese to see for themselves the results. They found nothing, but one man who did not believe it jumped overboard rather than continue the journey.
On 16 March 1861, the Friend of China quoted the Javasche Courant as reporting the American ship Marion as having passed Anjer on 31 January, 23 days out from Kwangchowan, with 350 Chinese bound for Callao. As was
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the practice, Captain Fred. A. Goss reported to the Anjer signal station as she passed through the Sunda Straits. No mention of the ship had been made in the local papers of the time, and it was fortunate for Captain Goss not to have experienced the fortunes of the Ville d'Agen.
The 715-ton French vessel Ville d'Agen arrived in Hong Kong on 18 April 1861 and left on 26 June for East Coast ports. However, on departure with 120 coolies, Captain de Fourrau opened his sealed orders and headed west to Kwangchowan on the Liuchow Peninsula instead. There he was met by Lorchas No 45 and No 46, one under a Portuguese named Manoel, and the other under a Peruvian named Juan Pastor, the latter claiming to be the Peruvian Vice Consul.113 First, 120 coolies were transferred from the two lorchas to the Ville d'Agen. Then, between 1 July and 15 August, another 243 coolies were similarly transferred. Further attempts to bring more coolies were thwarted when some tried to escape and the lorchas were scuttled. The Ville d'Agen then set sail but struck a bar and was substantially damaged.
She arrived in Hong Kong on 30 August 1861, but it was not until the next day that French Vice Consul Vaucher and Mr Helguero of Camino & Co. (of Peru), called on the Harbour Master to report her arrival with coolies. When the Harbour Master boarded he found everything in order except for the stanchions to confine the passengers. He informed Helguero that the Ville d'Agen was now in British jurisdiction, and that the provisions of the Chinese Passengers' Act would apply. He would need to interview each passenger and fresh contracts would need to be signed. In interviewing the coolies, the Harbour Master was told of widespread kidnapping to fill the ship. Just prior to sailing, some tried to revolt but were not successful.
The captain, lorcha captains, and agent were detained. The French Consul demanded the captain's freedom as he had done nothing wrong, and the latter was about to walk free, when a French gunboat arrived. The gunboat commander did not agree and said he would take Captain de Fourrau prisoner and send him to France for trial. At the
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subsequent trial he was acquitted for lack of evidence, but was prohibited from being in command of a French vessel again.
There were only four shipments to Peru in 1862. The Marion made another voyage on 26 January 1862, but this time from Macao with 225 coolies. Her arrival in Callao on 14 May 1865 still with 224 of them was a proud moment for Captain Goss. That was the last voyage by an American- flagged ship in the coolie trades. The Westward Ho carried her sixth shipment and the Empresa her fifth. The 498-ton French barque Claire began her participation in the coolie trades carrying 312 Chinese to Callao on 2 October 1862.
The ten shipments for Peru in 1863 were for more diverse importers. Ugarte had two shipments on the Westward Ho-handled by Castro-and a third shipment on the Eliza, handled by Manuel Antonio de Ponte. Two shipments for Canevaro were recruited by Leathold. These ten sailings took on board 3,740 emigrants, with 3,394 able to walk ashore in Callao. This presented an average mortality rate of 10.45%, but this figure hides the large losses suffered by the two Peruvian vessels mentioned above, the Maria and Perseverancia.
Captain Joao Bollo had two shipments with undisclosed consignees. Garcia and Fernandez each had one consignment and there was one unknown consignee.
The 671-ton Portuguese ship Donna Maria Pia dropped anchor at Macao from Hong Kong on 15 October 1863. She had been the American R B Forbes and had just been bought by M.A. de Ponte of Macao. On her first voyage in the coolie trades, Captain E.A. Rodovalho took on board 424 Chinese, but lost forty-five on the 92-day voyage to Callao. She sailed on her second voyage on 4 August 1864, but a week out encountered a typhoon, during which she lost a mast and was unable to proceed. A steamer with no identifying marks approached and offered to tow her for $6,000 which Captain F. Botelho declined. She was managing to make her way slowly back to Macao when she was spotted by the steamer Maggie Lauder on her regular voyage from Hong Kong to Macao. A towing fee of $250 was negotiated and Donna
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Maria Pia was brought back to Macao on 24 August. After repairs she sailed once again on 3 November 1864 with all her original 425 men. After a speedy 81-day voyage, under replacement Captain J.F. dos Santos, 400 of those men were landed in Callao.
Her next two voyages were extended ones to Havana. Captain E.A. da Souza had taken over, and on her fourth voyage in November 1867, she took twelve soldiers to Luanda, and another thirty to Lisbon, in addition to 248 Chinese to Havana. Her extended voyage took 140 days during which twenty-two men were lost. Da Souza remained with the Donna Maria Pia for the rest of her time as a coolie carrier, twice back to Callao, and then a final voyage to Havana on 9 November 1871. Over her seven voyages, she took on 2,518 men and landed 2,283 of them. The mortality rate averaged 9.33%.
The 240-ton Chilean brig Theresa arrived in Macao on 26 November 1862. Captain Joao B. Bollo did not have an agent in Macao and directly recruited 132 Chinese before sailing on 12 January 1863 for Callao. The brig took 131 days to get there, but was able to land 130 men. She then took on her true colours of Peru and returned to Macao. As before, Captain Joao Bollo recruited his own men and now took 140 of them to Callao on 21 December 1863. After a 130-day voyage he was able to land 128 of them in Callao. Theresa returned once again to Macao for a third voyage with Chinese coolies. This time Joao Bollo had Sebastian Bollo to help with the recruitment of 143 Chinese. Sailing on 24 December 1864 with his 16-man crew, Captain Joao Bollo landed 141 of the 143 men embarked, 108 days later.
There was another Peruvian vessel with the name of Theresa. This 796-ton ship left Callao for Macao, arriving on 6 December 1863. There Agent Aramburn was asked to find 500 Chinese coolies which took him all of 55 days. Captain Miguel Sicard sailed on 30 January 1864, and after a somewhat longer voyage of 104 days, 427 of them were able to walk ashore in Callao. These coolies were consigned to Pratolongo.
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Two Peruvian vessels arrived at Macao from Callao on the same day, 12 November 1863. Captain Sebastian Bollo of the 357-ton Peruvian barque Clothilde, was to join his brother Joao who was still in command of the Theresa. The Clothilde was yet another American ship to be sold overseas. Elias had bought the Our Union and placed her under the Peruvian flag. It would appear that the Bollo brothers had established a connection with Bianchi y Profumo, importers of Chinese coolies.
O Boletim listed Clothilde as having sailed on 17 January 1864 with 220 men. This was repeated in the 1864 summary of coolie departures. However Mendoza was quite clear in showing her as arriving at Callao on 12 May 1864 after a 114-day voyage with 275 men on board. The Mendoza table shows 292 as having embarked and 27 not surviving the voyage. These are the figures used here.
The 258-ton Peruvian barque Mandarina under Captain Francisco Xavier Rossi departed from Macao on 14 May 1864 with 152 men bound for Callao. She encountered a heavy typhoon 28 days out and began taking in water at the rate of 8 inches per hour. She eventually arrived at Honolulu on 23 July with 150 coolies. Her condition was such that she could not continue on to Callao, and all her passengers were transferred to the 268-ton British brig Argo. Captain Hamen had arrived in Honolulu on 14 July after a 143-day voyage from Liverpool. Argo sailed on 18 August and arrived at Callao on 25 October 1864 with 146 men.
Peruvian Regulatory Decree
On 9 October 1864 the Peruvian Government issued a regulatory decree recognising the excessive number of colonists embarked in cramped and badly equipped boats, with bad and scanty food, suffering careless and even cruel treatment, as well as a general lack of hygiene. The regulations restricted the number of passengers embarked to one per registered ton, stated that the food was to be healthy and sufficient, that there should be appropriate clothing, and a spacious, clean, and sufficiently ventilated bedspace for each immigrant. Additionally, a doctor and sufficient medicines
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were to be carried. The Peruvian Consul in Macao was charged with ensuring the non-exacting directions were enforced. He was also to certify that the ship was compliant with the regulations.
Peruvian flag changes
The Chincha Islands War with Spain from 1864 to 1866 had a profound effect on the Peruvian fleet. This war was provoked by Spain which seized the Chincha Islands in an attempt to regain its former possessions of Peru and Chile. This failed.
Of the 21 sailings in 1864, 13 of them were by Peruvian ships. By 1865 only six of the twenty-two departures flew the Peruvian flag, while the number flying the Italian flag had risen from none to twelve. The total number of sailings in 1866 had fallen to nineteen, with only one Peruvian flag compared with thirteen Italian ones.
Aurora was another British ship which had been sold and reflagged. She had earlier been the American Peerless. Captain George Hill sailed her under the Peruvian flag for two voyages in 1864 and 1865. In 1866 another Briton, Captain W.C. Linscott, sailed the now Italian-flagged ship from Macao with 272 Chinese bound for Callao. Then, in a reversal of past practice, the Aurora changed her registration to San Salvador, but under a Peruvian Captain, Narciso Garcia y Garcia. On her five voyages between 1864 and 1868, including one to Havana, she took on 1867 passengers, and disembarked 1791 of them, achieving a low mortality rate of 4.07%.
Canevaro was not the only Peruvian entrepreneur investing in shipping. The Compania Maritima del Peru was formed with the express purpose of engaging in the coolie trade. Represented by N. Larco in San Francisco, two of the first ships purchased were the 1,482-ton Twilight bought at auction in San Francisco for $6,500 while the 1,068-ton Telegraph, originally the Harry Brigham, was similarly bought on 10 May 1865 for $10,000. They were unimaginatively named, respectively, Compania Maritima del Peru 1, and Compania Maritima del Peru 2.
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The first sailed from Macao on 30 October 1865 with 659 Chinese for Callao. After a 96-day voyage, 604 of them were safely landed. With fear of being captured during the Peruvian war with Spain the Compania Maritima del Peru 1 became the Portuguese-flagged Pedro 1, still under Captain Angelo Fulle. She subsequently became the Callao under Captain Luiz Lavarello for three voyages and then under Captain Antonio de Araucoa for a further three, until the end of trading.
The Log of the ship Compania Maritima del Peru 2, completed by Captain Stephenio Splivalo commenced on 26 September 1865 when she left San Francisco with 144 Chinese passengers bound for Hong Kong. She called at Honolulu on 18 October for water before proceeding on 21 October 1865. On arrival in Hong Kong she immediately discharged her passengers, but did not commence preparing for her coolie voyage until 5 December 1865 when a company of carpenters began fitting berths in the 'tween deck, and a house aft for the crew. From 15 December, a series of deadlights were cut in the hull for light and ventilation. No mention was made of other fittings such as for cooking or sanitation. Neither was there any reference to gratings or other fittings for the confinement of the passengers.
Compania Maritima del Peru 2 arrived in Macao on 28 December 1865, and accepted her first 52 Chinese coolies on 6 January 1866, along with an interpreter and three watchmen. On the seventh intake on 21 January, the 53 coolies brought the total to date to 304, but three had been returned ashore without explanation. A boatload of water and a lighter of firewood was sent to the ship along with 1,053 bags of rice on 22 January. Provisions, water casks and more water and firewood together with nine packages of clothing, were taken on board in the following days. The final batch of 90 coolies boarded on 2 February 1866 making a full cargo of 435.
The ship sailed early in the morning of 3 February 1866 in thick heavy rain, and made a good passage to Anjer where she arrived on 14 February. Buying all the fruit a boatman
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had brought, Compania Maritima del Peru 2 then sailed south to round Australia. All went well until 16 March when coolie No 383 died soon after encountering the Roaring Forties. These strong westerly winds, found between the latitudes of 40 and 50 degrees south, were a major aid to sailing-ships making for Australia and South America. However they carried cold winds from Antarctica, and with little clothing provided, one coolie after another died, presumably from the cold.
Captain Splivalo may never have approached Callao from the south before, but in any case could not have been a very good navigator. He made landfall on 21 April 1866, but had no idea where he was. Unable to find the port, he sent a boat ashore on successive days, only to learn he was somewhere to the north of Callao. The ship eventually arrived at Callao on 28 April 1866 to learn that war had been declared between Peru and Spain. The coolies and their provisions were hurriedly discharged, as well as part of the crew, and Compania Maritima del Peru 2 departed on 2 May 1866 before she could be blockaded by the Spanish fleet. She arrived in San Francisco on 11 June 1866 where she was renamed the Galileo and reflagged to Italy still under the command of Captain Splivalo. Galileo sailed from Macao on 23 July 1867 with 413 coolies, but only 302 were landed in Callao on 13 December 1867.
Eva was a 224-ton Peruvian barque first registered in Hong Kong in 1864 as the Dom Pedro II. She arrived in Macao on 31 August 1865, but it was not until 16 December that she was able to sail with 120 men for Callao. The 104- day voyage for Captain N. Christopher was a successful one with 119 of them landing safely. Eva reverted to being the Hong Kong barque Dom Pedro II in 1868.
The 1,206-ton Italian-flagged ship Luisa Canevaro was originally the American North America and bought by Canevaro & Co. of Lima in 1865. She arrived at Hong Kong on 8 November 1865, bringing with her 22 Chinese returning from Peru. Instead of loading for Peru, the Luisa Canevaro left for Havana under Captain D.A. Cavassa with 698
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Chinese on 10 April 1866. The voyage took 129 days during which 78 coolies died.
After her maiden voyage to Havana, Luisa Canevaro became a dedicated carrier in the Peruvian trade. Captain Rafael de Moro awaited her return to Hong Kong on 23 July 1867, and took command of her for the next five years even when she changed her flag to that of San Salvador.
Her first voyage to Callao was not a good one. On 22 September 1867, she sailed from Macao for Callao with 663 labourers. Captain de Moro had an extremely long voyage of 163 days during which he lost 205 of his passengers. The mortality rate was 30.92%, the highest for 1867. However his next voyage was much better with only 27 deaths out of the 721 embarked on 3 October 1869.
Despite the mutiny on the Napoleon Canevaro, Rafael de Moro was a caring captain earning the praise of the Honolulu papers in 1870 when the Luisa Canevaro called there for provisions. The New York Times of 13 October 1870 quoted the Advertiser, saying that on 29 August she had arrived at Honolulu with 700 Chinese after a 56-day passage from Macao. It reported that the coolies had been allowed the full freedom of the ship, the 'tween deck was admirably ventilated, and there was no evidence of coercion in sight.
When Captain Francisco Venturini took over the Luisa Canevaro in 1872, her flag was changed to that of Peru. On his first voyage, leaving Macao for Callao on 18 February 1872, he lost 192 out of an original complement of 739 Chinese. His next voyage in July 1873 did not go well either, having to put back after only four days into the voyage. Luisa Canevaro returned to Hong Kong on 13 August 1873 before going on to Macao on 27 September. On 11 January 1874, with 759 passengers, she sailed on her last voyage. The mortality rate for the Luisa Canevaro over her seven voyages came to 6.29%, despite the good record of Captain de Moro.
Another vessel purchased by the Compania Maritima del Peru was the 1,454-ton British ship Red Rose, which arrived in Hong Kong on 20 August 1866. After a quick completion of the fitting-out for her new owners, she sailed for Macao on 1 September 1866 as the America under Italian colours, still
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with British Captain Evans, who was to take her to Callao before his return to England.
When the America arrived at Macao there were nine ships already there, awaiting their cargoes of coolies. By the time she left on 10 November, ten other ships had left, all but one for Havana. The America spent 69 days awaiting her 622 passengers, the largest contingent of the season.
For her next three voyages, the America flew the flag of San Salvador. Then, Captain Eduardo Perks sailed with her on her first voyage as a Peruvian ship, before going on leave in preparation for joining in 1874 what was to be the first Peruvian steamship specially built for the coolie trades, the Florencia. The America completed seven coolie voyages, one to Havana and a sixth to Callao on 19 November 1873. In all, the America embarked 4,703 Chinese passengers including six children and landed 4,451 of them. The death toll of 251 corresponds to a mortality rate of 5.34%.
The name of Captain Ramon Mota was synonymous with the 561-ton ship Fray Bentos, which first carried fare- paying Chinese passengers as a German vessel to Vancouver Island in 1865. She sailed from Macao under the Italian flag on 20 June 1866 under Captain J.B. Castaynhola and then Captain A. Bollo. In 1869, her flag was changed to that of San Salvador, when Captain Mota took command. He remained in command even when her flag was changed once again to that of Peru in 1871. In Captain Mota's five years of service, the Fray Bentos undertook six voyages and was awaiting a seventh, when emigration from Macao was stopped. Ramon Mota must have been a very caring captain. Under his command, the highest deaths recorded were 30 on one voyage and 21 on another. Just nine, two, six, and six deaths were recorded on the other four voyages, a mortality rate of 3%. Over 350 passengers were embarked on each of his six voyages.
A period of reassessment followed the peak of 1866. Due to the Civil War, Peruvian shipments in 1867 fell to twelve, carrying 5,848 Chinese. There was only one death, with the Asia having to put back in August 1867 after being dismasted in a typhoon on her second voyage to Peru. The
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820-ton Salvadorian ship left Macao on 21 August 1867. Captain B. Calderon had taken 513 Chinese on board at that time. The Asia had had to be towed back to Hong Kong where she arrived on 9 October 1867. From her full complement, about 511 were transferred to the Pedro 1, which sailed on 17 November 1867 with a total of 680 Chinese.
The 1,326-ton Austrian ship Johanna sailed from Macao on 21 July 1867 with 619 coolies. By the time Captain Steggman called at the northern Peruvian port of Payta he had only 529 left on board. He had lost 90 on the voyage and had to send another 241 to hospital. He then went on to Callao, arriving on 2 December 1867 with 288 of his original complement. The 241 Chinese left in Payta were eventually brought to Callao. On the short coastal voyage twenty-three died, leaving 218 to join the remaining 288 off the Johanna.
Treatment of coolies in Peru
An incident in Peru in 1868 enraged international and Chinese public opinion. On 17 June 1868, Don Narciso Velarde, the Portuguese Consul-General in Lima, advised the Governor of Macao that he had protested to Peruvian Minister of Foreign Affairs Don M. Polar over an article in the local newspapers. It claimed that, "an agriculturalist from this coast took 48 contract Chinese men in Callao, and fearing probably that he might lose them, marked them with a hot iron as if they were slaves".
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Her Majesty's Charg� d'Affaires in Lima, Wm. Stafford Jerningham, reported the branding incident to the Earl of Clarendon, adding that, "the coolie trade, under its best aspect, can hardly be looked upon as much other than a kind of white slave trade". He described the difficulties the Chinese "colonists" faced, and some of the methods they used to overcome them, including suicide and rebelling against their employers. As very few of those who had served out their contracts were able to find their way home, most became vendors of the necessities of life. They were not harassed by the authorities as long as they did not break the law. Their assimilation into the community was looked upon
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with indifference by all concerned. He predicted that the children of those who actually obtained Peruvian wives did not have better prospects and would evince a greater aptitude for evil tendencies and immorality. In Jerningham's despatch, he also gave an example of Chinese who were not so enchanted with their position. He was referring to the events relating to the barque Cayalti.
When the Earl of Clarendon heard of the branding, he requested Sir Charles Murray, in Lisbon on 20 May 1869, to convey the substance of the communication, in guarded language, to the Portuguese Government. Senhor Mendes Leal, the Portuguese Foreign Minister, did not agree with his Consul General in Lima, curtly replying that the branding did not happen. His response was dated 8 January 1870.
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But Governor Antonio Sergio de Souza in Macao had already acted. In a decree on 18 November 1868, he declared that, until further notice, the permission by the Government to establishments of emigration for Callao was suspended. Asiatic emigrants or colonists would not be matriculated for that port, nor would there be contracts signed in the Procurator's office.
It is not known how many ships had been trapped by the sudden ban on shipping to Peru. The Callao had departed for Hong Kong the day before the Proclamation. The Macao arrived from Callao on 21 November 1868 and left for Hong Kong on the 28th. It was the normal practice for ships to proceed to Hong Kong for repairs and provisioning prior to their next voyage. After the ban was eventually lifted, the veteran Camillo Cavour was the first to leave on 17 June 1869 with 586 labourers. This was her seventh coolie voyage. During the seven-month ban, 16 ships sailed for Havana, including the Peruvian-owned, Salvadorian-flagged vessels, Dolores Ugarte, and Aurora which had found alternative charters to Havana.
The New York Times of 20 March 1869 carried an article from their Peruvian correspondent describing the horrors of the coolie trade. It commenced with the assertion that yellow fever was greatly on the increase in Lima. Doctors had begun protesting against the arrival of coolie ships loaded with
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Chinese men destined for the plantations up and down the coast of Peru. The doctors maintained that the yellow fever had been brought by these coolies.
The correspondent said he knew of no sadder sight than to see the poor wretches huddled into such close and dirty quarters as to be incapable of lying down. They sat, half bent, half lying in the dark hold covered with sores and vermin, with the coolies around them indifferent to the fate of a dying comrade. So jealous were they of the extra space vacated, that he actually saw dying wretches being picked up and tossed overboard even before they had died. Twice a day they would be given a pint of rice, so mouldy and wormy that it was almost impossible to eat. So hungry were the men that the poor wretches would lick the outside, bottom, top, sides and handle of the tin, as a ravenous dog would gnaw at a bone.
The correspondent said the captain claimed that he was powerless to prevent this as the ship had its own Chinese physician. The Chinese themselves were so cruel and indifferent to the sufferings of others that, despite care and watchfulness, they would rid themselves of their fellow sufferers. He said that he himself had seen men playing dominoes beside a dying man, and as he fell one of the men pushed him to one side. When transferring between ships, those suffering from scurvy and disease were rolled in a blanket, their arms clasped to their knees. Sailors would then lift them by their clasped elbows and dump them into the hold, pulling them by the ears and making them sit up exactly as he had seen dead hogs being loaded into freight cars. When asked what happened to them, the reply was that they were thrown overboard into deep water as soon as they died. He remarked that under those circumstances it was no wonder that yellow fever could not be controlled.
There were 10 sailings to Peru in 1869 with one attempted mutiny. It was an exceptional year with no ship recording mortality rates higher than 3.83%. The average was just 2.11%. There were only two newcomers to the trade, both French. They had excellent records with the 440-ton Jourdain losing only four men and the 627-ton Ango just two. The veteran Portuguese Donna Maria Pia also had a good
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voyage with just three men lost. Another veteran, the Uncowah, also lost only three men on her voyage.
The other seven departures were all by Salvadorian flags all on at least their third voyage to Callao. As was becoming the practice, the off-season departures took the northern route via Honolulu while the seasonal ones took the shorter route via Anjer.
"
Dolores Ugarte
made four coolie voyages.
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KITAYLOR
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9
Cuba Overwhelms Macao
Top: Guano bed mining, Chincha Islands, 1875. Bottom: Loading lighters with guano from chutes. Both photographed by Gardner, Washington, D.C.
uban demand for Chinese labourers had doubled in 1865, but then more than doubled again in 1866 when there were 52 shipments for the year. In the peak year
of 1866, a total of 18,437 Chinese labourers embarked on 44 ships from Macao, seven ships from Canton and one from Swatow. Of these, 16,624 landed alive in Cuba.There were 29 shipments to Cuba in 1867 on which 10,849 Chinese were taken on and 9,837 able to land.
Shipments to Cuba in 1868 declined to 23, with 8,835 Chinese coolies embarking and 8,084 able to walk off. The average mortality rate was 8.50% with only one over 40% and another over 25%. There were two mutinies only on Cuba-bound ships that year.
By 1869, shipments to Cuba were down to twelve, but it was not a good year. One mutiny involved a large loss of life. Three other shipments had a mortality rate in excess of 30%. In all, only 3,852 Chinese disembarked of the 5,027 who were taken on in Macao and Amoy. The mortality rate for the year was 23.37%.
Prospective Polynesian recruitment
The Spanish Royal Decree of 1860 (referred to above) was intended to encourage new entrants to the trade. But the decree seems also to have inspired merchnts to seek labour from alternative sources.
The decree seems also to have inspired merchants to seek alternative sources of supply. On 6 September 1860, US Vice Consul General Thomas Savage advised US Secretary of State Lewis Cass that the Governor Captain-General of Cuba had, on 4 September, granted permission to Jos� and Antonio Carbaga and Canet & Gavalena, merchants of
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Havana in connection with Charles Burrill of Boston and James C. Jewett of New York, to import 5,000 colonists from the islands of Polynesia, by way of experiment. The regulations to be followed were those in existence for governing the importation of Chinese. While the permission was subject to approval from the supreme government in Madrid, Savage was confident that there would be no obstacle from Her Majesty's government. However, it appears that the Spanish Government did not approve this permission as nothing further has come to light about this application.
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Carbaga however did maintain their interest in coolies and in 1865 made just one shipment in conjunction with the Campbell brothers. This was on the 493-ton French barque Amiral Trehouart, which left Macao for Havana on 29 November 1865. Captain P. Cotte took 313 Chinese onboard and delivered 280 of them 106 days later.
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However, the question of Polynesian immigration remained in the minds of the influential planters, Marcial Dupierris and Augustin, as they made a presentation on 25 February 1863 to the Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country of Havana, requesting a grant for five years. They praised the superiority of the race of inhabitants of the islands of Oceania, such as Penrhyn. Sugar refaccionista Ferran said that they were a race of men far superior to that of the "celestial empire". The request was dismissed by the Commission of Population of the Economic Society, which insisted that the elements of mortality and order were indispensable in all immigration and colonization.
Merino Gilledo y Cia
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Joining the trade in 1864, Merino Gilledo operated with the assistance of Castro in Cuba and his agent Virana Garcia in Macao. The three shipments in 1864 were by Spanish ships dedicated to the coolie trade the Emigrante on her fifth voyage, the Encarnacion on her fourth and the Guadaloupe on her third. The only shipment in 1865 was by the 597-ton Spanish barque Arizona, on her second coolie voyage.
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Merino Gilledo did not make any shipments in 1866 and their only shipment in 1867 was by the 399-ton French barque Bangkok, which sailed from Macao on 1 February 1867 with 233 coolies. Captain E. Chappot had to quell a mutiny, details of which
not released, before disembarking 218 of the coolies after a 113-day voyage. They had been recruited by a little-known agent, A.G. de Ville.
were
Mariano del Pielago worked for Merino Gilledo in the final two years of the company's participation. Del Pielago was not as well-known as the other emigration agents, making his first shipment on the 495-ton French Mysore, which departed from Macao on 20 February 1868 with 294 Chinese.
He was the emigration agent who made the last two coolie shipments from Amoy in 1869. The number of coolies on the 1,076-ton Macao was put at only 290, but the Boletin de Colonizacion listed 400 as having arrived. The number embarked is unclear but in her previous life as the Compania Maritima del Peru 2, and on each of her following three voyages to Callao, the Macao embarked 436 coolies. On this basis the number embarked would also have been about 436. With a reported mortality figure of 36, this was in line with those on other Merino Gilledo vessels.
The other voyage in 1869 was undertaken by the 542-ton Spanish barque Villa de Comillas. The Dutch barque Padang Panjang had been lying in Amoy for some time undergoing repairs, when she was sold by Tait & Co. to a Spanish subject, Don Mariano.119 She received her papers to sail for
Havana as the Villa de Comillas. Customs officials refused to grant clearance until a second payment of tonnage dues was paid. The passenger list shows that 290 Chinese were embarked in Amoy on 7 June 1869. This is the same number which Luzon mentions as being on the Macao. The Villa de Comillas arrived in Havana on 17 November 1869 with 267 Chinese.
Even though foreign recruitment from Amoy had all but ceased, the merchants of Amoy were concerned enough to protest to the British Consul over the exportation of coolies in vessels belonging to non-treaty powers. They were concerned
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that, while abuses in recruitment was still being carried out, shipments on ships of Treaty nations could be prohibited, whereas those on non-treaty ships could not. In the event, no further coolie shipments were made from Amoy.
Merino Gilledo made only nine shipments, over a period of six years. Of the 2,632 Chinese taken on board, 2,429 were landed. The mortality rate was a creditable 7.71%.
Aldama
Domingo Aldama and his son Miguel Aldama were slave owners who owned sugar mills in Matanzas, east of Havana. In 1864 they decided to import directly for their own account. They employed their own emigration agent in Macao, a Colombian named G. Sagues.
The partnership was very successful. Among 4,176 Chinese embarked overall, the mortality rate was a low 6.87%. The highest mortality rate on the 13 shipments was 17.09%. This was on the 671-ton Portuguese ship, Donna Maria Pia, which, departing on 24 March 1866, made a cross-over trip, taking 351 Chinese to Cuba, instead of to Peru, as usual. Captain E.A. da Souza took 144 days on this unfamiliar voyage and as a consequence lost 60 before reaching Havana.
The ship Bella Gallega was on her third voyage to Havana with 373 Chinese when she encountered an off- season typhoon soon after leaving Macao on 5 April 1867. She lost her masts but all her passengers were taken safely to Saigon. The men were quickly placed on the French ship Nouvelle Penelope, which set sail from Saigon on 17 June 1867 with the 330 survivors from the Bella Gallega. She arrived at Havana on 6 October 1867 with 318 Chinese labourers. The Bella Gallega had previously been dismasted in 1853, on her first voyage as a coolie ship.
Empresa
This consortium, originally known as the Colonizadora, changed its name to Empresa in 1863.
There was a rather unusual result for the 242-ton French brig Perseverant, which left Macao for Cuba on 4 February 1863. Captain Ducit was taking 121 Chinese to Havana on
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consignment to the Empresa. There were no revolts or riots, but in May, just when she was about to enter the Caribbean, she was struck by an un-seasonal hurricane. Unable to hold her course, the Perseverant was wrecked off Barbuda in the Leeward Islands. Most of the coolies managed to struggle ashore. When the surviving 110 coolies were questioned at St John's, the capital of Antigua, they emphatically refused to carry on to Cuba. They were granted permission to stay, becoming the first Chinese labourers to land on that tiny island. They must have been very successful, as the Government of Antigua subsequently requested a shipment of Chinese workers.
There were 16 shipments made by Empresa between 1863 and 1865. Despite the very high losses on two of the Portuguese ships in 1863 (the Donna Maria de Gloria and Vasco de Gama), the mortality rate for the period averaged 15.20% of the 5,591 Chinese embarked. There were six sailings by French ships and eight by Portuguese ships (including the two previously mentioned). The latter all previously flew the American flag. The Chilean Mercedes in 1863 and the Italian Avon in 1865 carried the other two shipments.
Reflagged American ships
The US Congress passed "An Act to prohibit the 'Coolie Trade' by American Citizens in American Vessels" in 1862. With the possibility of forfeiture and fines, the last American- flagged ships used were the Messenger to Cuba in 1861 and the Marion to Peru in 1862.
The American Civil War started in April 1861 and lasted until May 1865. Faced with the possibility of being lost to Confederate forces, and strong competition from iron steamships, which were being built in great numbers, American wooden ships, including the fast clipper ships, were being sold off to foreign buyers as quickly as possible.
In 1863 eight American ships changed their flag in Macao. Five of the six that became Portuguese vessels then sailed for Cuba. The sixth sailed for Peru along with two which had been reflagged to Peru. Another five American
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ships arrived in Macao to be sold in 1864. One was reflagged to Portugal and sailed for Cuba while the other four took on Peruvian registry and were placed in the Peruvian trade.
On 16 August 1863, Captain Jordan of the American ship Fanny Fern dropped anchor in Macao. The Fanny Fern was originally a 594-ton ship built at New Ireland, Maine in 1854.-In Macao she was bought by Filomena M. de Garcia and renamed the Luisita. She was remeasured at 685 tons, which allowed her to take on 343 coolies when she sailed on 30 October 1863. She had taken 75 days to load the men. Captain Jordan remained unofficially in command, but it was the Portuguese national Joao A. Nunez who signed the necessary documents. After the 114-day voyage, 283 disembarked at Havana, a mortality rate of 17.49%. Her eventual true owners are not clear, as she was still listed as Luisita in 1865, Liverpool then being given as her home port.
The American 848-ton Julia G. Tyler arrived at Macao from Hong Kong on 3 September 1863. She maintained her tonnage on remeasurement, and sailed as the Camoes with 418 Chinese on 2 November 1863. The men had been held in barracoons for up to 60 days.
On 7 January 1864, the Port Captain at Cape Town reported that the Portuguese ship Camoes had just arrived. The captain (Captain Cooper), the officers and crew were mostly the same as when she had been there before. As the ship had been placed under Portuguese colours, a nominal master (J.V. Marques) appeared before the Portuguese consul to sign papers, etc.
The American ships arrived in Macao just as cholera had taken hold in the Portuguese colony. In the 18 November 1863 issue of The Times of London, a quarantine notice in the Ship News section advised, from Lisbon, that on 6 November 1863 the Board of Health declared Macao free from cholera morbus, along with the ports of Hong Kong, Canton, Amoy, and Foochowfoo.
The epidemic was waning when the Alfonso d'Albuquerque (formerly the Carrington) departed on 11 December 1863. She still suffered a loss of 13.87%, but losses on the Don Fernando (formerly the Independence),
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which had left on 3 January 1864 had dropped to 3.46%. These two percentages may however have been an anomaly, as another ex-American ship, the Versailles, renamed Perseverancia, recorded a loss of 32.25% on her voyage to Callao. She had left three days earlier and took only two more days for the longer journey. This was despite having to divert to Mauritius, not normally a port of call.
Lombillo
Gabriel Lombillo was a founding partner of the Empresa, but by 1866 had begun importing Chinese labour on his own account in conjunction with Montalvo. The first five shipments by Lombillo in 1866 were by one Spanish and four Portuguese ships; all achieved with no disruptions and mortality rates below ten percent.
The shortage of properly-trained men to captain 121 The Portuguese vessels was again highlighted in 1868. Nina was once the American Spirit of the Times. She sailed from Macao on 2 November 1866 with a cargo of 549 Chinese bound for Havana. She arrived on 10 March 1867 and landed 510 men. C.J. Sequeira was the nominated captain who was to be relieved in Havana by Charles la Blanche, a British subject. He had been engaged to take the Nina from Havana to Glasgow and then on to Hong Kong, Macao and back to Havana. His reward was to be �18 per month and 10 shillings for every coolie landed in Havana. Under Portuguese law, he was not permitted to command the Portuguese-flagged ship, and so a nominal captain, F.D.P. Almeida, was engaged for that position. La Blanche was to sign on as piloto or mate, but was in reality expected to command the vessel with entire control. Shortly after leaving Havana, a dispute arose between the two men. Blanche left the ship in Glasgow, and lodged a claim for �324 for wages and �285 for bonus expected from the proposed 570 coolies to be taken on. The claim was disputed and the ship was arrested then released, with costs awarded against Blanche. It was re-arrested in Cardiff, and again Blanche lost. He was again ordered to pay costs. The Nina was the second ship
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chartered for Lombillo Montalvo and did not return to Macao.
Alianza
When the Empresa merged with La Compania de Seguros y Creditos to form La Alianza y Cia the business of importation of Chinese coolies changed from one financed by merchant creditors to one of plantation capitalists in their own right. Alianza easily became the major importer of Chinese labour, but not all planters were in Alianza.
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Alianza recruited the large number of 23,508 Chinese coolies and suffered an average loss of 10.40% over the 55 shipments they made between 1865 and 1873. Calderon was their agent until the end of the 1867-1868 season when Tuton took over the agency.
French ships conducted all five shipments for Alianza in 1865. Averaging 121 days for the voyage, 1,312 Chinese were landed from the 1,372 taken on board in Macao. The average mortality for the year was 4.37%.
With the high mortality rate on auxiliary steamships, it was not until 1866 that another attempt was made to utilise them. On 12 May 1866 the 1,300-ton steamer Cataluna, under Spanish colours and Captain M.L. Vaello, sailed from Macao with 473 Chinese for Alianza to begin the regular transportation of coolies by steamer for Havana. By then, technology had progressed such that steam engines were the prime form of propulsion; with sails used only when the engines failed, or to supplement the engines.
Captain V. Escajadillo took command of the Cataluna in June 1867. He had to abort the voyage and return to Hong Kong with a fouled hull. She sailed again on 5 July 1867 but not without controversy as it had been claimed that several Annamites had been kidnapped and placed on board without proper authorisation. On her five voyages to Havana between 1866 and 1871, the Cataluna embarked 2,532 Chinese passengers and landed 2,296 of them, suffering a mortality rate of 9.32%.
High mortality concerns
There were 14 shipments between 1863 and 1869, with mortality rates above 20%. The Bilbaina shipment for Troncoso and the three shipments on Caro vessels have previously been mentioned. High mortality losses were suffered on three Empresa and also on three Alianza voyages. Lombillo however suffered high losses on four of their voyages.
The 570-ton Sarah Chase dropped anchor in Macao from Hong Kong on 12 September 1863. Captain E. Evans was there to hand over command and see his ship being reflagged and remeasured. As the 592-ton Donna Maria de Gloria, she loaded 296 coolies after 48 days and set sail on 30 October along with the Luisita. However, she took 45 days longer to reach Havana, which would account for her horrific loss of 143 men. The mortality rate was 48.31%.
The fourth American ship to arrive from Hong Kong at Macao in 1863 was the 1,001-ton Parliament. After a 39-day wait for her coolies, she was renamed Vasco de Gama, remeasured at 1016 tons, and took on 508 on 15 November 1863. Captain A.A. McCaslin had officially handed over to Jos� da Silva, but remained on board. Despite the shorter 109-day voyage, the death rate on arrival was 39.96%. Like the Luisita, the Vasco de Gama had her home port changed to Liverpool, and continued to trade elsewhere. She was still in the American Lloyds Register in 1871.
The third shipment, which departed on 23 February 1865 was on the Camoes, previously mentioned, with a loss of 26.08% on her second voyage.
For Alianza, the Spanish JAU had a mortality rate of 23.22% in 1866. The Antares, making her first voyage as a coolie ship, suffered a loss 25.86% in 1868. In 1869, the Italia, on her second voyage as a coolie ship, lost 30.77%. After a journey of 129 days, Captain Raymundo de Zulueta was able to see only 360 of the original 520 coolies walk off. The mortality rate amounted to 30.77%.
The 1,345-ton French ship Carmeline left Macao on her second voyage to Havana under Captain C. Gallet on 7 November 1867 with 653 Chinese. All was well until she met
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a storm in the Indian Ocean. In circumstances similar to those experienced by the Maggie Miller she became dismasted and eventually made it to Mauritius on 9 January 1868. Captain Gallet needed more than five months to have repairs effected and it was until 5 June 1868 that the Carmeline was able to proceed with a greatly depleted complement. When the Carmeline eventually reached Havana, only 344 Chinese were landed. Her mortality rate was 47.32%.
The average mortality rate for the twenty-three Lombillo shipments amounted to 12.97%. However, four of these shipments incurred mortality rates in excess of 25%. The lowest was a shipment on the 1868 voyage of the Maria Morton during which she lost 57 of the original 215 Chinese taken on board in Macao. This 26.51% mortality followed a 40.03% loss on the Dolores Ugarte departing Macao a month earlier. The 13 April 1869 departure from Macao by the Nelly resulted in a mortality rate of 61.49% with only 171 Chinese landed from an original complement of 444. The following sailing on 2 May however was a little better at 31.65%. Lombillo made no further shipments after that.
The 848-ton French Nelly commenced her second voyage on 13 April 1868 with 444 Chinese for Lombillo. Captain J. Poilbout was unable to keep the mortality rate below 61.49%, with 273 of the 444 men embarked dying on this extremely long 192-day voyage. Another French ship, the 1,006-ton Mongol left Macao on 2 May 1869 with 496 Chinese, also for Lombillo. This time the voyage was only a little shorter, taking 160 days, and Captain L. Courbe managed to produce only 339 men on arrival. The mortality rate was 31.65%.
The clipper ship Dolores Ugarte was on her first charter to Cuba for Lombillo having already undertaken two voyages to Peru. Captain Jos� Peres Saul took the 1,283-ton now- Salvadorian ship from Macao on 28 October 1868 with 602 coolies on board. On arrival at Havana 116 days later, only 361 were disembarked. The mortality rate was 40.03%. On her return voyage to China, she was driven ashore on 19 May 1869, six miles SE of Riding Rocks, Bahamas. She was assisted off and Captain Saul continued on the voyage.
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Macao barracoons
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On 1 November 1866, British vice-consul William S. Frederick Mayers in Canton reported to Sir Rutherford Alcock (now the British Minister Plenipotentiary in China)' that the decline in the African Slave Trade had led to a greatly increased demand for Chinese coolies in Cuba, such that it had become known that no fewer than 80,000 Chinese coolies would be required in the 1866-67 shipping season. The immediate result had been a large influx to Macao of speculators of various nationalities.
nationalities. The number of barracoons had risen from six or eight the previous season to between thirty-five and forty in 1866.
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Mayers told of the practice of shipping coolies on the daily river-steamers running from Canton to Macao and explained that coolies were collected in the barracoons by various speculators until bids were made for them by the agents of companies despatching vessels to Havana. The price per head paid fluctuated with demand. Each barracoon keeper replenished his stock by means of brokers or crimps; but the latter were abusing their legalised status by practising abuses, such as kidnapping and fraud.
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A long article in the Daily Press of 29 October 1866 further explains the process. On the daily steamer from Canton to Macao, there were always groups of deluded men loosely huddled together under the watchful eye of a crimp. On the Purser going around to collect the fare, they would not be able to produce the 50 cash and so would be confined in the lower hold with the threat of being taken back to Canton. On arrival at Macao, there was always a cluster of boats to meet the steamer. Manned by Chinese and Portuguese brokers, they were prepared to pay the penalty fare of two dollars to secure the release of the men into their care.
In a memorandum, "System of Inspection of Coolies at Macao", 126 British West Indian Emigration Agent, Mr Sampson, told of his experiences on one of the ferries. On arrival, the 20 or 30 coolies on board were handled, just as sheep might be discharged from a vessel. They were grabbed by the shoulders and lowered down until taken by the men in the boats waiting to take them to the barracoons. All looked
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forlorn and dejected as if knowing that they were now the property of someone else; hopeless resignation and callous indifference seemed to have full possession of them.
Sampson went on to say that he had witnessed the first stage of official surveillance in Macao. From the barracoons, the coolies were taken before the Portuguese officials to have the contract explained to them. After some days they were again taken before the same officials in order to sign the contracts. They were securely escorted on both journeys. At the first appearance about 50 coolies in six or seven batches belonging to different owners, were placed two or three deep before a railing, each batch supervised by a barracoon employee and roughly handled into position. The Portuguese official who explained the contract appeared to speak different Chinese dialects "with facility" and certainly spoke Cantonese "admirably". He harangued the coolies at length, explicitly explaining that they were going away for eight years and would be paid $4 a month. The $8 advance they would receive would be deducted from their wages, and at the end of the contract, they would be free to remain or depart as they chose. He repeatedly invited them to say if any person had brought them there by force or fraud, then finally asked each coolie individually if he was willing to go or not.
The barracoons of Macao had only limited capacity to hold men awaiting the ships. It was therefore a common practice for the men there to be presented to the Portuguese officials and then taken on board in batches of about fifty. The America had accommodation for 700 men, and received her first fifty within a week of her arrival, but took 69 days to complete her complement. A pattern soon developed where consignments were normally made on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but always dependent on the number of recruits available.
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After visiting a barracoon in Macao, which Aldus thought looked like a, "large, commodious, county-jail- looking structure", he saw two companies of men preparing for embarkation under the watchful eye of Europeans. After marching down to the jetty, they were put on to junks for conveyance to the ship, some four miles distant. As soon as
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the junk was moored, they were unceremoniously walked, or dragged, on board, some resisting while others cried. Those who refused to move were simply hoisted on like common merchandise.
On deck, the men, each with a small piece of small bamboo bearing his bed space number hanging around his neck, were stripped and examined for physical defects, while their little boxes of personal goods were critically examined for opium and weapons. On completion of the examination, the interpreter and coolie master introduced them to their respective bed spaces.
In his report to Alcock, already mentioned, Mayers would merely have repeated the greatly exaggerated numbers required as reported in the local newspapers. The number of barracoons opening as a consequence, as stated in this study, are based on conjecture. A statistical report on the occupations of Chinese in Macao showed that, as at 14 June 1867, there were 163 employees working in 17 "estabelecimentos de emigracao chineza . The number of broker licences issued in 1865 was thirty-two. In 1866 the number had jumped to 90, but then fell back to 41 in 1867 and just 17 in 1868. Peak years
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In the 1865-1866 season from September to June there were 55 sailings for Peru and Cuba. The numbers taken on board were 19,575. The peak month was March 1866 with eleven sailings taking a total of 3,606 emigrants. The average time taken by these vessels to gather their complements was now 62 days. The greatest delays occurred the following month, when the average time extended to 80 days.
In the 1866-1867 season up to June 1867, 47 vessels took 17,586 Chinese emigrants. There were eight sailings to Cuba in October 1866, with seven to Cuba and one to Peru in December 1866. The December ships took an average of 108 days to gather their complements. This was at the beginning of a lengthy period, during which ships had to wait an average of 119 days in March 1867.
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The strong demand from Cuba importers would have resulted in premium prices being paid for their 41 shipments of Chinese coolies in the peak season. Three Peruvian shipments only were made in the peak months and another three in what would be considered the off-season of May and June. At least two of these shipments did not head south, but instead used the alternate route, passing the Sandwich Islands and down the California coast.
Mutinies
The 357-ton Emmanuel, departing from Macao on 4 March 1865, under Captain L. de Condray, suffered a mutiny on her 130-day voyage and recorded a loss of just on 10%. Details of the mutiny were not made available. The mutiny on the Bangkok has already been mentioned above. There was also another mutiny, reported on the first voyage of the Nelly, which sailed from Macao on 29 November 1867. Again, no details were published. After 109 days Captain Poilbout was still able to land all but fifteen of the 444 men he had taken on board for Lombillo.
An unusual sequel to a mutiny occurred on the only Portuguese ship used by the Alianza consortium, Josefita y Almira. She sailed from Macao on 24 January 1866 with 537 coolies bound for Havana. (Prior to her first voyage in 1864, she had been the British ship, Abissinian.) As was the practice with ships changing to the Portuguese flag, the British captain, Richard Lee, remained on board as supercargo and navigator, but the Portuguese national, Valerio A Remedios, was the official captain in charge.
On this, her second voyage, when off Java on 8 February 1866, the Chinese seized knives from the kitchen and advanced to the cabin to capture weapons. The mutiny was suppressed by the crew. Two Chinese jumped into the sea, and another died from injuries, and eleven ringleaders were shackled. On arrival at Batavia, the crew accused Captain Remedios of not fulfilling his obligations, and demanded that he be replaced, claiming that he did not attempt to subdue the revolt even though he was well conversant with the Chinese language. On enquiry and receiving written petitions from the
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crew, the Port Captain at Batavia agreed to the captain being relieved in favour of Chief Mate Antonio Ribeiro. The Josefita y Almira arrived at Havana on 20 May 1866. Only fourteen did not survive the voyage (including the three mentioned earlier), 523 landing safely.
On 7 October 1866, the French barque Eugene et Adele left Macao bound for Havana with 466 coolies consigned to Alianza. Two days out, the coolies mutinied. Captain J. Giraud was killed and the chief mate severely wounded, as were many of the 24-man crew. The great bravery of the crew led to thirteen of the coolies being killed and many others wounded. The ship put into Saigon on 15 October where the chief mate and wounded sailors were sent to hospital. One of The the ringleaders was shot by the French authorities. 129 French Consul arranged for a temporary captain, subject to an officer of the Imperial Navy, who also sailed on to Havana. Eugene et Adele arrived in Havana on 26 March 1867 with 376 able to walk ashore.
The 937-ton French ship Orixa faced a revolt on Sunday, 1 December 1867, when preparing to depart from Macao. That afternoon the rebels attacked the crew with knives and wooden sticks. In the ensuing repulsion, five of the Chinese were killed and several crew wounded. These attempted mutinies prompted suspicion of a plot to have bogus emigrants board the ships with the intention of forcing the abortion of the voyages. Mr Marques, the British Consular Agent, reported that the outbreak originated with some Chinese who had been induced to go on board the vessel to make up the numbers the broker was bound to furnish to a barracoon by a certain date, being told that they would be replaced by voluntary men after some days. When the ship sailed, the men grew desperate and revolted. The Orixa eventually sailed under Captain A. Guiraud on 17 December 1867 with 556 Chinese bound for Havana.
On 5 January 1868, the 397-ton French ship Esperance left Macao under the command of her owner Captain E. Boju with 300 Chinese bound for Havana, again for Alianza. Fifteen days out a sudden strengthening of the winds was so intense that the crew was not able to reduce sail quickly
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enough. The captain then called upon 50 of his passengers to assist in the shortening of sail. But instead of assisting, they rushed the cabin to capture arms while the crew was aloft. The captain who was at the wheel saw this and called his crew down as he rushed the mutineers with a cutlass. He was severely wounded but was saved by his men who after a long fight managed to subdue the mutineers. Their leader was killed and thrown overboard. Captain Boju was so wounded that he was left at Anjer and the Esperance continued on to Cape Town under acting captain Noel. She arrived there on 25 March, departing on the 28th after taking on provisions. Esperance arrived at Havana on 31 May 1868 with 279 survivors of the voyage.
Yet another mutiny was reported on the 615-ton French ship Lucie, which left Macao on 8 December 1868. Again, no details were provided. She arrived after 123 days with 327 of her original complement of 360 consigned to Alianza.
The 545-ton French barque Tamaris left Macao on 7 February 1869 under Captain Phillipe Raunie for Havana with 300 coolies. On 9 February, the captain was warned that something mutinous was going on among the Chinese coolies, and he maintained a watch throughout the night. Next morning 15 of them were brought on deck and the ringleader given 18 strokes and his assistants 12 each. On 20 February, the chief mate, Lecoeur, was caught gambling with the coolies, and soon after, the supercargo was found selling them necessaries, which they were entitled to receive freely. The chief mate was found sleeping on watch and was logged. Coolies were dying each day. The last entry in the log was on 8 March. What happened next is unknown, but it appears that, for whatever reason, the captain and crew decided to abandon the ship on that day, render the rudder unserviceable and leave the Chinese to their fate. When the captain had second thoughts, the crew simply rowed off and left him to jump overboard to reach the boats. He was thrown a piece of wood, but he did not make the boats. The crew reached Batavia on 22 March, and on hearing their story, the Director of the Marine Department despatched two ships to look for the Tamaris. The Dutch naval ship Borneo eventually found the
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ship at Padang on 8 April, when, on boarding, the captain found 269 Chinese still on board. On 24 April, two officers and sixteen of the original crew were taken to Padang to rejoin the Tamaris. She eventually arrived at Havana on 6 November 1869, but with only 68 survivors. In commenting on this figure, the Chicago Tribune, in its report of 21 November 1869, attributed the high loss of lives to the coolies committing suicide by cutting their throats or by jumping overboard. The consignees were not identified.
The 624-ton Austrian barque Niemen sailed for Havana on 8 February 1867 with 410 Chinese. Her recruits were provided by little-known agents, Bowen y Yngram, for a one- time importer, F.D. Drain. Built in Nantes in 1859, Niemen first appeared on the Hong Kong Register as a ship, but two years later had her registration amended as she had been re- rigged to that of a barque. Later that year her port of registration was recorded as Trieste, and flying the Austrian flag.
As the coolies were mutinous, Captain N.W. Beckwith armed his crew, killing three and severely wounding several more. On being driven below, they set fire to the ship. Captain Beckwith poured water down the ventilators, raising so much steam that the coolies themselves had to extinguish the flames. 130
Russian-flagged ships
In 1865 a Russian national, William Rudolf Landstein (1840- 81), was a partner in the firm of Landstein and Co. of Stanley Street in Hong Kong. Landstein had been born in Warsaw of Jewish parents. The Italian Consul in Macao identified him as being a first grade merchant resident who had been buying ships and obtaining temporary certificates from the Russian Consul before despatching them to Macao where they took on coolies for various ports in South America.
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The first was the Troncoso-chartered 571-ton barque Sovinto which left Macao for Havana with 317 Chinese on 4 January 1866. The next, in October, was the Suomi, a 942-ton ship built in Lovisa, Finland, in 1856. She made two voyages
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to Cuba for Alianza as a Russian ship under Captain C.V. Nordberg with no incidents.
Built in Glasgow, the 462-ton ship Falcon was registered in Hong Kong. In 1865 her flag was changed to that of Peru for one voyage to Callao. She reverted to the Hong Kong Register on her return to Hong Kong and in 1866 was once again re-flagged. This time regular British Captain Mortimer O. Sullivan had to raise the Russian flag for her voyage from Macao on 18 October 1866. With 259 coolies consigned to Empresa he took 115 days to deliver 250 in Havana.
The 1,086-ton ship Avon was the American built Cyclone, sold off as a consequence of the American Civil War. She became a Hong Kong-based British ship in 1864, but almost immediately became an Italian vessel, taking 543 men to Havana on 24 January 1865.
The Avon changed her flag to Russia before proceeding to Macao, when on 16 November 1866, British captain Warwick took on 551 Chinese bound for Havana. Two days later the British gunboat Opossum left harbour to render assistance to a coolie ship off Aberdeen on the south coast of Hong Kong. HMS Salamis also went to the rescue and found the Avon at anchor off Lamma Island. It was claimed that intelligence had been received that the coolies had risen against the crew, but that was disputed by the captain.
The Avon was taken in tow and taken to Green Island where she was boarded and asked for her papers. But they had been taken ashore by her owners who had boarded in the meantime. Unable to provide papers, the Russian flag was torn down driving the captain into a rage, and the ship was towed further into Hong Kong harbour. There it was alleged that kidnapped children had been placed on board and that they had not signed any contracts.
The Avon returned to Macao on 23 November 1866, but with only 537 on board. No explanation was given as to the fourteen missing persons. Representations from Hong Kong barristers to the Attorney General in Macao elicited a promise to look into the matter, but in the event, he was not permitted to do so by the Governor who caused a Notice to be printed in
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O Boletim do Governo on 26 November, declaring that such an investigation was to be conducted by the relevant authorities. Governor Horta pointedly told the Hong Kong delegation that his officers were quite capable of conducting their own enquiries and there was no need for interference from people of high office in Hong Kong.
The investigation committee determined that proper procedures had been followed and that the nine children were of legal age and understood the contracts. Nevertheless, together with twenty-four others, they were taken off the ship before she sailed again for Havana on 5 December 1866. But this time she had only 502 Chinese on board. In Macao, Captain Warwick was replaced by E. de Vildosola. The sequel to this episode came a few days later when the Portuguese gunboat Camoes delivered twenty-four children off the Avon to the Chief Mandarin of Canton. The Avon went on to make another voyage in 1868 without incident.
In among this turmoil was the 635-ton Glenlee, another American-built ship sold off as a consequence of the American Civil War. She made one uneventful voyage for Caro on 4 December 1866, but subsequently changed her name to Vistula with a new measurement of 733 tons. She retained her Russian identity, however. Vistula made one voyage to Cuba in 1869 for Alianza and one to Peru in 1870.
The 1,142-ton Neva under Captain J.D. Onate was to undertake two voyages to Havana in 1869 and 1870 both without incident. But then confusion arose when a new 1,626- ton Neva made one voyage to Callao on 28 February 1871. This new Neva was originally the American Francis A. Palmer, built in Brooklyn in 1854 and registered in New York. From 1867 her new owner was James A. Duck of Liverpool. In 1869 she changed to the Salvador flag for two voyages, carrying fare paying passengers from Hong Kong to San Francisco in 1869 and 1870.
The last Russian ship used in the coolie trades was the Naples which made a single voyage to Havana on 11 October 1871. She was possibly the 926-ton American ship of the same name but there is no record of her changing her flag.
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2
10
The Final Years
3*E
Challenge, New York Clipper Ship. She made a journey from Swatow to Havana in 1857. Library of Congress.
I
In the final five years of the Chinese coolie trade no fewer than 102 shipments, with 47,564 Chinese taken on board, were made to Peru, all but one from Macao. Thirty-eight shipments carried 19,740 Chinese to Cuba. There were six mutinies, four on ships bound for Peru and two for Cuba.
On 10 October 1868 what became known as the Ten Years' War began in Cuba. Many landowners and slave owners freed their slaves and fought along with Spanish troops. Freed slaves fought on both sides, and many disgruntled Chinese sided with the revolutionaries. With the prospect of prolonged uncertainty because of the struggle, the sugar estates began reducing their labour programmes.
Cuban Decree to suspend immigration
In 1870 imports of Chinese labourers fell to fewer than 2,000, but this reduction was not enough to appease the Governor of Cuba. On 27 April 1871, the Spanish Minister for the Colonies, Lopez de Ayala, wrote to the Superior Civil Governor of Cuba agreeing to his second request to prohibit the further importation of Chinese on the grounds that they did not fulfil their obligations, infringed the laws of hospitality, disturbed public order, resisted with the enemies of the nation and kept the interest and tranquillity of the island in constant alarm.
Taking all things into account, King Amadeo invoked Article 81 of the Royal Decree of 1860 and suspended the introduction of Chinese labourers eight months from the publication of the notice in the Havana Gazette. The trade was abolished in 1871, however imports were allowed until 1874.
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Last Cuban shipments
Alianza was the only importer in 1870 and had only two departures. The first was on the 1,142-ton Russian ship Neva which commenced her second voyage on 6 January with 537 Chinese on board. There were only three casualties on the 121-day voyage, with Captain J.D. Onate happily landing the remaining 534.
The 1,069-ton Italian-registered ship Italia under Captain A.V.Vidaurrazaga left Macao on 19 March 1870 with 527 Chinese emigrants bound for Havana. After a long passage down the South China Sea, she arrived at Anjer on 18 April to take on water and provisions. But she anchored too close to shore, where the bottom was chiefly of coral. She had intended sailing on the 20th, but strong currents and winds prevented her from doing so. The next day a gale parted her cable and she was driven on to rocks. Despite heroic efforts by the European and local populations, they were unable to save the ship. A line was taken to the Italia by which most of the passengers and all the crew were rescued.
Captain W.P. de Jong was the pilot at Anjer and was instrumental in the saving of so many lives. Not until the New Batavia Handelsblad published a letter of appreciation from Captain Vidaurrazaga of the Italia in 1872, did his heroic efforts become public. 133 In the letter, Captain Vidaurrazaga praised the 65 year-old pilot for his tireless efforts, which he continued until he was totally exhausted. When finally forced to leave the ship, he did so by way of the mizzen boom, together with his dog. Captain de Jong fell into the water and his faithful dog saved him. Vidaurrazaga called for full recognition of the old man.
In all, 474 Chinese were taken off, leaving 49 lost. The survivors were taken to Batavia. Alianza immediately looked for another ship to take the Cuban consignees on to Havana. On 9 November, the French ship Esperance, now with owner Captain Boju back in charge, embarked 248 of the rescued Chinese from Batavia on to Havana. She arrived at the Mariel quarantine station on 18 February 1871, only 162 surviving the voyage. Three more died at the quarantine station before the Esperance docked in Havana on 20 February 1871.
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The Suez Canal was opened on 17 November 1869, one week after the Cataluna sailed from Macao on a fourth voyage which took 125 days. It was not until 1871 that the Cataluna sailed for Cuba by way of the Suez Canal. This fifth voyage took the auxiliary steamer 99 days. However it was not as fast as the second voyage in 1867 which took just 91 days via the Cape of Good Hope.
Alianza required eight ships to carry the 3,347 Chinese whom Tuton had recruited for them in 1871. A total of 142 died on these voyages. The 496-ton French barque Papillon was the only ship making her first voyage in the trade. The seven others had made previous voyages, six in their own. names. The seventh was the Russian Neva, on her second voyage, but now reflagged as the 1,652-ton Spanish ship China.
Alianza was joined by two new entrants in 1871, following the announcement that Article 31 of the 1860 Decree invoking suspension of Chinese labourers would soon come into effect. Francisco Ibanez immediately commenced operation in conjunction with Emigration Agent Francisco Abella y Raldiris in Macao in 1871. That same year, La Compania de Hacendados was formed with the intention of providing an alternative to la Alianza. It seems strange that, though Emigration Agent Armero, who had recruited so many Chinese for Cuban patrons, was in Macao at the time, Hacendados chose to employ Emigration Agent Tuton, who already represented Alianza.
There were no incidents on the three Hacendados sailings in 1871, but the 926-ton Russian ship Naples did suffer a mortality loss of 16.44%. Among the ships which Tuton chartered, the Concepcion was under the command of a family member, Captain Modesto Tuton. Hacendados shipped 1,317 Chinese with 1,214 disembarking that year.
The four other sailings to Cuba in 1871 were for Ibanez. Abella was the recruiting agent for these departures, on which 1,042 men were shipped, 979 of them being able to walk off after voyages which averaged 128 days. The Ibanez barques averaged half the size of the Hacendados vessels.
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During the final two years of Chinese indentured labour shipments to Cuba, 21 vessels took on 12,970 men, leaving 11,824 of them at Havana. There were reports of women being on those vessels, but exact numbers were not reported.
Alianza ended their shipments with six departures. Two had high mortality rates. The Altagracia on her fifth voyage suffered a loss of 28.53%; the auxiliary steamer Alexandre Lavalley on her second had a loss of 24.76%. The 725-ton Spanish ship Maria on her only voyage with coolies lost 17.19%, and the Anduizas lost just 17 men of 367 taken on board.
Hacendados made the final shipment of 510 Chinese coolies from Whampoa on the 1,880-ton Spanish ship Salvadora, which sailed on 27 January 1872. It was a 107- day voyage for Captain D. de Homachea and 499 healthy persons were disembarked. Hacendados had seven other shipments making the final recruitment of 4,742 coolies. The number disembarked was 4,470 giving a mortality rate of 5.74%. This result is distorted by the 28.42% suffered on the 654-ton Spanish Rosa del Turia. Captain D.F. Vines had taken 387 on board on 27 March 1872 and lost 110 on the 136-day voyage.
mortality
Alexandre Lavalley was a 1,517-ton auxiliary screw 500hp steamer, rigged as a barque, built in 1870 in Nantes. Her dimensions were 245ft in length, with a 33 foot beam and 19 foot depth. She sailed on January 1872 losing only 18 men on a 77-day voyage via the Suez Canal.
Alexandre Lavalley was born in 1821 of Russian parents. Educated in France he became a mechanical engineer working on the construction of railways and bridges. He was recruited by Fredinand de Lesseps to construct the Suez Canal. He is credited with having done this on time and under budget.
Yrurac Bat was a 1,494-ton steamer built in 1871 in Sunderland, England. She was 287ft long with a 35ft beam and 23ft depth. Captain M. Balligui lost 27 of the 906 men embarked, a mortality rate of 2.98%, on her 104-day voyage.
Amboto was also built in Sunderland, in 1872. She was 260ft long with a 33ft beam and 19ft depth. On this her
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second voyage Captain L. Ansuatique took on board 905 coolies losing 6.85% of them on a 92-day voyage.
Glensannox and her sister the Glendarroch were the first steamships to be built in 1870 by Alexander Stephen & Sons at a new facility at Linthouse, Scotland. They were iron screw steamers of the following dimensions: 265ft. length by 33ft. beam by 24ft. 6 ins. from spar deck to top of floors, with a gross tonnage of 1,509 for the Glendarroch and 1,500 for the Glensannox. They were flush-decked fore and aft with a clipper bow, fully rigged with two masts, yards and sails.
The accommodation was similar to that of the sailing- ships, with captain and passengers below the spar deck aft, and in cabins on each side of a central saloon. The engineers and officers were berthed amidships, and the crew in the forecastle below the spar deck forward.
They had three cargo holds served by steam winches working the wooden booms, and her machinery was amidships, with one compound engine and two double-ended cylindrical boilers, and a small donkey boiler.
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In a last desperate attempt to recruit as many as possible the consortium chartered the large 1,776-ton Belgian steamer Nelusko to take on 1,099 men on 21 October 1873.
Nelusko also was launched at the Alexander Stephen yard at Linthouse, Scotland, on 3 December 1872, and delivered on 1 January 1873. Her dimensions were 97.5m long, with a 11.0m beam and a depth of 8.23m. She was a one-cylinder 250/900hp iron screw steamer rigged as a barque. Despite her being a steamer, Captain F. van der Heyden took 88 days before discharging 1,055 of his complement.
This low mortality rate of 4.00% had been bettered the previous year by another steamer, the 1,479-ton Spanish Buenaventura. Veteran Captain Juan B. Echevarria took only 79 days to land 843 of the 864 he had taken on board on 30 October 1872. The mortality rate was 2.43%.
Importer Ibanez would have been relieved to see the end of Chinese emigration. Five of his last six sailings were marred by controversy, including the indignity of one of them
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being the last Chinese shipment to arrive, 320 days after being placed on board.
Spain had officially stopped the importation of Chinese labourers in 1871, but the last shipment did not actually arrive in Cuba until 4 March 1874 when the unreliable steamer Rosita y Nene finally arrived after a 320-day voyage. First registered as the British-flagged John Bright, this 1268-ton steamer was sold "foreign", but then brought back in May 1871 and renamed Venus.
In May 1872, she was sold again, with her new Spanish owners renaming her Rosita y Nene. She arrived at Macao on 14 July and sailed on 11 August 1872 with 725 Chinese and two children for Havana. She was not long on her voyage when Captain E. Alcantara had to put back to Macao with boiler failure. When these repairs were found to be extensive, Francisco Abella transferred her passengers to the other ship he was loading, the Fatchoy, while the Rosita y Nene headed to Hong Kong for repairs on 27 August.
The Rosita y Nene returned to Macao on 23 March 1873, but had to return to Hong Kong once again on 1 April. She arrived back in Macao on 12 April and finally sailed for Havana on 18 April 1873, with 850 men and one child. Still beset with problems, the Rosita y Nene called at each of Cape Town, Rio de Janerio, and Puerto Rico, before finally arriving at Havana on 4 March 1874. She had a loss of 126 men, mainly from smallpox. The voyage took 320 days. It was also the last vessel to arrive from China. In the three years during which Ibanez was in the trade, he shipped 4,873 Chinese and received 4,409 of them. His success rate was 90.48%.
In 1873, despite the strong competition from Alianza, Hacendados and Ibanez, a small company, J. Prats y Cia became the last small importer of coolies from China. With no established contacts in Macao, the company appointed ex- captain Aurelio Olano, at that time an emigration agent for Peru, to recruit Chinese labourers.
The ship used was the 1,743-ton British steamer Cailes, was had been built in Newcastle in 1864. She had been sold to Spanish interests in 1872, renamed Juan and remeasured at
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1228 tons. She arrived at Macao from Hong Kong on 24 May 1873, then sailed on 22 June 1873 for Havana. But the Juan got only as far as 60 miles off the Ladrones when she had to return to Macao, arriving back on 25 June, with a fouled hull, still with the 867 labourers and six children she left with. Disembarking her human cargo, she then left for Hong Kong for cleaning, and returned toMacao on 14 July to reload her coolies.
She sailed from Macao again on 20 July 1873 with only 657 of the original complement but still with the six children, arriving in Havana on 18 November with 602 coolies.
It would appear that Olano had had great difficulty in fulfilling this shipment. For, in the 1873 Macao list of departures, the Juan is shown to have 657 who actually left, 383 who were repatriated before the ship left, 127 who were returned to their parents and 447 who either stayed on in Macao or returned their deposits.
Perils of the sea
In his Annual Review for 1871, Hong Kong Harbour Master Thomsett reported that emigration from Macao had attained such unenviable notoriety that the captain (and owner) of the Belgian ship Frederic thought to try the experiment of despatching from Hong Kong to see if a system could be organised free from censure. A draft contract was submitted, and after some alteration, was approved by the Hong Kong Government. It prohibited the employment of the labourers in the working of guano.-Two depots were opened at West Point where 200 were quickly medically-examined and registered. However, this progress did not last long, as many, after feasting on good food and lodging, left to seek employment elsewhere, or were inveigled by small advances and promises of a better contract in Macao.
The Frederic, now of 812 tons, and her owner, Captain A. Nicaise, were on their third voyage carrying coolies. On her previous two voyages she was known as the Leopold Cateaux. The Frederic did not get her complement until the first week in January, finally sailing on 15 January 1870 with 382 men after having had 762 originally registered. It appears
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that it was expected that the contracts would be honoured in Peru as the Home Government and Charg� d'Affaires in Lima were given lists of persons embarked and copies of the contracts.
The Frederic did not arrive at Callao, having caught fire off Batavia. Captain Nicaise had called at Batavia for water and fresh provisions on 4 February. While ashore the next day, the captain was informed that his ship was on fire. It was so intense that he was unable to get back on board. Unable to run the ship aground, the Chinese were told to jump overboard to save themselves. The crew and 52 of the Chinese managed to get into the boats, and many more were taken on board the rescue boats which quickly arrived on the scene. Four Chinese died in the rescue and 16 were missing, having been seen to swim for the shore. According to the interpreter, the disputes over gambling debts, which began while still in Hong Kong, continued on the voyage. He also said that the men had been talking continually about setting fire to the ship before they actually did so.
A large number of the survivors were subsequently contracted by Mr Baud of the Netherlands Trading Co. However, disorders of a serious nature broke out such that the police had to be called. Mr Baud then wished to get rid of them and called on Captain Nicaise to enter into new contracts to convey them to Cuba, not Peru as originally contracted. However, the Chinese were so pleased with life in Java, that they refused to undertake another voyage.
The 393-ton French barque l'Olivier left Macao on 5 September 1870 with 233 coolies bound for Callao. She was reported to have run aground, on 29 October, on the coast of Sumatra close to the Two Brothers. Captain Alexandre Aucan tried to lighten ship by throwing provisions and water overboard, but to no avail, and the assistance of a steamboat was requested. She was pulled off on 2 November by the French man-of-war d'Assas and towed to Batavia. Captain Aucan could not raise sufficient money to pay for repairs and had to persuade the authorities in Batavia to look after the men, while he looked for another charter. They were placed
on Horn islet for the duration. She was eventually sold for 6,530 francs.
The Camillo Cavour departed from Macao on 27 July 1871 on her tenth voyage, with 632 passengers bound for Callao. She was in position 23N 127E on 8 August when she encountered a typhoon and was dismasted. She managed to limp back into Macao on 4 September. Her passengers then had to wait until 8 October when the Mille Tonnes carried 432 of them on to Callao. The remaining 179 were placed on the Hong Kong which departed on 12 October 1871 on her fourth voyage.
Camillo Cavour was advertised for sale but then headed to Hong Kong for repairs, and subsequently re-entered service. She returned to Macao and had to wait for over 50 days before leaving on her next voyage on 15 May 1872. On 12 August, she arrived at the northern Peruvian port of Payta, where ships had been required to obtain clearance, before going on to Callao. She left there on 18 August, and arrived at Callao on 31 August with 593 labourers, the 57 mortalities representing 8.77% of her complement.
She left Callao on 22 September for what was to be her last voyage with coolies. She arrived back at Hong Kong on 25 November 1872 unsure of a cargo. Captain Astorquia relinquished command to Ignacio Fernando Yriberri and was appointed Macao agent for the vessel. After varying periods in Hong Kong and Whampoa awaiting a cargo, the ship arrived at the Macao anchorage on 29 July, and departed on 6 August 1873 with 683 coolies. After a speedy 93-day passage, Camillo Cavour arrived at Callao on 7 November with 669 passengers surviving.
The Camillo Cavour was by far the longest-serving vessel in the coolie trades. She made 12 voyages between 1863 and 1873, during which 7,596 Chinese were embarked and 6,464 disembarked. The mortality rate of 14.90% is slightly distorted as one voyage was abandoned. Over the period, time she had only four Masters; Captain Stephano Caravagno for one voyage, then Captain F. de Landabaso for four, Captain A. Astorquia for six and finally after Captain
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Astorquia went ashore to become an emigration agent Captain Ignacio Yriberri.
That the Macao anchorage was not a safe one was demonstrated when the Russian ship Vistula was shipwrecked between Kao and Kakiao on the night of 2 September 1871. She had arrived from Hong Kong only the day before and was awaiting her third cargo of emigrants for Havana, when a typhoon caused her to be blown ashore. Another ship dismasted was the Manila. She was due to leave Macao on 8 March 1872 on her second voyage with her full complement of 460 coolies bound for Havana, when a typhoon struck. The surviving coolies were transferred to the Bengali which took her maximum complement of 287 men and the remainder were placed on the veteran Altagracia.
Cruel Captains and mutinies
In the new decade of the 1870s, several ships did more to place the focus on Macao than at any other time.
On 3 December 1870, the Straits Times quoted Javanese papers on the loss by fire of the ship Uncowah, under the colours of San Salvador. She was under the command of Captain Jos� Rosciano, an Italian, who reported that, after having sailed for a couple at days, the coolies began to grumble. On the morning of the 21st of October, the coolies were allowed on deck, but when ordered to go below, refused to obey. The sailors were provided with weapons, but the Chinese armed themselves with pieces of iron and wood and flayed about so effectively with them that the steward and carpenter were killed and several sailors wounded. After a struggle lasting half an hour, the Chinese were driven back into the hold.
With little hope of obtaining command by force, they coolies broke everything below and set fire to the ship. The crew became panic-stricken, got out a boat, and made away from the ship so hastily that the captain was left behind. He was obliged to jump overboard and swim after the boat, which picked him up. They pulled steadily for five days, during which time they were without food, before they reached the Great Natunas Island. They remained four days
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on the island, after which they were taken off by the San Salvadorian ship Fray Bentos, Captain Mota, and taken to Anjer where they arrived on the 9th of November 1870.
On the day of the mutiny, the British vessel Juanpore was proceeding down the China Sea from Shanghai to London, when smoke was seen from a vessel to the SSE. At sundown, fire was distinctly visible. Captain Augustus M. Haldane dispatched Second Mate Stewart to pull away in the gig in the hope of picking up any survivors. After about an hour, he returned with one of the Uncowah's boats, manned by twenty-five Chinese and one European.
Captain Haldane requested the European-a Greek-to come on board. From him, Captain Haldane learned that the burning ship was the Uncowah, sailing from Macao for Callao with 537 coolies on board, that they had mutinied and set fire to the ship that same day. A fierce conflict had taken place between the officers and crew and the Chinese. Some of the Chinese bore strong evidence of the scene of slaughter, cutlass and pistol wounds being on several of them. The captain was also informed that, five days after leaving Macao, the coolies attempted to capture the ship, but had not succeeded, whereupon about one hundred of them had been put in irons. When the ring-leader of the mutiny and the man who set fire to the ship were identified on board, they were placed in irons.
Captain Haldane despatched the gig and the pinnace to the scene in the morning. The Chinese, seeing deliverance approaching, became frantic, plunging into the water from all quarters, nearly sinking the gig. On finding that there were 112 men on board his ship, the captain decided that no more could be done. The Juanpore sailed for Anjer, passing dead bodies, fragments of wreck, and various articles of cabin furniture fully twenty miles from the wreck.
When Captain Haldane put into Anjer, he was obliged to keep the coolies on board until they were placed on the steamer Minister Van Staat Rochussen for Batavia.
The Hong Kong Daily Press of 12 December 1870 reported the mutiny as having occurred on the Italian ship Hankow, placing "Uncowah" in parenthesis. Five of the
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coolies were put in irons, charged with the murder of the carpenter. The Greek, it is said, was also charged with having combined with the coolies, but the captain of the Uncowah denied that this was true.
The Uncowah was formerly under the American flag with the same name. She had been engaged in the Callao trade since 1866 when she was an Italian ship under Captain Tomaz Ordano. Captain Jos� Rosciano took command in 1867 just prior to her registration being changed to that of San Salvador. On her five voyages to Callao, she embarked 2,527 Chinese passengers. Disregarding the 537 who were on the burnt-out final voyage, the mortality rate averaged 2.41% over four voyages.
According to a report in the Straits Times of 28 January 1871, the 112 survivors of the Uncowah were transferred to Horn islet, joining those, already mentioned, from the l'Olivier. The conditions on the islet were so bad that the Chinese were constantly threatening to murder the cooks who prepared their food. With the addition of the men from the Uncowah, persistent fighting between the two groups resulted in seven of the ringleaders being arrested. Some of the whole number of coolies had been murdered and thrown into the sea, while forty-five were found to be missing.
Captain Nicaise of the Frederic was still in Java, and had been joined by the Macao agent, A. Espantoso, who represented the Lima firm of Candamo in seeking a suitable charter for the displaced Chinese. The French barque Bernice of 320 tons was eventually found, and after much difficulty, some 280 from the l'Olivier and Uncowah were eventually persuaded to board the vessel for Callao. The Bernice departed from Batavia on 9 February 1871 and arrived at Callao on 26 May losing fifty men in the extremely cramped vessel.
The French ship Nouvelle Penelope, under Captain Le Vigoureux, left Macao on 1 October 1870 bound for Callao with 310 coolies on board. All went well for a day or two when suddenly a rush on deck was made by a group of Chinese, armed with belaying pins, billets of wood, etc. The
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master was knocked down, and his throat cut. Seven of the crew were overpowered and killed.
The remaining eight Europeans, including the mate, took to the rigging. They were assured that they would not be hurt, but had to navigate the ship to the land. This they did, and made the Bay of Tien-pak, some 180 miles on the coast below Macao. Three of the seamen were sent ashore to procure boats to land the coolies, but escaped instead. With the assistance of locals, they reached Macao after a fourteen day overland trek. In the meantime, after waiting for a day or two, and being unable to land, the pirates took the vessel further along the coast, where it was beached, then pillaged and abandoned.
On hearing the news, M. Dabry, the French Consul at Canton, had immediately set off in one of the Viceroy's gunboats for Macao, where he found the interpreter of the Nouvelle Penelope. Dabry then called first on the Governor, and then the Procurador who informed him that ten men had been arrested on suspicion. Dabry accused the interpreter of being the leader, but offered that if he confessed and pointed out his companions, his life would be spared. This he did, and incriminated three of the ten then present. He added that there were still others then in Macao.
Dabry and the Procurador then proceeded to the coolie barracoons with the four men, who pointed out eighty-three more who were all arrested. Dabry demanded their rendition to him as having committed piracy and murder upon French territory. The Portuguese authorities at first demurred, but subsequently consented to having them put on to a French ship then in the harbour. The chief of the pirates confessed that this was the third time he had been engaged in signing on with the intention of capturing a ship, returning to Macao, and re-entering the barracoons to be reshipped to do the same again.
Kwok A Sing, one of the ringleaders, escaped to Hong Kong, where he was arrested in January 1871 on a charge of being a suspicious character, and a person dangerous to the peace and good order of the colony. He was held in jail pending orders from Lieutenant General Whitfield. Kwok's
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lawyer immediately applied for a writ of habeas corpus. On learning of his arrest, the Chinese authorities in Canton sought his extradition, as did the French Government. On 29 March, Chief Justice Sir John Smale ordered his release on the grounds that "the prisoner was beyond question under unlawful coercion on the Nouvelle Penelope, and had a right to take life to free himself from such constraint on his personal liberty .
When the French Government failed to proceed with the request, Attorney-General Julian Pauncefote immediately ordered his re-arrest on the grounds of piracy. Smale issued another writ of habeas corpus on the grounds of double jeopardy, and Kwok was released. This controversial decision set in train months of legal argument in Hong Kong and London, with the British Government ruling for Smale in the first case, but not the second. Smale's persistence that the Macao coolie trade was in fact a slave trade had embarrassing repercussions for the Portuguese government in Macao.
On 10 April, the Portuguese Governor demanded answers. Emigration Superintendent Hermenegildo Augusto Pereira Rodrigues replied on the 13th. He reported that on 16 September 1870, Macao emigration agent, Jos� Tuton, submitted to the Emigration Superintendent a list of emigrants intended for the French ship. Open hearings were held between the 20th and the 22nd. With the contract placed before them and three interpreters speaking Punti, Hakka, and Chiuchow, one by one, each was asked the following questions:
did he know where he was emigrating to? did he know the conditions of the contract? had he been cheated or abused?
They were advised that if anyone declared that he had been mistreated, he would have the protection of the Government, and even their repatriation if they did not wish to emigrate. Of the 257 presented, 176 declared they were willing to emigrate and 81 declined. This included six who were returned to relatives, having been claimed by them. In a second session, held between 25 and 26 September, another
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134 agreed to emigrate with the remaining 66 of 200 presented refusing to go. Six brokers were punished for alleged mistreatment of the coolies.
Rodrigues said that a certificate from the warden of the jail showed that 253 settlers had been received at the jail, of whom 165 settlers from the Nouvelle Penelope had been made available to him. On examination, only 63 indicated a willingness to emigrate, with 23 being placed on the St Iver on 5 December and another 27 on the Vistula the same day. On the 14th, five were placed on the Hong Kong, and another eight on the Nelly on 21 December. Another twenty-two had shown renewed interest in emigrating, but were rejected by the agents as the captains refused to accept them on board.
The 1,281-ton ship Dolores Ugarte (mentioned above) first entered Macao in 1866 under Portuguese colours. The following year she was registered in Peru, and subsequently operated under the Salvadorian flag under Captain Jos� Peres Saul.
She was still under Captain Saul in 1870 when she left Macao on 13 June with 609 coolies for Callao. Even before the ship had left port, a threatened mutiny had been sensed among the coolies. For the first three weeks of the voyage, they were not allowed on deck, but kept below decks in four rows of bunks, a space of only 16 inches wide being allotted to each individual.
After this, the coolies were allowed to go on deck in gangs of 50 for an hour's exercise each day. Fully armed sentries kept continual watch and guard over the coolies. On one occasion a scuffle did take place between the crew and the exercising coolies, which resulted in eighteen of the latter jumping overboard.
To add to the coolies' miseries, the ship's stores fell short, and they were put on an allowance of one Ib. of boiled rice and less than a pint of water a day. The crowded state of the hold, together with the lack of water, caused the desperate coolies to thrust their dollars through the gratings of the hatches in exchange for cups of water from the crew. It is not clear why this dedicated coolie carrier still had a water
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problem in 1870. Water distillers had been commonplace on ships since the 1860s.
Disease soon broke out, and twenty-five died before the vessel reached Honolulu. The condition of the ship on arriving at that port was indescribable. The mate himself confessed that the stench from the main hatch was so overpowering that it was impossible to hold one's head over it "one minute without vomiting". Forty-three of those too ill to proceed were landed at Honolulu. Their plight was most pitiable. Twelve were in the last stages of decay-some with fever, and others with diarrhoea. Two were rendered blind for life, from ulcers that had formed in the corners of their eyes, and all were in a dreadfully emaciated condition. By the time the Dolores Ugarte arrived at Callao, she had only 490 of her passengers left alive.
Under the Macao Regulations, Portuguese consuls at the ports of destination of the coolie ships were to report their arrival, and the number of coolies landed. Consul General Narciso Velarde in Lima reported on 15 December 1870, that the Dolores Ugarte had arrived at Callao that day with 486 Chinese out of 605 who departed from Macao. His certificate showed that 43 were landed sick at Honolulu, and there were 76 deaths on board from natural causes. The difference in numbers, in the case of both embarkation and arrival, likely refers to at least four children, for children were not always included in the number count. As with every other report, the certificate from the consul simply stated that the passengers were well treated on the voyage.
The Dolores Ugarte returned to Hong Kong on 18 February 1871 with 39 Chinese passengers from Callao. She arrived at Macao on 16 April 1871 to load more coolies for Callao. On 21 April, D.H. Bailey, the American Consul in Hong Kong, drew attention to the atrocities committed on the previous voyage.
On 25 April 1871 the Secretary General and Port Captain announced, following American Consul Bailey's allegations, that the man who had been captain of the Dolores Ugarte on her two previous voyages, Jose Peres Saul, had been replaced at Lima by Captain D. Cecilio Garay. There
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was now also a new pilot and crew on the ship. On 27 April, Secretary General Henrique de Castro advised that the Governor had determined not to grant a licence for the ship to transport Chinese emigrants. The denial was based on the failure of the Captain and pilot to justify the public accusations that were made relating to the previous voyage.
In the 1 May 1871 issue of Boletim da Provincia de Macau e Timor, a notice, dated 26 April, advertised that the Peruvian ship Dolores Ugarte was granted the name of Don Juan. The notice had been placed by former emigration superintendent, B.S. Fernandes, who was now charg� at the Peruvian consulate. With the stroke of a pen, the Don Juan had resumed her original name, and she was placed on the Peruvian registry, Peru being the home of her owners, Compania Maritima del Peru. The crew consisted of 47 Europeans and a Chinese doctor. There were additionally seven Chinese servants, taken on in Hong Kong, to tend to the officers.
The Don Juan had three hatches, the fore-and-aft ones of about 6ft square, and the centre hatch a little larger. These were all closed by iron gratings. The aft hatch was never opened and the main one was opened only to pass meals down, but the fore hatch was left open most of the time. The only water closets were on the upper deck, which was divided into two by a high iron-rail barrier. The crew slept aft of this barrier, which had two gates. Four crew members always guarded the Chinese, two on deck by the open fore hatch, one immediately below, by the ladder, while a fourth mingled with the Chinese in the 'tween deck. There were also two sentries guarding the barrier gates.
Even before the ship had sailed, three of the coolies had tried to escape by jumping overboard. They were picked up and placed in irons until the ship sailed. On 3 May, while the Harbour Master was on board, he was intercepted by four coolies, who begged to be taken off. Instead, he told the captain to put them in irons. A Portuguese, dressed in chinese clothes came on board with the Harbour Master, and stayed overnight, mingling with the coolies. As he left on 4 May, just before the Don Juan was being towed out by the steamer
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
289
White Cloud he warned the captain that the coolies were planning a mutiny two days out. The coolies had numbers painted on their jackets. He wrote down the numbers of the ringleaders.
On 4 May 1871, the captain of the port reported that the Don Juan had passed inspection, and was granted a certificate to carry 655 coolies. They all had their contracts, and all were going voluntarily. Significantly, unlike the usual statement in accordance with another regulation issued in 1871, there was no declaration from the captain that "the ship carried on board no decoyed coolies, nor such as were suspected of being pirates". It must have been a tremendous act of faith for captains to make such a declaration. On the morning of the 5th, the captain told the crew to arm themselves. He then called for the twenty Chinese whom the Portuguese broker had identified. He had them placed in chains, and exhibited them to about 100 of the others, as an example of what would happen to them too.
On the morning of the 6th, a coolie jumped overboard. He was picked up and placed in irons with the rest. Later that morning, a number of the men complained that there were three dishes short for breakfast. The interpreter came below and said he would fetch more. But some of the men accosted him as he was leaving. He used his cane to free himself, and drew his revolver as he escaped up the ladder. The two crewmen below immediately raced for the ladder, and the grating was slammed down on the heads of several Chinese trying to get on deck.
The hatch gratings were then padlocked, and the Captain ordered the crew to fire into the hold, but it was not known if anyone was killed. The Chinese responded by breaking up the furniture and breaking everything they could, initially in the fore part of the ship, but then continued towards the after part where there was a small paint room. As the Captain and some of his men watched through a grating in the cabin, they saw men breaking into the store, and soon after a fire broke out.
The crew quickly manned the pumps, and a hose was sent below, but was immediately pushed out. Again, it was pushed in, and again it was pushed out. At the third attempt, a
290
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
Chinese did take the hose, but before he could direct it at the flames, another coolie struck him on the head, killing him. The hose was pushed out again, this time through a port hole, which had its glass broken. When the masts fell over, the crew took to the boats, throwing spare masts and spars into the water. The hatches were not opened, and only a few Chinese managed to get out when a padlock was eventually broken.
All of the crew were saved, but only about 50 of the 650 Chinese emigrants managed to make land. Some of the survivors that managed to reach Hong Kong gave statements commencing with their recruitment, then life on board, and then their experiences on being picked up by the fishing junks in the vicinity. Leung Ashew was one of the lucky ones. He had money. Many of those who did not were simply left to drown. A 20-year-old native of Sunning, he had no parents and no employment.-The following account is based on his testimony.
Before the ship sailed, the coolies were allowed on deck, but after the ship sailed, they were not allowed on deck at any time, not even for necessary purposes. There were buckets in the hold for this purpose. Nobody was allowed to smoke. Twelve men were told off to act as cooks. They were allowed on deck. The hatch gratings were opened only to lower down the meals. There were about ten foreigners acting as sentries in the hold. They had swords and rattans, but Leung never saw them use the rattans. They were on duty night and day. The fare on board was inferior to what Leung was accustomed at Sunning. The treatment on board was very good. They could play dominoes or dice in the hold.
Shortly after breakfast on the third day, there was a fire. The fire occurred in the aft part, in a room adjoining the hold. The smoke entered the hold in a great volume, with a strong smell of gunpowder. The ship had a great quantity of ammunition on board-muskets and swords. No explosion was heard and there were no foreigners in the hold at the time. The hatch grating was not opened and, with the thick smoke, a great many were suffocated. After more than an hour, the grating was torn off. In the rush for the opening
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
291
Leung was partially suffocated and could not climb up. By the time he was pulled up, the fire had reached the hatchway, and his face was severely burnt.
When he eventually emerged, the ship, from the mainmast to the stern, was a mass of flames. The foremast however had not caught fire by then. About twenty men clung to the rigging, and there were more than ten others holding to the bowsprit. Leung held on to the anchor-chain, with the anchor dangling over the side. When the fire reached the woodwork that held the anchor-chain, Leung was tumbled into the sea with the anchor. Luckily, he could swim a little, and swam to a burnt spar floating nearby. It was a small one, and three or four others had got to it before him. There was a larger spar close by with more than ten men holding on it. Leung's smaller spar was carried away by the current, and he did not see what had become of the larger one and its men. He was carried so far away from the burning ship that he could hardly see her. As he left the burning wreck, Leung said he saw blood ooze out from the sides of the vessel; from the hold where the coolies were lodged.
That evening a fishing junk appeared. The junkmen wanted money before they would pick up the survivors. From his advance of $8, Leung still had $5, which he handed over to the junkmen. They refused to take his four companions who had no money. Those men wanted to get into the junk too but the junkmen pushed them back and they had to remain on the spar. After picking Leung up the junkmen went on, picking up any wrecked property they could find. The junk took in nine others on the way. The junk got money from all these men. There were many others in the water, but the junk would not receive them, as they had no money. The junk then took them to Hong Kong, and put them all ashore.
Leung could hardly walk, but struggled to a stone- cutter's shed, where he was refused shelter for the night. He walked on, and came to a bridge and stopped under the arch for the night. Next morning he went further up the hill and came to another stone-cutter's shed. This time the men received him, but they gave him nothing to eat or anything to lie down upon for the two days he stopped there. When he
292
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
.
left the shed, he came to a shop and sheltered from the rain under the awning. The shopkeeper turned him away, but a seamstress took pity on him and asked an elderly man to take care of him. He took pity on him and conducted him to his house. The elderly man wanted to adopt him, but his own son prevented him from doing so.
The survivors were taken to Hong Kong where they were cared for at the Tung Wah Hospital. A subscription, organised by the hospital, was raised to return them tho their places of origin. The sum raised was sufficient to pay for their fares with the remainder then distributed amongst them.
136
On 9 September 1872, the Chicago Tribune quoted a 6 September report from Havana, advising the arrival of the French ship, Jacques Sevrin, which had departed from Macao on 7 April 1872. The coolies had mutinied shortly after commencing on their journey, such that Captain Achilles Heu had to fire on them, killing several. Whipping was practiced throughout the voyage and the coolies arrived in a terrible condition. Of the 300 who had embarked, 65 died, and many of the remaining 235 were unable to walk ashore on 3 September.
Consul General Graham Dunlop in Havana was the first to alert Earl Granville of another case of mutiny on board a Havana-bound ship. The steamer Fatchoy, formerly the British Vixen, was sold at Hong Kong to Messrs. Paul Ehlers & Co. early in April 1872, and placed under the German flag. Then, on 30 July, Ehlers sold her to the Spanish Emigration Agent, Francisco Abella. She was then put under the Spanish flag, registered at Havana. She had been chartered to the Havana Coolie Importing Society for two trips, but on her first (and only) arrival at Havana, she was listed as having been consigned to Ibanez.
The master had applied to have her fitted out at Hong Kong for the conveyance of emigrants. The only fittings approved were sleeping berths, a hospital, ventilators, and cooking places. After this work had been done, she took in water and coal and proceeded to Macao on 1 August 1872. Earlier, a French ship, the Charles Albert, had iron gratings
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
293
on the hatches, around the hatches, in the between decks, and at the side ports fitted out in Hong Kong. Iron barricades were also installed on deck. This was against the direction of the Harbour Master, and the captain was fined for disregarding the instruction. The Fatchoy wisely chose to have these fitted in Macao.
While Fatchoy was lying at Macao, the steamer Rosita y Nene, which had left some six weeks earlier, returned to Macao in distress. Her cargo of 700 coolies were in a sad state, many of them had been cruelly flogged and otherwise ill-used on board. These coolies were transferred to the Fatchoy.
Every one of these men gave indications that the vilest deception had been practiced upon them, and once having realized the utter hopelessness of their situation, they gave themselves up to frantic despair. Some threw themselves overboard whenever an opportunity offered, but two boats were constantly alongside to pick them up and return them on board.
The Fatchoy left Macao on the 26th August 1872, with 1,005 coolies. All went well until the fourth day out when a cry of "mutiny forward" was raised. The coolies had attacked the guards, throwing one overboard while the other took to the rigging. The coolies made a rush to the Chinese galley, expecting to find knives or other weapons. The mate and second mate shot into the crowd and wounded three of the coolies. The officers then rallied, and succeeded in catching a number of the coolies. They were tied by their long hair to the barricade of iron gratings, the rest driven below. About 150 were put in irons.
The next morning the Spanish captain had them brought up. Some bags of rice were placed on the deck and the prisoners were laid across them, then unmercifully flogged and beaten by two men keeping time with their whips or sticks. In a short time, the deck was covered with blood. As each coolie was flogged, he was washed with salt water and sent below.
The Fatchoy arrived at Anjer on the 9th September, and remained there two days before proceeding to Mauritius,
where she took in water and coal, the ship remaining in quarantine. From Mauritius, the Fatchoy went to the Cape of Good Hope. At each of these ports, the coolies were kept below; and while coaling was going on, the hatches were put on, and the hospital bulkheads for the sick were closed. The heat was intolerable even in the open air.
For the coolies, the voyage was one of the most unimaginable sufferings. They were struck, kicked, flogged, and otherwise treated with the greatest brutality. The filth and stench was something horrible. The hospitals were not cleaned during the whole voyage.
There was on board a man styled, in sailor parlance, a "paper captain". He was the supercargo in charge of the coolies. He had full control of the coolies, superintending the beatings and other punishments inflicted on them throughout the voyage. A more merciless ruffian never lived. He was not named, but it was known that C.R. Menser, a partner in the firm of Paul Ehlers & Co., had been placed on board the Fatchoy as supercargo.
The other "captain" was a German. On the ship's papers, he was styled the "sailing-master". The chief, second, and third mates, and the carpenter, were all Germans. The chief engineer was an American. The other members of the crew were English, Scottish, and Irish. The crew came from several nations, but all of them understood English. There were two or three only on board who spoke Spanish. The officers always spoke English or German.
The statements relating to the Fatchoy were attributed to the American chief engineer, who had made them in conversation with the American Consul General in Havana. The statement from the American chief engineer continued, "I venture to say that in the annals of the African Slave Trade all the horrors of the 'middle passage' never surpassed those of this China slave-ship".
On learning of these revelations, Paul Ehlers & Co. wrote to the China Mail on 10 April 1873, refuting the exposure, and challenging the American and British governments to impound the ship, which was then in Liverpool.
294
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
295
The Fatchoy returned to Hong Kong on 1 May 1873 where she was boarded by Boarding Officer Sampson of the Harbour Master's Office, who saw iron barricades and
gratings lying on the 'tween decks. Menser was on board as a passenger, and when Paul Ehlers went on board, he ordered Captain Paraja not to anchor but to proceed directly to Macao. The Harbour Master was unable to search the vessel before she left the port. After disposing of any incriminating evidence, she left Macao on 8 May, back to Hong Kong where she stayed until 14 June 1873 when she departed for Manila.
Macao Emigrant Committee
Following the tragedies of the Nouvelle Penelope and Don Juan, Governor Antonio Sergio de Souza appointed a committee charged with proposing measures, "to more effectually ensure the condition and freedom of the Chinese emigrants". Formed on 12 May 1871, the six-man committee reported on 23 May. It noted that under the present regulation, the men would have undergone the appropriate examinations and the men emigrating could not have been doing so under an illusion. Nevertheless, as a great number of them were indigent and desperate, they would have believed any promises made to them, in the expectation that their lot would improve.
The committee noted that the men found conditions in the barracoons so comfortable they were prepared to say anything to foreigners, as dictated by the brokers. However they would subsequently declare that they had been deceived and were therefore released prior to shipment. Men had been known to have passed through the superintendent's office more than once, with no intention of emigrating.
To defeat this practice, the Committee proposed 12 points, the first of which was to diminish the number of barracoons, with one or at most two for each agent. Only persons approved by the Procurator and Superintendent would be responsible to the Government. Another proposal was for a Committee of three independent individuals to assist in controlling emigration activities up until their
296
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
�
presentation to the Superintendent. Finally, once in the "establishments" (i.e. the barracoons), no contact was to be allowed with the brokers.
The Maritime Police were to be notified of all colonists (that is, those going to emigrate) arriving in Macao. The police in turn were to provide a daily list of arrivals, which could be matched with one from the establishments specifying those arriving by steamer and by other means. The Fiscal Committee was to determine the space allocated to each man, and to ensure that those leaving did not exceed the numbers listed. Only colonists were allowed to reside in the establishments. Brokers were to live in registered houses, with the number of brokers in each to be reported.
The Committee then recommended that the $8 advance be discontinued but the agent would be free to furnish articles demanded and to provide advances to families. The Committee had reason to believe that immorality occurred on board and to prevent this money should not be allowed to be taken on board.
Each ship was to have two interpreters examined in different dialects by the procurator's office. Ports to which the emigrants were sent to should have consulates to protect them as though they were Portuguese subjects. The committee also considered that 3 cubic meters should be allocated to each person, and steamers should have distillers to provide fresh water, and be equipped with at least one life- boat and a few safety buoys. Finally, in order that the committee's recommendations could be rendered useful, they reminded the Governor of the urgent necessity of embodying into one code of regulations all the various reforms at present in force.
Governor de Souza acted on these recommendations immediately, proclaiming an Ordinance, dated 27 May 1871, declaring improvements in the regulating of Chinese emigration to ensure that the colonists embarked of their own free will.
He ordained that individuals in charge of emigration establishments would be bound to exhibit a certificate extracted from the Criminal Register, and have a declaration
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora 297
from the Procurator for Chinese Affairs and Superintendent of Chinese Emigration to prove their fitness for the office in question.
Secondly, brokers were expressly forbidden to enter the "establishments", after delivering the colonists to the person in charge of those establishments. For a first infraction, the person in charge would incur a fine equal to half the surety bond ($500). Any further relapse would incur a similar fine, and he would also be rendered unfit to manage any affairs relative to emigration. One quarter of the fine would be given to the informer, with the remainder to the Public Treasury. All brokers, even those expressing a wish to emigrate themselves would not be admitted into the barracoon, but be kept away from the coolies and sent immediately to the Superintendent's office for questioning.
Increased Peruvian demand
There were 25 sailings for Peru in 1871. On them were 11,494 men, women and children, and 9,695 were able to go ashore after between 78 and 153 days. The longest journey was by the 271-ton French barque Ville de Grenade under Captain M. Chansel. The Port Captain in Macao allowed 198 Chinese to board the small vessel, but only 115 of them were able to walk ashore. The mortality rate was 41.92%, surpassed in recent years only by the Uncowah the year before.
The highest number of sailings for Peru was in 1872. On the 31 departures were 13,800 Chinese, placed aboard predominantly Peruvian-flagged vessels, making regular voyages back to Callao. There were 1,185 deaths that year, three vessels only having mortality rates above 20%. The highest was on the 401-ton French ship Antares, leaving from Macao for her second voyage on 21 March 1872. Of the 263 taken on by Captain G. Nolte, also making his second voyage, only 181 made it ashore. The mortality rate was 31.18%. The Luisa Canevaro, on her sixth voyage, had a 25.98% mortality rate. On 26 February 1872, a new entrant to the trade commenced her first of two voyages from Macao to Callao. This was the 962-ton Portuguese ship, Emigrante,
298
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137
and she had a loss of 21.44% on this voyage. She did only slightly better on her next voyage in 1873, with a loss of 14.94%.
The drop to 13 sailings to Peru in 1873 may have been a precursor to a changing pattern in shipping. In 1872 the 13,800 Chinese taken on board the 31 ships averaged 445 per vessel. In 1873 the 7,170 who embarked averaged 552 on each of the 13 ships used. Shipments were abruptly cut short in 1874 but the average for the only four ships which carried the 2,371 Chinese who left that year was 593. The number carried would have been even higher had the large new steamers dedicated to the work (which had arrived only as the termination of shipping was announced) been utilised.
The Maria Luz affair
An event, which was eventually to lead to the end of indentured emigration from China, occurred when the Peruvian 408-ton Maria Luz left Macao on 28 May 1872, bound for Callao with 225 Chinese coolies on board. Captain R. Herrera chose to take the northern route before turning south to Peru. Buffeted by a typhoon, the Maria Luz was forced into Yokohama. On arrival, some Chinese jumped overboard and swam to a British warship, HMS Iron Duke, where they claimed they had been kidnapped.
With the publicity and great outcry generated, the Japanese government accepted their story and released the Chinese on board, sending them back to China. Peru, who had no treaty relations with Japan, threatened war unless Japan apologised, and indemnified the owners. The British government then intervened and warned Peru that any hostile act would result in retaliatory action by the Royal Navy. France was asked to arbitrate, and agreed with the Japanese action. The Peruvians were forced to back down. The trial was widely reported in the international press, and both Peru and Portugal were criticised for their participation in the disreputable coolie trade.
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
299
Costa Rican experiment
138
On 20 June 1871, the Government of Costa Rica signed a new �1,600,000 contract with the Meiggs family to build a railroad across the country within three years. With a shortage of labour in the country, Keith Meiggs wrote to President Don Tomas Guardia pleading with him to allow 1,000 Chinese into the country under a government-appointed commission to assist in building the railroad. This was approved, and Otto Hubbe was appointed Costa Rican Government Agent for the Recruitment of Chinese workers. A native German, Hubbe had previous experience in Chinese recruiting in Hong Kong, and returned there in October 1872.
His arrival in Macao caused great consternation there. The local authorities were not at all sure how to handle his application. On 12 November, Governor Januario Correia de Almeida announced that Hubbe had been approved by the Colonies Minister as Commissioner of the Government of Costa Rica, to recruit settlers for that country. As Hubbe had shown willingness to meet the conditions set down in the regulations, he had been granted permission for one shipment to that country. The Governor emphasized it was Hubbe's duty to ensure that the settlers would be given protection on arrival similar to that in Cuba and Peru. As there was no consular representation in any Central American country, the plan was to have the settlers placed on an Italian steamer, and on arrival have the Italian Consul oversee disembarkation. Barao Cercal, the Italian Consul in Macao had agreed with the proposal.
With this authorisation, Hubbe appointed Nicholas Tanco Armero as the employment agent. Armero had originally chartered the Glensannox for a voyage to Callao. He had already received his certificate from Port Capitan J.E. Scarnichia as well as one from the Head of Public Health allowing 739 passengers to board. But with Hubbe's appointment, Armero changed the ship's destination to Punta Arenas in Costa Rica. This unique alteration from all previous departures caused considerable confusion among the Government officials. Secretary Henrique de Castro wanted to know if Punta Arenas was on the Pacific or Atlantic coast.
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Following several exchanges, the confusion was cleared, and following the formal examination on 9 November, the Glensannox was cleared to sail. Captain Domenico Capello finally left on 17 November 1872 with 685 Chinese coolies. He had made the usual declaration that the settlers were happy and that there were no pirates on board. As required, a doctor and interpreter were also embarked, as part of the
crew.
With all the bureaucracy exchanges publicly aired, the New York Times of 3 January 1873 quoted a San Francisco report of news from Hong Kong dated 27 November 1872. According to the article, it appeared that the Superintendent of Emigration in Macao had refused to sign the contracts of coolies bound for Costa Rica. The Governor threatened to dismiss him if he refused. In reply, the superintendent said he would report the incident direct to Lisbon. The impasse was broken when the superintendent took two weeks leave, during which time his Deputy signed the contracts.
En route to Costa Rica, the Glensannox called at Honolulu for provisions and bunkers. The Honolulu Pacific Commercial Advertiser reported her arrival on 20 December 1872, thirty-three days after she had sailed from Macao. In his manifest, Captain Capello neglected to add punctuation to his list, resulting in the 685 Chinese being listed as part of the captain's personal effects. Immediately prior to sailing, three Chinese refused to re-board claiming to have been illegally held by the captain. Presiding Judge Hartwell held that the contracts were not valid until the parties arrived at their port of destination. Two of the men returned to the ship, but one remained in Honolulu.
The Glensannox left Honolulu on 28 December with glowing reports from the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, declaring that on inspection of the ship, the covers were found to be clean and airy, and the occupants well-fed and healthy. Nevertheless, by the time she arrived at Punta Arenas, 31 had died, leaving 654 Chinese to learn about their new home. On 3 November 1872, Otto Hubbe was appointed Italian Consul in Punta Arenas. He met the ship on her arrival on 15 February 1873.
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora 301
The Glensannox returned to Macao, from where Captain D. Capello undertook a second voyage, departing on 24 September 1873-this time to Cuba. This was the last shipment on behalf of La Compania de Hacendados, which made no further shipments after the termination of the coolie trade to Cuba.
Macao Regulations of 1872
On 28 May 1872, new Regulations for the Emigration of Chinese were published.139 Ten Sections containing 83 Articles covered the agents and their employees, the contracts, and the ships employed.
Schedule A gave an example of what was to be placed on board. A blackboard would show that Havana and Peru were in America and that it would take about three months to reach them from China. As the coolies had already had an opportunity to declare their unwillingness to emigrate, had received their down payment, and signed a contract, they would not be able to return ashore. Schedule B contained instructions to be practiced on board and the scale of medicines to be carried. Schedule C referred to the form of certificate to be issued by the captain of the port (i.e. the Macao harbour-master), and Schedule D referred to the instructions to be followed on going to sea.
Table A provided a list of the daily rations to be issued, very similar to the Hong Kong provisions. Table B listed the duration of voyages for which the groceries for the Chinese colonists were to be provided. It followed the British example of having two columns corresponding to the seasons. As with the British declaration, the number of days to Callao was deemed to be 120 throughout the year, while to Cuba, 147 days was the requirement between October and March inclusive, and 168 in the off-season.
Once again the new regulations did not seem to have any great impact on recruitment. The treatment of coolies. continued to be harsh.
Unrecognised record of achievement
Each week in the Boletim, a table was published listing the number of Chinese who had been repatriated to their homes. Formal exchanges with officials of the major surrounding districts were published for the men returning to the more than 100 villages from whence they came. In reality, as C.A. Montalto de Jesus maintains, "When found out in Macao, the victims were handed over by the authorities to the charge of the district mandarins; but instead of being sent home as requested, the men were detained, sold to the crimps, and again brought to Macao for shipment".
140
In 1868, the Government of Macao began publishing statistics as to the number of Chinese accepting contracts to work in Peru or Cuba, and also the numbers who had been returned to their home villages, or otherwise not proceeding overseas. Prior to this time, the number of arrests in relation to emigration infringements had been included in the weekly police reports. With the advent of this new statistical summary, such arrests were published annually.
Returned
deposits
Table 10. 1 Macao recruits (and brokers punished) October 1868-March 1874
1868 1869
1.394 2,477
1870
1871
Repatriated
3,637
5,572
1872 1873 1874
7,365 3,596 371
home
Returned to
parents
17
72
82
304
1,329 1,312 127
Remained in Macao
69
17
40
1,391
928 1,092
432
37
14
46
221
165
11
6
21
58
394
624
3
113
142
1,480 2,609
3,738 9,000
3,794 7,371
13,392 16,518
10,350
6,931 944
20,855
12,838 2,320
Percentage not
60.4
71.0
71.7
55.4
50.4
46.0 59.3
shipped
Brokers
30
56
58
100
267
282
17
punished
Changed mind To different
country Total not _proceeding
Emigrants shipped
302
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
Source: Author's compilation
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
303
The table showing the number of emigrants shipped ( Macao recruits (and brokers punished) October 1868-March 1874") is compiled from one set of data only, published in O Boletim, and this data does not precisely match figures published in other lists which also appear in the official Government bulletin.The various figures are however relatively similar and it is reasonable to be confident that the data used provides a good understanding of the degree of success which the Portuguese authorities achieved in limiting the transport of Chinese coolies who did not wish to be taken away from home.
The table, "Macao recruits (and brokers punished) October 1868-March 1874", shows that, over the six and a half year period, October 1868 to March 1874, almost 30% of the recruits asked to be returned home. In the final three months of indentured labour (January to March 1874) alone, as many as 15.99% of the men, put forward, refused to go, while 18.62% elected to remain in Macao.
With the publication of these statistics, the number of children returned to their parents increased steadily each year as parents learned of their incarceration. The increasing number of brokers fined for infringements also illustrates the seeming effectiveness of the regulations.
Cuba Commission
Following years of reports, telling of the atrocious conditions-bordering on slavery endured by the Chinese in Cuba, the Chinese government eventually made a formal complaint about the harsh treatment of their nationals. But the Spanish refuted the allegations. The exchanges became heated, and Samuel Wells Williams, the American Charg� d'Affairs in Peking, suggested a visit by the Chinese government to see for themselves. The Spanish reluctantly agreed.
Chen Lanpin, the Chinese Officer in Charge of the Educational Mission in the United States, together with Messrs. Macpherson and Huber, Commissioners of Customs at Hankow and Tientsin, respectively, formed the official
delegation to inquire into the condition of the Chinese in Cuba.
141
On 19 March 1873, they met with the Captain-General (who also had the title, Governor of Havana), and later the also with consular representatives of the major powers. The Commission of Inquiry lasted until 8 May, during which the commissioners interviewed more than 2,500 Chinese, took 1,176 depositions, and received 85 petitions, the latter supported by 1,665 signatures. The Commission Report summarised their findings in 1876.
The depositions showed that 80 percent of the Chinese labourers declared that they had been either kidnapped or decoyed into signing contracts. They confirmed the deceitful methods used by their countrymen from the earliest days of recruitment from Amoy in the 1850s. "I was decoyed here by wicked men." "We were conveyed on board by violence." "Portuguese and Spaniards, acting in concert, and aided by vicious Chinese, make a practice of decoying and selling men. And so it continued.
Among the 1,176 depositions, at least 65 claimed to have been kidnapped, 689 decoyed, and 50 others entrapped into signing contracts in the belief that they were merely doing so in the place of others temporarily absent. Ninety- three others were victims of traps set after they had gambled and lost, but at least 81 volunteered that they had embarked willingly. While most of the men came from Macao, Amoy, Swatow and Canton, at least five came from Manila, one from Shanghai, and at least ten from Wenchow in faraway Chekiang.
The questions raised by the Commissioners were various, including the following: "Did you sign an agreement, and did you understand it?" "What was your position on the plantation and were the agreement stipulations carried out? And even, "Do you support the rebellion?"142
In answer to the question, "Were the laws adequate for the voyage?" one answered, "When we proceeded to sea, we were confined in the hold below; some were shut up in bamboo cages, or chained to iron posts, and a few were a means of indiscriminately selected and flogged as
304
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Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
305
intimidating all others." Another stated, "Three months had passed but we had not arrived; no water was issued, and we had to pay a dollar for a single cup of water." In their thirst, some stole water, only to be flogged when caught; one even being struck dead by the Master. The hatchway was only wide enough to allow one man to go up or down at a time, and the stench from below was most offensive. The deaths were without number. They confirmed that mortality during the voyages exceeded ten percent, mainly from wounds. caused by blows, from suicide, or sickness. But several said that they were well looked after, and that the Master was kind.
The commissioners formed the view that, on arrival, they were sold into slavery on the sugar plantations, with only a very small proportion being sold to families and shops. Cruelty was practiced by both classes of employers, more so on the plantations, where it often became unendurable. The work was excessively severe, and the food insufficient; the hours were long, and chastisement by rods, whips, chains, stocks, etc. produced great suffering and injury. Apart from those killed by blows and wounds, many hanged themselves, cut their throats, poisoned themselves with opium, or threw themselves into wells and the sugar cauldrons. Scars and mutilations were evident on many of the coolies.
On the termination of their contracts, the employers invariably withheld the certificates of completion, insisting on renewal of engagements; on the same terms, and with the same system of cruelty. If they failed to renew, the Chinese were placed on chain gangs, repairing roads, until such time as they agreed to sign the new contracts.
In the "men-market" in which they were placed on landing in Havana, "intending purchasers insisted on removing their clothes, and examining their persons in order to ascertain whether they possessed strength, just as if an ox or a horse was being bought." Those who objected to having their queues cut off were beaten almost to death. When asked if they were more comfortable in Cuba than at home, one replied "I hold a Letter of Domicile and Cedula, and work independently, yet I am subjected to outrage. Here we are
306
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
regarded as appertaining to the same class as the Negro; indeed sometimes these latter are treated better than we are". Many said even beggars at home were better off than they were. Another stated that he had enough to pay for a passage home, yet he was seized, placed in prison, and forced to labour.
The Cuban Commission Report, like Yung Wing's Peru report (see the section, 'Peruvian Mission to China and Japan', below), dealt the final death blow to the system of coolie contract recruitment, determining, as it did without any shadow of doubt, the true situation of the Chinese labourer in Cuba. All emigration henceforth would have to be placed on a new footing.
Continued concern for coolies in Peru
The New York Times continued to lament the coolie trade in Peru. In its 19 July 1873 issue, it carried an article from "An Occasional Correspondent", which claimed that the coolie trade was nothing more than a slave trade. Citing supporting statements from others, "An Occasional Correspondent" described the Chinese character, and then the coolie depots in Macao. He acknowledged that there were ordinances regulating the clothing, amount of food and water allowed, as well as the requirement for a doctor and sufficient medicines to be carried on all ships. But as he pointed out, they were port regulations, and only lasted as long as land was in sight.
On the face of it, "An Occasional Correspondent" wrote, contracts appeared to be very reasonable. In practice, it could well be a completely different matter. With captains not deterred by the desire to present a fine article in the market, coolies were often driven to desperation by repeated acts of cruelty. The inevitable revolt led only to more cruelty, and when landed with scars and bruises, their pleas for help were often to deaf ears.
Once in Peru, An Occasional Correspondent" continued, the coolies were not entitled to the benefits written. into their contracts. Should a coolie become sick during the passage and unable to work, the contract was annulled and the coolie was abandoned, leaving him to the mercies of an
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora 307
uncaring community. Should he perchance recover, his master could immediately reclaim him and force the man to start his eight-year contract again.
Life on a plantation, as An Occasional Correspondent" described it, commenced at 4.30 in the morning, when the coolies were hustled off to collect their daily provisions and cooking utensils, before being taken to the fields until at least 6pm. They were constantly watched, and if found slacking, immediately subjected to beatings from negro ex-slaves, who themselves had been treated in the same manner.
Should a coolie survive his eight-year servitude, An Occasional Correspondent" testified, he would be so crippled and weakened by diseases that he would be fit only to beg. And to a Chinese man in Peru, that meant death by starvation. Governor Jui-lin acts against the coolie trade
In 1872, Jui-lin, Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, on instructions from Peking, began a concerted effort at disrupting and ending the trafficking between Canton and Macao. (This was after the Tsungli Yamen the Chinese Foreign Office--had received a report from the American Minister to China, accusing local officials in Kwangtung of complicity in the coolie emigration traffic at Macao.) Kidnapping and forcible or deceptive recruiting became crimes punishable by death, and gunboats were despatched to the Pearl River Estuary to police all sea traffic between Canton and Macao. The recruiters attempted to evade the authorities by shifting to a region west of Macao in southwest Kwangtung, but the campaign shifted its efforts to this area as well.
In April, when about 20 vessels sailed into the region in an attempt to recruit coolies, Governor Jui-lin ordered gunboats into the area. They intercepted three vessels under the command of Portuguese, and found 60 kidnapped Chinese. The American Charg� d'Affaires in Peking reported to the US State Department in November 1873 as follows. "The severe measures adopted by the authorities at Canton to prevent coolies of all kinds going to Macao, in order to stop as much as possible the delivery of those who may have been
308
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
engaged by contract to go abroad, and the summary execution of all crimps and kidnappers who have been caught, have, I hear, made the business so dangerous and losing that most of the barracoons are empty."
,,143
Hong Kong prohibits fitting out of ships
Sir Arthur Kennedy arrived in Hong Kong to take up the role of Governor on 16 April 1872. In his despatch of 7 June 1872 to the Earl of Kimberley, Governor Kennedy reported that he had been credibly informed that there were no fewer than 300 barracoons and more than 800 coolie brokers in Macao engaged in the trade "so vividly described" in the translation he attached of a document handed to him by a deputation of "very influential" Chinese inhabitants of Hong Kong. After several interviews with the delegation, Kennedy, as he wrote, "was impressed with the sincerity and earnestness of their desire to put an end to the cruel and disgraceful traffic at Macao".
144
The Earl of Kimberley enquired whether there was any truth that persons in Hong Kong derived great profits from supplying the coolie ships. Kennedy's despatch in reply, dated 19 October 1872, stated that, "the Macao coolie ships are mostly invariably fitted in the port of Hong Kong". He also said, "that these fittings are made here I have no doubt, but they are carried to sea, and put up elsewhere. Responding in a despatch in reply, dated 17 December, Kimberley wrote that the state of things described in Kennedy's 19 October despatch, "is most unstisfactory" and confirmed the opinion that fresh legislation was required.
Kennedy then hurriedly amended "The Hong Kong Emigration Ordinance 1870", to take Kimberley's instructions into account. The new Ordinance would have the same title, replacing the date 1870 with the new date of 1873, and he forwarded it to London on 22 January.
In a further despatch, Kennedy said that he had personally inspected two of the coolie vessels. He also reported that the Macao Governor had proclaimed that emigrants to Peru were to receive gratuitous return passages, or a sum of money in lieu.' He was at a loss to conceive
145
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
309
how the Government was going to insure that the promise would be faithfully discharged.
Following amendments, as required by the Foreign Office, Ordinance No. 3 of 1873, entitled, Chinese Emigrant Ship Fittings Ordinance, 1873", was passed by the Legislative Council of Hong Kong on 24 April 1873. Ordinance No. 5 entitled, "The Hong Kong Emigration Ordinance 1873", was passed on 6 May 1873, and Ordinance No. 6, "For the Better Protection of Chinese Women and Female Children", was passed on 8 May 1873.
In the Hong Kong Gazette of 2 August, Kennedy Proclaimed Ordinance No. 3, in which notice was given to owners or agents and masters of vessels engaged in the Macao coolie trade lying in Hong Kong waters. Five of the seven ships in port cleared at once, the Glensannox cleared soon after, and the Columbia was given seven days to complete repairs. These ships took refuge at Whampoa. The Canton consul, now Sir Brooke Robertson, reported that, following long consultations, the viceroy of Kwantung had instructed the Imperial Maritime Customs Acting Commissioner, H.O. Brown, to issue notices to masters, requiring them to leave Whampoa and adjacent waters at once. No vessel destined for the carriage of Chinese coolies and belonging to non-treaty powers would in future be allowed to enter the port. The provincial judge and the provincial chancellor issued the formal proclamation on 17 October 1873.146
Macao Capitulation
On 27 December 1873, the Governor of Macao proclaimed that in obedience to the orders of His Majesty, King Amadeo's Government, the Chinese emigration carried on in the port of Macao was henceforth prohibited. The determination was to be complied with within three months of the date of the proclamation.
However, in a somewhat surprising footnote to this affair, on 31 January 1874, Governor Januairo de Almeida tried to publish new Regulations for Asiatic Passengers and their transport from Macao. The response of Governor Jui-lin
310
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
I
�
was immediate. He informed Governor Almeida that, if emigration resumed in any form, he would despatch gunboats and troops to Macao to arrest and punish those involved. Governor Almeida rescinded his decree, promising that no further emigration would take place. Upon further consultation with Governor Jui-lin in Canton, he was able to ensure that the more than 20,000 Chinese in Macao connected with the emigration traffic, now unemployed, would be allowed to return to the mainland without fear of punishment, provided they renounced all further participation in coolie recruitment in Macao. In August 1874, this agreement was formalised between the two parties in an official ceremony in Macao.
The Portuguese proclamation did not have any effect on Cuba. The last vessel to load at Macao for Havana was the 1,776-ton Belgian steamer, Nelusko on 21 October 1873, carrying the largest contingent of Chinese on a single ship. Of the 1,099 who were embarked, 1,055 were able to disembark on 17 January 1874, the 44 deaths amounting to a mortality rate of 4%.
Peruvian shipments had peaked in 1872 with 31 shipments that year. The Portuguese proclamation had a devastating effect in Peru. Shipments in 1873 had dropped to 15 but plans had been underway to introduce steamships to the trade which had been dominated by dedicated shuttle ships capable of only one voyage a year.
On the date of the Proclamation (27 December 1873), fourteen ships-all Peruvian-were at Macao awaiting their coolies. The Oracle, Macao, San Juan, Providencia, Colombia, Agustina, and Fray Bentos, all stayed on in Macao in the hope of a reversal of the decision to halt Chinese emigration. The Emigrante arrived on 23 January 1874, and, on 26 February 1874, the Camillo Cavour became the last ship to arrive direct from Callao with the expectation of obtaining a return cargo.
The Peru, which had been lying in Macao since 19 August 1873, left in ballast on 17 February, together with the 818-ton steamer Francisco Calderon, which had arrived in Macao from Cape Town on 1 February in need of urgent
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
311
repairs. On 3 February, the Francisco Calderon continued on to Hong Kong, where Captain Eduardo Perks had to call for tenders for major repairs.
One of the more conspicuous coolie ships made redundant was the Peruvian steamer Florencia which arrived in Macao on 24 January. With no prospect of a cargo, Captain Guillermo Garcia y Garcia took the 855-ton steamer to Hong Kong on 20 March. Her agents, Pustau & Co., then applied to the Hong Kong Government for permission to take Chinese from Hong Kong to California. This was refused, as all traffic between the two places was reserved for British and American ships.
In his Chinese Bondage in Peru, Watt Stewart quotes unnamed sources as saying that the 1873-built 883-ton ship was fitted up in a costly manner, having between-decks ventilation, separate quarters for the sick, an admirable means of cooking, a distilling apparatus for use should the 50,000 gallon water tanks be exhausted, and iron decks covered with cement to prevent fire. On her maiden voyage from Cardiff, she arrived in Macao on 24 January 1874 only to find that there would be no coolies to take to Peru. Ironically, the Francisco Calderon and Florencia were to be the first steamships employed in the Callao trade. Up until then, steamships had been utilised only to Havana.
With only three months notice, only four vessels were able to load before the deadline. The Luisa Canevaro, with 759 coolies, and the Nuevo Providencia with 524 coolies, departed in January 1874; while the Isabel, with 713 emigrants, left in March.
The 890-ton Lola had the distinction of being the last coolie ship to load at Macao. A speedy vessel, she made two voyages in her debut year, 1871. She took only 95 days to transport 479 Chinese on her first voyage to Callao. Four deaths only were recorded on those two 1871 voyages under Captain Pio de Elorrieta. Originally registered in San Salvador, she changed her flag to Peruvian for her second voyage. She carried over 2,000 passengers, including 21 children, on her four voyages, sustaining a low mortality rate of 2.08%.
312
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
On her last voyage, she departed Macao on 27 March 1874, and arrived at Callao on 2 July after a 97-day passage. The 375 Chinese on board, consigned to Juan de Ugarte, did not fill the ship to its capacity. With that last departure, there were still nine Peruvian vessels left in Macao. The Callao eventually departed on 27 October 1874.
Peruvian Mission to Japan and China
Up until the time of the Maria Luz, Chinese migration to Peru was conducted under an 1853 Consular Convention between Peru and Portugal (which Peru recognised as the sovereign power in Macao). The Convention had been replaced by one signed between the two countries in February 1872. Having no diplomatic representation in either Japan or China, the Peruvian Government decided to improve relations with those countries. Captain Manuel Aurelio Garcia y Garcia was appointed Special Envoy to the two countries with power to sign treaties and to appoint consuls if he considered a permanent mission was required.
Garcia was to
his flagship, the proceed in Independencia, together with the screw steamer Union, which was then being repaired in Britain. On realisation that a naval expedition was too expensive and probably not appropriate, the delegation eventually set off by commercial steamer for Japan on 22 December 1872. There Garcia was received with full honours and grandly hosted. He even had an audience with the Emperor. Reparations for the Maria Luz were settled and a Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Trade, and Navigation was signed on 21 August 1873.
Flushed with the success of the Japanese mission, Garcia headed for China, where he was received by Viceroy Li Huang-chang. The hostile reception he met with was a complete contrast with his experience in Japan. The Chinese were deeply resentful of the treatment of their nationals in Peru.
In his My Life in China and America, Yung Wing, a Commissioner of the Chinese Educational Commission in Hartford, Connecticut, wrote that he happened to be back in China, on a mission to sell the Gatling machine gun, for
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora 313
I
which he had the sole agency in China, at the same time as the Peruvian envoy Garcia.
Yung was in Tientsin when the Viceroy requested him to call on Garcia. Yung wasted no time in telling Garcia that he had seen for himself in Macao in 1855 a string of poor Chinese coolies tied to each other by their queues, and led into the barracoons like abject slaves. He vividly described the horrors of the middle passage and how whole cargoes revolted or jumped overboard rather than endure the sufferings those Chinese had experienced on their voyages to Peru. He pointedly told Garcia that he would dissuade the Viceroy from entering into any treaty with Peru.
Yung was then recalled to Harvard to prepare for a mission to Peru to learn at first hand the condition of the Chinese coolies in Peru. He was to be accompanied by two Americans, the Rev. J.H. Twichell, and Dr E.W. Kellogg. A fellow Commissioner, Chen Lanpin, would be conducting a similar but separate study in Cuba.
After a short but intense investigation in Peru in September 1874, Yung's study was completed within three months, and sent to Viceroy Li Huang-chang in December 1874.
It contained:
Field reports on Chinese labourers in the agricultural and construction sectors in Peru;
testimonies of witnesses;
a petition from Chinese residents in Lima;
�& interviews with 14 Chinese in Lima, and
24 photos of lacerated and torn backs of some of the coolies, perpetuated by some owners of the haciendas.
There were three separate rounds of negotiations between the Peruvian envoy and Viceroy Li between October 1873 and May-June 1874. Garcia was still in China when the reports from Yung and Chin were received. Garcia denied all the allegations and continued to expound on how well the Chinese were prospering in Peru. The incriminating photographs were withheld until Garcia had exhausted
314
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
himself, and when eventually shown to him, he was taken by surprise, dumbfounded, and he retired completely crestfallen.
Yung Wing's Peru mission did not take place until September 1874, when the treaty with Peru was already signed (26 June 1874). His report did in fact cause a delay in the formal ratification of the treaty by China, but this was eventually done by February 1876.'
Treaties with Peru and Spain
147
With encouragement from Britain and the United States, on 26 June 1874, China and Peru eventually signed a Treaty of Friendship. By now, the emigration of Chinese from Macao had already ceased. Nevertheless, a supplementary treaty to protect the rights of Chinese was agreed. Hereinafter Chinese migration to Peru was to be on a free and voluntary basis.
To encourage this free migration, the Peruvian Congress in 1875 granted an annual subsidy of 160,000 Peruvian soles to any steamship company bringing coolies from China. The American steamship company Olyphant and Co. was granted a contract in April 1877, but this was rescinded the following year for failing to comply with the contract terms. With the failure of a direct service to China, the Peruvian Government then granted a licence to Grace Brothers and Company, another company based in San Francisco, but with strong ties to Peru, to bring Chinese from California. The first shipment was with 23 Chinese, with the expectation that one or two thousand could be enticed to work in Peru. But the War of the Pacific (1879-84) between Peru and Chile prevented any further importation of Chinese.
148
With the Report of the Cuba Commission, the Chinese government finally took steps to formalise the emigration of their nationals. As with the treaty signed with Peru in 1874, the Treaty of Peking of 17 November 1877 between China and Spain prohibited the transportation of Chinese labourers under contract to Cuba. But free emigration was permitted. Under the treaty, Cuba granted most favoured nation status to Chinese subjects, and they were free to leave as they pleased. Spain also volunteered to return certain classes of Chinese workers. The era of the pseudo-slavery of Chinese people had
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora 315
ended. Nevertheless, slavery was not officially abolished in Cuba until 1886.
After Macao introduced a regulation for Chinese Emigration in 1856, on 21 October 1857, the Legislative Council of Hong Kong enacted, An Ordinance for Licensing and Regulating Emigration Brokers", to prevent abuses of the emigrants who were increasingly passing through Hong Kong on their way to other lands.
," 149
With strict laws governing against any abuse in the recruitment of Chinese passengers, Hong Kong was not an attractive port for those engaged in the indentured labour trade. However, it very quickly became the predominant port of departure for credit-ticket emigrants leaving for San Francisco, Sydney, Melbourne, and Victoria (Vancouver Island).
A Portuguese Retrospective
On 24 March 1874, four days before the last coolie ship departed from Macao,, the Portuguese Minister for Foreign Affairs, Joao de Andrade Corvo, presented a report to the Cortes, the Legislative Council in Lisbon.
150 Corvo opened
his address by saying that the Government, while recognising the importance of this lucrative commerce, had constantly endeavoured, through active vigilance and the severest measures, to restrict the abuses inseparably connected with the system. These abuses had been known to the Portuguese authorities, but had been, "more than once unjustly treated by artificially excited opinions, not always animated by sincerity and disinterestedness".
Se�or Corvo then sketched the origin of Chinese emigration from 1845 up to the time of the British Government's questions to its Consuls in 1852, when Britain was looking to import labour for its sugar-producing colonies, following the loss of slave labour. He claimed that the British Government, in pursuing this emigration, was well aware of the danger to emigrants. While English agents tried to promote the system and improve conditions, they had, in contrast, markedly hostile dispositions to any emigration which might seek shores other than those of the British
316
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
colonies. He thought that Britain could have given the Portuguese more credit in their attempts to diminish the abuses and crimes of the coolie trade. Hong Kong's efforts at superintendence over the coolie trade through the institution of licensed agents and the establishment of warehouses and depots, as well as the measures regulating voyages, were all followed by the Macao authorities. By 1856-57, the essential abuses connected with the system were well recognised; yet emigration was still encouraged by England. Portugal had hoped that England, knowing these abuses, would stop emigration from Hong Kong. As this did not happen, Portugal followed suit by allowing emigration from Macao.
Various repressive measures had been implemented, beginning from 1853, but had been ineffectual. This was chiefly because both the origin of the emigration, and its ultimate destination, were out of the control of the authorities.
In another interpretation of the Kung Convention, Corvo claimed that it was aimed at restricting emigration to the powers who had signed the 1866 Treaty of Peking, namely France and England. He added, As may be gleaned from the instructions given to Lord Elgin, the idea of supplying their Colonies in the tropics with labourers pre-occupied the agents of the European Powers in China more than any other object".
Despite all the efforts of Portugal to come to an agreement with China, Se�or Corvo was particularly disappointed by a letter from the Viceroy of Canton to the Governor of Macao, full of hostility to Macao emigration. Corvo was of the opinion that China's refusal, backed by European diplomacy in Peking, to enter into an agreement on emigration through the port of Macao, was one of the principal causes for the perpetuation of abuses in emigration from Macao. The presence of a mandarin at Macao raised great objections, but if the mandarin's powers had been limited by Treaty, those objections might have ceased to exist.
151
Se�or Corvo did not approve of the 1872 Regulations, which he said were framed to favour emigration agents rather than the coolies. In April 1873, the Governor admitted that the
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
317
1
Portuguese Government was totally powerless to prevent the abuses and horrors of the system, maintaining that these were entirely perpetuated before the emigrants came under the influence of Portuguese rule.
The Christian population of Macao had increased marginally since 1822, reaching 5,375 in 1871, while, during the same period, the number of Chinese had risen greatly, from 8,000 to 64,029. In contrast, the number of Portuguese residents in Hong Kong had outnumbered the British by one third, and as the coolie traffic developed, so did the Portuguese population in Hong Kong increase.
Emigration from Macao increased after emigration from Hong Kong ceased, but the real interests of the Portuguese colony had been sacrificed by an illusory prosperity which not only destroyed the energy of the population but also discredited the Portuguese name. Increasing hostility with China did not help. From 1868 to 1872, 57,883 coolies had emigrated, and, during the same period, 15,138 had been repatriated on the grounds of having been deceived.
Se�or Corvo considered that the coolie traffic had undoubtedly corrupted the morals of the colony. This was particularly shameful because it did not promote legitimate prosperity and because the emigration business was concentrated in a few hands, almost all foreigners. He concluded that the abolition of the trade was necessary for the honour of the Portuguese name.
11
Coolie Shipping In Review
he Chinese indentured labour trade lasted for 29 years between 1846 and 1874. The 732 ships involved took
on board 291,484 Chinese emigrants. These were mainly men with a few children and even fewer women. They embarked from six main ports and landed mainly in Cuba, Peru and the West Indies.
The Departure Ports
To
Table 11.1 Shipments from Various Departure Ports
From
Amoy
Cum
sing moon
Macao
Hong Kong
Swatow Whampoa Other Number of ship departures
Total
Cuba
23
0
4
266
45
18
2
358
Peru
4
16
2
224
15
11
2
274
West Indies
9
0
23
4
2
22
3
63
Other
18
0
13
1
4
1
0
37
Total
54
16
42
495
66
52
7
732
Numbers Embarked
0
Cuba
8,653
0
1,237
111,720
18,581
6,452
146,643
593
Peru
1,291
4,945
790
95,447
6,402
4,443
113,911
562
West Indies
3,262
0
8,549
1,261
759
7,452
21,845
�
0
Other
3,802
0
2,741
685
1,489
368
9,085
Total
17,008 4,945
13,317
209,113
Numbers Landed
27,231
18,715
1,155
291,484
304
Cuba
6,659
0
920
97,450
15,114
5,820
126,267
0
Peru
West Indies
772
2,589
3,110
0
82,131
4,149
4,029
94,191
536
0
7,903
1,201
737
6,721
19,687
0
Other
3,215
0
1,577
654
1,448
368
7,262
Total
13,235
3,110 10,400
181,436
21,448
16,938
840
247,407
Source: Author's compilation
Peru
Returned 140 Chinese in 1890.
318
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
319
Amoy
Amoy was the first focus of foreigners looking for cheap Chinese labour and the main port for traditional departures for the Nanyang. From the time when two French ships took 290 Chinese to Bourbon in 1846, up to 1869 when the last two ships to sail from Amoy took 726 more to Cuba, Amoy saw the departure of 54 ships sailing for foreign lands.
The Spanish were the biggest users of the port with 23 of the 54 departures. They took 8,653 of the 17,008 indentured Chinese who left from Amoy, representing 51% of the total.
Table 11.2 Shipments from Amoy, 1846-1869
No. of Shipments
six shipments to the British West Indies in the 1860s, the port was no longer considered major source for indentured Chinese labourers. However, it remained the main port for emigration to the Nanyang.
Swatow (Namoa)
Following the Amoy riots in 1852, recruiting agents unable to fulfil their contracts diverted their ships to Namoa, just 100 miles to the south.
The Namoa anchorage was first used by the opium ships which sheltered in the bay on the north coast of Namoa Island, just to the east of the main town of Swatow. The seven ships which were diverted to Namoa in 1852 included four destined for Cuba, two for the West Indies and one for Australia. As Swatow did not become a Treaty Port until 1858, the 23 British ships loading at that port were technically breaking the terms of the 1842 Treaty of Nanking between Britain and China.
Table 11.3 Shipments from Swatow, 1852-1866
No.
Embarked
No.
Landed
% Died
Notes
1846
2
290
1847
2
642
594
7.48
1848
1
120
120
0.00
1849
1
150
138
8.00
1850
2
392
373
4.85
1851
7
1,678
1,551
7.57
1852
14
4,258
2,989
29.80
5 mutinies
1853
4
1,209
1,026
15.14
1 mutiny
1855
3
1,505
1,266
15.88
No. of Shipments
No. Embarked
No.
Landed
% Died
Notes
1856
2
1,100
634
42.36
1852
4
1,402
1,342
4.28
1857
2
710
454
36.06
1853
3
1,074
984
8.38
1858
3
1,097
869
20.78
1854
8
3,585
2,857
20.31
1 shipwreck
1859
1
120
82
31.67
1855
12
6,304
5,110
18.94
2 mutinies
1860
2
560
530
5.36
1856
11
4,598
4,017
12.64
1862
1
385
384
0.26
1857
17
6,135
4,366
28.83
4 mutinies
1865
3
1,093
1,071
2.01
1858
7
2,451
1,632
33.41
1866
2
973
487
1.22
1 mutiny
1859
2
626
365
41.69
1869
2
726
667
8.13
1860
1
612
343

Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora(1846-1874)

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