coolie-ships-of-the-chinese-diaspora1846-1874 — Page 2

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Insurance Company, the owners had been able to convince Manhattan Life to take one quarter of the total risk. On 29 April 1854, Manhattan Life paid $408, a quarter of the total loss, and made a profit of $432 on the transaction.
The Sea Witch was followed by the slower 480-ton Spanish ship, Bella Vascongada, which had left Swatow on 10 February 1854 with 325 Chinese. Her arrival complement of 305 brought the total to 1,009 Chinese labourers who had been imported. They were the first shipments of what was proposed to be 2,000 Chinese workers recruited for $25 per month. Comstock was free to make whatever arrangements he wanted with the coolies, with the expectation that the coolies would be paid a few dollars per month, with the balance considered as passage money, and food provided prior to shipment. The contracts were to be between three and four years, but it was hoped that they would be extended to eight years if possible.
From the start, the Chinese shipments were a disaster. Deprived of their opium, the addicts could not cope with the weather. Soon after their arrival, many were seen roaming the streets worn out and emaciated, heartbroken and miserable. Destitute and homeless, they were reduced to begging, and suicide. About 125 Chinese coolies were found hanging from trees, and over 300 from drowning and other forms of self- inflicted death. Hardly one of the 800 men could have been considered fit to labour.
Jamaican opportunism
News of the Panama Railroad recruitment disaster reached Jamaica through expatriate negro and Indian coolies who had earlier been recruited to Panama. Governor Barkly, now of Jamaica, seeing an opportunity to import labour cheaply, requested sanction from the Home Government to proclaim a bounty of �6 or �7 on each Chinese immigrant brought from Panama. Sir George Grey, the British Colonial Secretary, approved the bounty, but stipulated that females had to be included in the shipments. He did not elaborate on how this was to be achieved as no Chinese women had been shipped to Panama.
Just as in British Guiana in 1851, the Jamaican Board of Immigration Correspondence pre-empted the home government's approval, and resolved that Dr Falconer, and Wang-te-Chang (the interpreter who had arrived on the Epsom) should accompany Samuel S. Wortley of Kingston to go to Panama to assess the suitability of the men. On their return, they reported on the poor condition of the Chinese, with the particularly moving diary of Wang circulated for emphasis. Nevertheless, they were authorised to return and negotiate with the Panama Railway Co. for their shipment to Jamaica. They came back with 197 emaciated men on the brigantine Vampire on 1 November 1854. The Theresa Jane brought the remaining ten on 18 November. Only 50 or 60 were left behind, too ill to travel; this from the original number of 1,009 Chinese who had landed at Colon.
On 8 November, Barkly wrote to Sir George Grey advising of the arrival of the Vampire at Jamaica and that the conduct of the majority of the men off the Epsom was favourable. Of the 25 who had proven retractable, it was explained by interpreter Wang that it was because they were not paid when wet weather prevented them working. He was of the opinion that the White Agreement was the root of the evil, and that a new contract should be written.97
Even before the Epsom had sailed from Hong Kong, the Jamaican Board of Immigration Correspondence advised Governor Barkly on 20 March 1854 that they could not sanction further shipments of Chinese labour, as recently quoted freight rates would have brought the cost above the $100 originally fixed.
While this correspondence was being conducted, Trinidad and British Guiana independently determined that the cost of transporting Chinese to the West Indies was too high to sustain. On learning of this, Newcastle replied that as the Emigration Commissioners considered it hopeless to proceed on the original terms, they would not be taking any further steps to send Chinese to any of the West Indian colonies.
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Cuban Allocations
Amoy harbour, 1870-71. Departure port, 1846-1869. Photograph by John Thompson.
The first shipments of Chinese coolies to Cuba in 1847 do not appear to meet expectations. Nevertheless, the Chinese were deemed to be useful labour by the Real Junta de Formento.
First Cuban contracts
On 10 April 1849, the Governor and Capitan-General of Cuba published "Government Regulations for the Management and Treatment of Asiatic and Indian Colonists". The Royal Decree allowed anybody to import Chinese, but it was not until February 1851 that a contract was awarded by the Real Junta de Formento to Villoldo, Wardrop y Cia for the importation of Chinese labourers to be paid at a rate of $4 a month. The quota was initially for 8,000, but subsequently reduced to 3,000, with another 3,000 being awarded to Pereda, Machado y Cia.
Villoldo Wardrop
With the awarding of the contracts, Robert Wardrop, the Scottish partner of Villoldo Wardrop, went to China to supervise the shipment of the coolies. In Amoy he contracted with Tait & Co., in conjunction with Syme, Muir & Co., to provide his recruits. The speculation was that he would receive a bounty of $125 for every emigrant landed in Havana.
In the two years between 1852 and 1853, Tait was able to provide Villildo Wardrop with 3,153 Chinese coolies on nine shipments. However, the first Wardrop Villoldo ship did not arrive at Havana at all.
The 450-ton British ship British Sovereign left Amoy on 18 August 1852 with 321 coolies for Havana. Approaching the island of Palawan in the Philippines, she ran aground
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three times, on the north and south Pensilvanian Rocks, and the third time on the half-moon rock close to Palawan. There she lost two of the mates, along with the three men who were in the long boat trying to refloat the ship. Captain C. Harris brought the vessel to Kema in Celebes on 20 October, where he died. On 22 December Chief Mate Martin took the vessel away but he died on 9 January 1853. The bosun and Doctor then tried to take her to Singapore but were not competent enough to do so. They managed to take the vessel to Zamboanga desperately short of provisions. The Governor of Zamboanga provided all assistance and a pilot to take her to Manila where she arrived on 1 March 1853 with 138 of her coolies. The 75 who were sick remained at Zamboanga, with the rest of them having run away in Kema.
Soon after the 522-ton British barque Panama left Amoy on 26 September 1852 with 351 Chinese on board, the coolies made several unsuccessful attempts to take her. She eventually put into Singapore on 17 October where Captain Fisher landed 16 of the worst offenders. The original crew however could not be persuaded to continue the voyage.
The Panama called at Jamaica before arriving in Havana on 7 February 1853 the day before another British ship, the Blenheim, which had sailed from Amoy 16 days later with coolies. The close arrival of the two ships caused confusion in the waterfront holding area with some uncertainty as to which coolies came off which ship. The Boletin de Colonizacion recorded the combined arrivals as 480, but the Diario de la Marina reported 261 as having arrived on the Panama on 7 February 1853 and 412 on the Blenheim on 8 February.
The 808-ton ship Blenheim was the fourth consigned to Villoldo Wardrop. With all the turmoil in Amoy, she eventually sailed from Amoy on 23 October 1852 after waiting 56 days to complete her complement of 453 coolies for Cuba. She arrived a day after the Panama which had sailed on 12 August but had suffered a mutiny on the voyage.
The contracts were signed by Aeneas Mackay (of Tait & Co.) committing the recruits to the orders of the Junta de Formento, or whomever the contract was transferred, to for a period of eight years. Each coolie was to be paid four pesos a
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month commencing 48 hours after arrival in Havana and would be given eight ounces of salted meat, one and a half pounds of bananas, sweet potatoes or other root food. He would also be given two changes of clothing, including a woollen shirt and a blanket each year, as well as medical assistance and supervision. If his illness lasted more than 15 days, nursing care would continue but his pay would be suspended. Mackay was to provide transportation and advance nine pesos in addition to suits of new clothes for the voyage. Villoldo Wardrop & Cia or their assigns would deduct a peso a month until the advance was repaid in full.
Contract No. 331 indicated that 19 year old Tan Lim of Chang Chu in Fukien signed his printed Spanish and Chinese contract in Amoy on 21 October 1852, two days before sailing. The contract had an additional name written in. It is not known when the Christian name Vicente was added but it would appear that it was inserted in his contract on his arrival and before his transfer to the new holder of the contract. This practice became commonplace in subsequent ship arrivals.
The 605-ton British barque Gertrude, under Captain John Campbell, left Amoy on 12 October 1852 with 299 coolies bound for Havana. She was the third of Wardrop's ships. For the first three days, the weather was so boisterous that the coolies were all sea-sick, and could not eat anything. On the fourth day, the men were each given one biscuit and a half as their nourishment for the day. When the weather improved, they were allowed rice, salt fish, and vegetables, but not enough to sate the hunger of four days.
On the fifth day, they managed to make the crew understand they wanted more rice. Two bags were then delivered to them, each containing upwards of a picul, but the rice was very dirty, and had a great deal of paddy in it. On the sixth day, four bags of rice were served, two in the morning and two in the evening; each bag contained from 110 to 120 catties, but about one quarter of the quantity was inedible paddy. For some reason, the only two galleys they had were not capable of cooking it all, and they were still hungry. They made signs that they wanted more galleys, but the Europeans could not understand them.
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It was on the next day that the affray took place. It started between the 80 men of the Tang clan and the 100 from Chuan Chue, all from Hokien. They began to fight and throw basins, etc., at each other. An apprentice had been placed on the main deck to assist the carpenter and to keep the men away. He stated that the carpenter was making a studdingsail boom. He was surrounded by a good many coolies around him who kept stepping on the boom, and rubbing out the lines he had drawn on it. He did not know whether they were doing so in fun, or else to annoy the man. In the ensuing scuffle, they so badly wounded the carpenter that he died from his wounds.
The captain's deposition provided a different point of view. On the 20th, at about half past ten, he was asked by some of the coolies to go below to see a sick man. As he did so, he was immediately surrounded by a number of coolies. When he heard a yell on deck, he realised that something was wrong, and jumped on the ladder to go up, but was held by the foot. He succeeded in reaching the deck, but was struck on the forehead with what he thought was an iron belaying pin. He estimated that there must have been 150 men about, but was not positive. He fought his way through them.
When he reached the poop, he was attacked by another coolie with a boarding pike. He grappled with him, and threw him down on the main deck. Joined by his men, the captain then drove back the coolies, who were attempting to reach the poop, using belaying pins, pieces of wood, iron bolts, and
stones.
The ship's steward and the captain's wife then supplied the party on the poop with loaded muskets through the cabin skylight. Captain Campbell fired about six shots without hitting anyone; but a seaman, Atkinson, who proved to be somewhat of a marksman, shot, and killed two, while wounding another two with just four rounds. The Chinese then began to disappear below; and when the mate and three seamen who had been on the forecastle, finally succeeded in joining their shipmates aft by means of the rigging, about a dozen of the Chinese went forward, falling on their knees, seemingly to beg for mercy. The captain made signs to bring
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the ringleaders aft. The Chinese brought forward four men, who were placed in irons. From the commencement until something like order was restored, the insurrection lasted two hours. The Gertrude put into Singapore on the 28 October 1852.
At the subsequent inquiry, one of the Chinese stated that the captain paid $111D 2 to each of them and they signed a paper to that effect. But when they went below, the Chinese man who had brought them to the ship then took the money away from them, saying that it was for their provisions for the voyage. He did not know whether the captain knew this or not. They also each received a suit of clothes, a shirt, and waistcoat.
There was no one on board who could interpret between the Europeans and Chinese. They made themselves understood by signs. Captain Campbell, "unaccustomed to the Chinese face", was unable to identify any one of the coolies engaged in the attack. During the gale, 1lb of biscuit was ordered for each man, but it and the provisions were served to the different groups, not individually to each man. He went on to say he "never heard any complaints, nor did the Chinese make signs that they did not have enough to eat .
The testimony of the Chief and second mates and three of the seamen was in accord with that of the Master's. The chief mate, Robert Campbell, said that the ship earned �9.10 for each coolie landed in Havana, and that it was in the captain's interest that the coolies be well-fed and kept in good health. He declared that the captain's orders had always been "to treat the coolies well, to speak kindly to them, and to avoid giving offence . The Gertrude eventually continued on her voyage to Havana, arriving there on 14 March 1853. Only 198 Chinese were landed, a mortality rate of 33.78%.
The 440-ton British ship, Lady Amherst, departed from Amoy on 29 November 1852 with 275 coolies for Havana. The men appeared happy and contented until 13 December when it was learned they were contemplating murdering the captain. They resisted when told to return below deck and did so only when confronted with arms. As the Lady Amherst was near the Natunas, Captain David Reid headed for Singapore,
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arriving on 15 December. On arrival, the crew refused to sail and a new crew signed on. She arrived at Havana on 18 April 1853 with 225 Chinese still on board.
The next three ships were much more successful for Villoldo Wardrop. The Columbus eventually sailed from Amoy after waiting 90 days and the Inchiman and Sir Thomas Gresham sailed quietly from Namoa also without incident. Their last shipment however was somewhat delayed.
On 17 January 1853, the British ship, Medina, received her papers from the Amoy Consulate, and cleared for Namoa, to ship coolies for Havana. But the majority of the crew refused to heave up the anchor; claiming that the ship was short-handed.
On obtaining additional numbers, the crew of the Medina still refused to obey, and a complaint was laid against them at the Consulate. Acting Consul Backhouse convened a Court at which the crew said they believed their lives to be in danger, as the ship was taking coolies to Havana. Captain Joshua Sandford admitted that proceeding to Namoa for the purpose of shipping coolies was an illegal act, in contravention of the Treaties. He further admitted that in some instances he neglected to comply with regulations, endeavouring to carry the ship to sea without a proper complement of men. The case was dismissed, with the men being warned to return to their duty.
The agents undertook to provide them with a passage to Hong Kong, after they had worked the vessel to Namoa. They persisted, saying they had no confidence in the Master, but they were ordered back on board. However, that same evening, seventeen of them re-appeared at the Consulate, seeking shelter. On the Monday morning Backhouse requested Commander Ellman to help take them back to the Medina. They once again returned to the Consulate, and said they would take the vessel to Namoa as long as they were guaranteed their wages and a passage to Hong Kong. The captain agreed with each man being furnished with an account showing the balance of wages due to him. The Medina sailed from Amoy for Namoa then loaded 450 men
there for Havana, also without incident. Leaving on 1 March 1853 she arrived on 1 September with 380 on board.
The Medina was the ninth and last ship to carry coolies for Villoldo Wardrop. They had all been British vessels. In total 3,153 Chinese coolies were embarked for Cuba, but only 2,397 arrived. With one non-arrival and three mutinies, the success rate amounted to only 76.02%, which prompted Commissary Judge George Canning Backhouse in Havana (the brother of Amoy Acting British Consul Backhouse) to remark that the undertaking did not seem to have turned out well, and that he had been informed by the firm that it "had no intention of further engaging in Chinese importations .
Pereda Machado
When the Spanish Junta in Cuba granted permission to Villodo to import Chinese, they also granted a similar quota to Manuel Bernabe de Pereda in partnership with Machado. Pereda was a Portuguese with relatives in Macao. Nevertheless, with the awarding of the contract, they appointed Ignacio Fernandez de Castro, to be their Emigration Agent in China. Aware of the problems in Amoy, Castro based himself in Macao and turned to Jos� Vicente Jorge to help with the recruitment of Chinese labourers there. Jorge obliged with three ships in which he had a financial interest.
The first to load for Pereda was the Portuguese brig Sophia under Captain Rozario. 250 coolies were crammed into the small 240-ton vessel which sailed on 31 December 1852, arriving at Havana 125 days later on 17 April 1853. Despite the gross overloading of the vessel, only 17 died on the voyage, representing a mortality rate of 6.8%.
Another Portuguese ship, the 376-ton Viajante, left Macao on 14 January 1853 with 300 Chinese under Captain Francisco Passos. Scurvy killed most of those 51 coolies who did not survive. The third Jorge vessel was the 894-ton Spanish Victoria which sailed on 8 March 1853. She too suffered a loss of 13.49% of her original 393 complement.
Pereda suffered only one mutiny in the nine years he was in the trade, during which he conducted 33 shipments. It was
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F
the first mutiny on a sailing from Macao. The 400-ton Portuguese ship Adamastor left on 24 October 1853 but did not arrive in Havana. Few details are known, but under the threat of losing his life, Captain da Souza was compelled to take his vessel to Singapore where all the Chinese deserted the ship immediately after her arrival.
The American 713-ton ship, Hound, had been chartered on 16 September 1854 by James Tait for a voyage from New York to Manila and thence to Macao. Using the Spanish calculation of 1.5 tons for each colonist, Jos� Vicente Jorge arranged to put 470 Chinese on her. Captain Amos Peck would take on 230 only, claiming that he had taken the maximum number allowed under American regulations. He had been warned by Peter Parker (1804-1888), the Acting Commissioner of the United States, that if he took more on board and put into a port in the United States, his vessel would be liable to forfeiture. The Hound lost only two of her 230-man complement.
Pereda was then granted a further allocation of 10,000 in direct continuation of their previous allocation even though his permit was not issued until 19 October 1855. Pereda had three shipments from Swatow in 1857 before taking three shipments from Macao in 1858. The Dutch Soolo had a mortality rate of 0.50% and the Spanish Bella Vascongada 9.35%, but the 567-ton German barque Kepler was not as successful, suffering a loss of 72 of the 364 men whom Captain Hasselhoff had taken on in Macao on 19 February 1858, a mortality rate of 19.78%.
Emigrante was the unfortunate British-flagged Emigrant, which had originally been chartered to carry emigrants to British Guiana in 1853. She became a Portuguese vessel following the hurried cancellation of her charter. The 753-ton ship Emigrante took 550 Chinese from Swatow to Havana on 26 January 1854. Captain Guterres lost 11 men on this 117-day voyage, arriving on 23 May 1854 still with 539 men on board.
The Emigrante took 230 days on her second coolie voyage. This now Spanish ship left Macao on 15 April 1856 and did not arrive in Havana until 2 December 1856 after a
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voyage via Manila and St Helena. Captain J.F. San Juan took on board 504 Chinese in Macao but was able to discharge only 316 of them in Havana. The mortality rate was 37.30%.
Emigrante's third voyage was much better, with Captain San Juan managing to land 378 of her original 400 complement. Her fourth voyage in the coolie trades was Pereda's final shipment, which was from Manila. The number boarding at this unusual port was not reported, but the Boletin de Colonizacion in Havana listed her as having arrived on 26 September 1860 with 178 asiatico" labourers.
Pereda did not abandon Amoy altogether. His first shipment from Amoy was on the Bella Gallega, a 499-ton Spanish ship under Captain E. Benavides, which left on 20 January 1853 with a large contingent of 403 coolies for Havana. She lost a mast on the voyage and took 158 days to reach her destination. This was also the first non-British ship to be utilised from Amoy. His second shipment from Amoy was on the 446-ton British barque Sappho which sailed with 250 men without incident. The third and final shipment from Amoy was made on the 1,210-ton American ship Sky Lark in 1855 taking on 593 men, again without incident.
Swatow was undoubtedly the favoured port for Pereda. No fewer than 15 shipments were made from that port, the first being on the British Menzies on 26 December 1853. Their three shipments from Swatow in 1855 were on British ships. The 1,121-ton Roxburgh Castle, the 1,241-ton Martin Luther and the 1,460-ton Carpentaria all had speedy voyages with the latter taking only 64 days. They arrived in Havana with mortality rates of around 4.5%. As Swatow was not then a Treaty Port, the captains of those ships risked being fined by the British authorities. Pereda's three sailings from Swatow in 1856 were on the American ships, Golden Eagle, 1,121 tons, the 1,067-ton War Hawk, and the 688-ton Florida. This was followed in 1857 by the American Waverly, the Peruvian Architect, and the British, Robert Small, all with mortality rates below 5.83%. The last ship to sail from Swatow in 1858 was the Alavesa which entered the coolie trade as a 502-ton Spanish ship. She left on 1 April 1858 with a cargo of 360 Chinese consigned to Pereda,
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Machado y Cia. By then high losses were being sustained in Swatow with Captain M. Dobaran losing 142 on the voyage, a mortality rate of 39.44%.
In December 1857, Captain G.H. Carlton of the 1,650- ton American ship Wandering Jew entered into a charter agreement with Andrew Conolly, a British subject, to transport coolies from Shanghai to Havana. Captain Carlton had supposedly given a guarantee to American Consul Knapp which he would forfeit if she loaded coolies for Cuba. Just before leaving his post, Knapp's assurances caused the Chinese authorities to grant clearance to the Wandering Jew, and handed the captain his papers. When acting American Consul Alfred L. Freeman checked with Captain Carlton, he denied having given such a guarantee, and immediately left Shanghai to anchor downstream at Woosung to await his cargo of coolies. Freeman asked for assistance from the Chinese authorities who immediately ordered district magistrates to arrest anyone trying to send men on board. One official claimed Captain Carlton asserted he was merely taking a few passengers to Fukien Province. When British Consul Daniel Brooke Robertson became involved, he promptly charged Conolly with breaching the Treaty of Nanking, as it was illegal for Chinese to emigrate. He was found guilty and fined $500 for the offence.
Consul Freeman boarded the Wandering Jew on 28 January 1858 and examined the 236 coolies then on the ship. Many claimed they were given $3 to work for a few days on the ship, while others were lured to Shanghai to serve as soldiers or servants for the mandarin. None had any idea that they were being transported overseas. When told of their plight, 117 of them were found to be there against their will, and were handed over to the Chinese authorities. The remainder, mainly beggars, preferred to emigrate rather than starve to death. Captain Carleton was given a written warning but he defiantly proceeded on to Amoy on 31 January to complete his contract with the Spanish Agent Lorenzo Soto.
The Wandering Jew arrived at Amoy on 3 February 1858 with 130 coolies, and Captain Carleton had no trouble in charming the Acting American Consul, the Rev. Elihu
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Doty, into declaring him, "a gentlemanly person of correct feelings and bearing", and therefore unwilling to stop the Wandering Jew from proceeding to Havana. The ship sailed from Amoy for Swatow on 5 February 1858, without taking on any men. There she took on 220 coolies, and sailed on 11 February with 350 coolies, arriving on 15 May after a 99-day voyage with 259 able to walk ashore, a 26% mortality rate.
The last Pereda Chinese charter was the 1,228-ton Spanish ship Concepcion on her first voyage as a coolie ship. It also introduced Captain Juan A. Tuton to the trade. On 17 April 1859 he took 480 coolies from Macao to Havana, delivering 423 of them after a 115-day voyage.
Pereda conducted 33 shipments between 1852 and 1860. Apart from the unknown number taken on board in Manila, he recruited 13,146 Chinese coolies of which 11,834 were able to land. The average mortality rate was 9.98% with only four shipments incurring losses in excess of 20%.
There was one shipment that did not seem to get prior Government approval. On 10 December 1855 Emigration Agent Jos� Jorge loaded 250 Chinese on the 348-ton Spanish- flagged Paquita at Macao bound for Havana. Three days earlier they had signed a de Castro worded contract that consigned them to Julian Zulueta. On arrival, 246 Chinese were able to walk ashore, suffering only four deaths on that 103-day voyage. She was the last of three sailings from Macao that year.
Spanish-born Julian Zulueta was a slave-trader, merchant, and multiple-plantation owner, the most noteworthy being "Alava", a modern and efficient estate. This "prince of slave owners" and "acknowledged political boss" was considered the representative of the great planters. As a member of the Havana City Council between 1860 and 1876, he was Deputy Mayor three times and once, Mayor.
New Cuban Allocations
A Spanish Royal Decree of 22 March 1854 allowed private persons in Cuba to introduce colonists on their own account, subject to permission from the Government. Drake y Compania was given permission to import 6,000 asiaticos on
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25 January 1855, while Torices, Puente y Cia was given permission to import 10,000 Chinese on 6 June 1855.
Drake y Cia
Santiago Drake and his brothers were principals in the company, but shipments were usually made in conjunction with Pedrosos and J.M. Morales. Drake employed Nicolas Tanco Armero as his Emigration Agent and commenced his participation in the coolie trades with one shipment in 1855 and five in 1856. Another 12 shipments were undertaken in 1857 and a final one in 1858. Although Amoy was no longer a significant recruiting port following the riots of 1852, it was the port chosen by Drake for five shipments, including the first American ship to be chartered by them.
This 1,600-ton American clipper ship Sea Witch under Captain W. Lang with 581 men on board was on her second voyage with coolies, this time from Amoy for Cuba, when on 29 March 1856, she lost the breeze as she was approaching Havana with a pilot on board. She began drifting inshore then ran aground about 12 miles west of the port and began taking in water. Captain Lang managed to walk to the Drake offices where he arranged with the Harbour Master to have two naval steamships and an armada of launches and boats to take his passengers and crew ashore. The Government tally sheet recorded 485 men were landed on 29 March, but with the confusion following the rescue it was not until 9 June 1857 that the Boletin de Colonizacion listed 460 men as arriving on the Sea Witch.
The three departures from Swatow in 1856 were on British ships. By then the Chinese Passengers' Act had come into force. It required all British ships carrying Chinese passengers to call at Hong Kong in order to obtain a proper clearance from the Emigration Officer there. Only Captain Robert Putt of the Henry Miller did so, and he was praised for disembarking his over-supply of passengers when he arrived in Hong Kong. He had the extra men sent ashore, and provided them with board and lodging before finding passage for them back to Swatow. The 433-ton Henry Miller had left on 19 July with 191, losing only six on the 124-day voyage.
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The 819-ton Hope left on 14 March with 504 coolies, of whom 452 were able to land.
Edwin Fox arrived at Hong Kong on 17 August 1857 after almost a full year of frustration seeking cargoes in China. She was then chartered by a local agent to carry coolies from Swatow to Cuba. Much time was spent getting the ship ready for some 300 people, particularly with regard to fresh water. Many barrels had to be loaded in Hong Kong before departure for Swatow. Regulations required that 3.6 metres of space and 4.5 litres of water per head be available for each passenger, for 100 days.
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On sailing on 15 September for Swatow, she met a typhoon, but the ship eventually arrived a few weeks later. Preparations at Swatow were slow and the passengers did not board until late October. She finally sailed for Hong Kong on 1 November to complete documentation and top up with fresh water.
The Edwin Fox departed for Cuba on 9 November 1857 with 310 passengers aboard. The barque proceeded through the Gaspar and Sunda Straits and thence across the Indian Ocean, arriving at Cape Town on 14 January, 65 days out of Hong Kong. Six days later, she departed after replenishing at Table Bay. On 19 March 1858, the Edwin Fox arrived at Havana with 269 passengers, a loss rate of 13.23%.
Mutinies
Two vessels not only suffered high casualties but were also victims of mutinies. A third vessel subjected to mutiny resulted in the voyage being abandoned.
The 1,002-ton British ship Gulnare arrived at Hong Kong on 13 March 1857, Captain John Wardrop claiming that she had left Swatow on 11 March with a crew of 32 men and 432 Chinese consigned to Drake in Havana. On the following morning, a desperate and well-combined attack was made by the emigrants to obtain possession of the ship. When they failed through the determined conduct of the officers and crew, they attempted to set her on fire. They were finally put down, after severely wounding the third mate and one of the crew. Nine of the Chinese were shot, many
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more wounded, and three jumped overboard to avoid capture. The next day, the most prominent twenty of the Chinese were placed in the custody of the police when the ship put in at Hong Kong.
The Emigration Officer was directed to inquire into the state of the provisions, etc., on board the Gulnare. He reported that she was provided in every way in a complete and satisfactory manner. Following investigation by the Chief Magistrate, eighteen were committed to trial at the Supreme Court for piracy. To facilitate the despatch of the ship, the Chief Justice held an extra criminal session of the Supreme Court on the 27th March. All eighteen were pronounced guilty, with three-Ng-king-seang, Cheem-koong-sew, and Chun-amoon-sentenced to execution, and a sentence of "Death recorded" to be entered up against the remaining fifteen.48
At a meeting of the Executive Council on 6 April 1857, Bowring, despite objections by the Lieutenant-Governor and the Colonial Secretary, decided that justice would be sufficiently answered if the extreme penalty was carried out in the case of Ng-king-seang only. This man had clearly acted as a ringleader; was apparently of a different, if not of a superior, station in life from the other prisoners. He was executed on Thursday, April 9th, and the other 17 prisoners were transported for life. Labouchere replied that he had no doubt that Bowring used, to the best of his discretion, the prerogative of mercy with which he was invested. This was to be the only official execution of a mutineer in the history of the Chinese diaspora.
The Gulnare sailed again on 1 April 1857 with 326 emigrants, and arrived at Havana on 19 August. On that voyage of some 20 weeks, 58 Chinese died, 21 of fever, eight of dysentery, 12 (including nine opium smokers) of debility, three by suicide and 14 of other various diseases. The number landed was 268 resulting in a mortality rate of 37.96%.
The third Drake mutiny for 1857 was on the 2,006-ton American clipper ship Challenge. She departed on 18 October 1857, and took 115 days against the monsoon from Swatow to Havana. Soon after departure, the coolies rose
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over a dispute relating to the amount of water being issued. The mutiny was suppressed, but only 620 of the 915 that boarded were able to walk ashore on 10 February 1858. The mortality rate of 32.24% did not distinguish those who died as result of the mutiny from other causes.
When Captain Bakker of the Dutch barque Henrietta Maria left Macao on 9 February 1857, she had a cargo of 350 Chinese coolies bound for Havana. They were being consigned to Drake Morales. About two weeks later, in the Palawan Straits, the coolies set upon the crew who took to the boats. The remaining boats were taken over by 240 of the Chinese, setting off for the land they could see in the distance. Four crew members, left behind in the mad scramble to get away, together with 60 coolies, were left to drift about until they were come across by the American Coeur de Lion. When the captain learned of the revolt, he ordered his chief mate, Crawford, to take the ship to Singapore.
When the Henrietta Maria arrived in Singapore, the Dutch authorities were informed, and they quickly sent a contingent from the warship de Haai to take over the ship, and sail her to Batavia. The American Consul was advised of the proceedings, but even as this was being done, the American Vice Consul unilaterally authorised Captain Crawford to raise the American flag on the Henrietta Maria. When the British Assistant Resident Councillor Vaughn went on board to hand the ship over to the Dutch, Crawford refused to lower the American flag.
The next day, Vaughn again requested that the American flag be lowered, when, on being rebuffed, he went to the British frigate Spartan for assistance. With an armed guard behind him, Vaughn forcibly took the halyard from Crawford, and lowered the American flag, while signalling the Dutch de Haai to come alongside. Next day the Henrietta Maria, in company with the de Haai, left for Batavia. Captain Crawford and two of his men remained on board, being assured that their claims on the vessel would be fully heard in Batavia. Months later, the Governor of Singapore wrote to the American Consul acknowledging he was wrong in his
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direction, and offered to pay reparation for damages that may have been sustained.
In the four years between 1855 and 1858 the Drake brothers recruited a total of 7,838 Chinese coolies over 19 shipments, but were able to land only 5,606 of them in Cuba. The overall mortality rate of 28.48% came about from two of the three mutinies suffering casualties in excess of 30%, in addition to eight other shipments with mortality rates above 24%. This was the highest rate of all the importers in the Cuban trade.
Torices Puente y Cia
Rafael Rodrigues Torices and his partner Puente gained entry to the coolie trade with an initial allocation of 10,000 Chinese in 1855. On being awarded the allocation, he formed the Compania Asiatica de la Habana together with Dr Marcial Dupieris, the physician who examined the first Chinese arrivals, and sugar refaccionista" Antonio Ramon Ferran. A fourth partner was plantation owner Juan Atilano Colome. Ferran was to be their emigration agent in China where he opened his own barracoon.
Unlike Villoldo Wardrop and Drake, who had strong British associations, Torices's connections were with American interests. The partnership made 20 American shipments out of the eventual total of 55. Ferran however had also developed a close relationship with the British firm of Lyall, Still & Co. in Hong Kong, and would have employed more British ships had it not been for the Chinese Passengers' Act. Two of the three shipments he made from Hong Kong were affected by that Act, which came into effect in 1856.
The first Torices shipment was on the British 1,170-ton Australia which left Swatow on 30 October 1855 bound for Havana, with 450 labourers including the first recorded shipment of seven girls. With 364 disembarking, the mortality rate was a discouraging 19.11%. Ferran however persisted with three departures from Swatow in 1856. With a very high load factor of 0.85, the 459-ton Spanish ship Teresita took on 390 coolies on 6 February 1856. Captain Cardona was able to discharge only 327 of them,
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experiencing a mortality rate of 16.15%. Captain F. Buis of the 707-ton Dutch Vriendschap left on 19 November 1856 with 399 coolies on a voyage to Havana. He handed 352 of them to Cuban importer Rafael Torices 140 days later. The mortality rate was 11.78%. Only one shipment from Swatow, the 560-ton German Felix, had a mortality rate below 10%.
There had been only one shipment of indentured labour from Hong Kong in 1848 (for Sydney) and two in 1853-54, to Melbourne and Jamaica, before Ferran entered into a contract. with the prominent British shipowner and manager Lyall, Still and Co. for three shipments from Hong Kong. The first was the 1,036-ton American clipper ship Swordfish, which loaded 375 men on 27 December 1855. Captain Osgood took only 80 days to reach Havana, and did not lose a single man. However Ferran was not to be as fortunate with his subsequent shipments from Hong Kong. The Chinese Passengers' Act had just been enacted.
Chinese Passengers' Act
When British ships began taking passengers from China in 1847, captains simply took as many as could physically fit on board, sometimes as tightly packed as on the slave ships that plied the Middle Passage from Africa to America and the West Indies. When the British Passengers' Act of 1849 the twelfth since the first attempt in 1803 to ensure passengers were not abused on ships-was passed, it was not generally regarded as applying outside British ports and parts of the Mediterranean. But Clause 4 also said that the Act extended "in every colonial voyage".
When Consul Layton in Amoy sought advice in 1847, the Home Government had determined that the Passengers' Act did not apply to ships sailing from China. But it immediately set about once again to amend the Passengers' Act. A Passengers' Act of 1852 had just been passed, but by then, the British Government had already decided that the 1852 Act was inadequate and not suited for Chinese emigrants. Along with a wide-ranging amendment to the Act of 1852, it began drafting a new Act specifically to cover the movement of ships engaged in the transportation of Chinese
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r
passengers. Neither the Hong Kong authorities, nor any officials at the British Consulates were consulted, but general comments in earlier despatches on the conditions on the vessels used were taken into account.
The Chinese Passengers' Act, 1855 and the Passengers' Act 1855 were each passed on 14 August 1855. The Chinese Act contained only 17 Clauses and six Regulations in three Schedules; compared to 102 Clauses in the new Passengers' Act.
The Chinese Passengers' Act defined a Chinese passenger ship as any ship carrying from any port in Hong Kong, and every British ship carrying from any port in China or within one hundred miles of the coast thereof, more than twenty passengers, being natives of Asia. Clause IV deemed no Chinese Passenger Ship should clear out or proceed to sea on any voyage of more than seven days, until the Master had received a Certificate from the Emigration Officer.
Unlike in the main Act, the requirement for bunks was not mentioned, nor was the tonnage check included. The Harbour Master was determined to be the one who would provide the certificates of survey as to the seaworthiness of the vessel and the number of passengers it would be allowed to carry under the Passengers' Act.
The Chinese Passengers' Act was to come into force on 1 January 1856. Colonial Secretary Labouchere emphasised to Governor Bowring in Hong Kong that the duties prescribed devolved on the Emigration Officer, and it was this officer alone who controlled the amount of protection the emigrants would receive.
In Schedule A, no Chinese Passenger Ship could proceed to sea without a Certificate from the Emigration Officer. That officer was not bound to provide a certificate within seven days; and until evidence of an approved surgeon and interpreter were on board. The Emigration Officer was free to inspect the ship at any time to ensure that she was seaworthy, properly manned, equipped, fitted, and ventilated, as well as not carrying any cargo that could prejudice the health or safety of the passengers. The space appropriated to the passengers was to be at least twelve superficial feet and
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seventy-two cubic feet for every adult, with two children aged between one and twelve years counted as one adult. An area of five superficial feet was also to be allocated on the upper deck for exercise purposes.
Schedule A also prescribed the Dietary Scale and Medical Comforts applicable for every 100 passengers, and warned that provisions, water and fuel was to be of good quality and sufficient for the duration of the voyage as proclaimed by the Governor. The sixth regulation prohibited the Emigration Officer from issuing his Certificate until he had mustered the passengers to ascertain that they understood whither they were going and understood the nature of the Contract of Service they had signed. He could detain the ship if he thought that fraud or violence had been used in the collection of the passengers.
The Chinese Passengers' Act was not generally welcomed in Hong Kong, both in commercial circles and within Government. Newly arrived Attorney General Thomas Chisholm Anstey openly criticised the many shortcomings of the Act.
One of the first ships to load under the new Chinese Passengers' Act was the John Calvin. By early March 1856, Lyall, Still, & Co. her Hong Kong owners, had gathered 301 coolies on board and applied for a clearance for 302 passengers (the ship had capacity for 301 and a portion). When the passengers were mustered and the contracts explained by Emigration Officer Hillier, all but eighty-one declined to go.
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Hillier was not convinced that the dissidents were genuinely unwilling, but evidence of consent in each case was necessary. George Lyall was told that a certificate could only be granted for the passengers who had come on board willingly; and had signed their contracts with full knowledge of its contents. Lyall could not produce this evidence, as the contracts had for the most part been witnessed before the Procurador of Macao. He preferred, therefore, to receive a clearance for the eighty-one who had consented, and offered to have any who did not want to go to Havana taken to Macao and there disembarked. He restated that intention to the
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Colonial Secretary, William T. Mercer, who, together with Hillier, said it was a matter for Lyall to decide.
Hillier signed the certificate, but for 81 men only, and he did not order the men to be taken off. He had been a seafarer himself, and would have had a good idea as to how Captain Thornhill would react to the order to disembark the surplus men. Captain Alfonso Thornhill, born in 1826 with only a Class 2 Masters Certificate issued in 1849, took the certificate, and without seeking further instructions from the owners, sailed directly for Havana on 8 March 1856.
Thornhill would have escaped any recrimination if only he had not suffered the consequences of having lost 111 coolies and eleven of his crew by death from fever, dysentery, anasarca and the effects of opium. After leaving Anjer, he was forced to anchor in the Straits of Sunda until 15 April, as the wind was coming from the south-west, with a three-knot current setting to the eastward. It was during that time that typhus fever broke out with ten deaths.
According to the crew, an English super-cargo took charge of the passengers and issued the provisions in accordance with the dietary scale, which was ample, and there were no complaints. Water and firewood were not provided according to scale, but were sufficient. They had blankets, and slept in good and comfortable fitted-up berths in the 'tween deck. There was no overcrowding. On fine days, all the passengers, including the sick, were allowed on deck. The sick were attended by a Chinese surgeon.
Between clearing the Straits on the 17th April, and arriving at St Helena on the 28th June, he lost another 55 coolies. He arrived at Havana on 2 September after a long and tedious passage of 173 days. He received pratique on the 9th after eight days in quarantine, during which time he lost another eleven coolies. The number landed was 175, a 41.86% mortality rate.
An immediate outcome of the problem with the John Calvin was the recognition of the difficulty Hillier faced in confirming the status of each emigrant in a timely manner. As a consequence, within two days of Hillier signing the Emigration Certificate, a Government Notification
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issued, advising persons engaging emigrants to present each labourer before the Emigration Officer or Magistrate, who would then fill in a form which contained the person's name in Chinese and English, his age, his province, district and place, and distinguishing marks if any. Then, as a Justice of the Peace for Hong Kong, he would certify that, on that date, the contract was fully, distinctly and intelligibly explained to the labourer in a dialect he understood, and he had agreed to be bound by the terms. The emigrant also acknowledged the receipt of any advance wages handed to him in the presence of the JP.
Lyall, Still & Co. were the Hong Kong agents for the Duke of Portland which had also been chartered by Ferran residing in Macao. She had been surveyed by J.V. Watkins, the Harbour Master on 28 February and certified to carry 334
passengers.
The first 25 coolies came on board immediately. A week later, 225 came aboard from a steamer from Macao, and then another batch of 86 from the same steamer, after a very rough passage from Macao. By 31 March, some 332 coolies had been placed on the Duke of Portland. Except for the cuddy, the emigrants had the whole of the lower deck. She was fitted with scuttles, and had previously carried emigrants. Two days before the ship was to sail, Emigration Officer Hillier went on board and addressed the men in Chinese. Some 38 men were in their bunks, too ill or still seasick, to go on deck to hear what Hillier had to say. With no objections from the men, Hillier issued the appropriate documentation on 1 April.
This was to be Hillier's last certificate as Emigration Officer. Following a serious altercation with Attorney- General Anstey, he had been appointed British Consul at Bangkok. He sailed for Siam (Thailand) on 10 May on what was to be a short assignment. Soon after his arrival there, he contracted dysentery and died on 14 October 1854. With Hillier's departure for Bangkok, William H. Mitchell was appointed Acting Chief Magistrate and Emigration Officer.
The Duke of Portland was about to sail on 2 April when the Chinese passengers crowded aft, taking belaying pins from the rails and pieces of firewood, yelling and shouting,
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and throwing things overboard. The interpreter later explained that they were rioting because their advance had not been paid. Captain George F. Seymour had been ashore at that time, but on returning and hearing of the riot, returned ashore. He came back with Hillier, in his capacity as the Stipendiary Magistrate, together with a troop of policemen. George Lyall arrived soon after. When the coolies were pacified, several policemen were left on board to act as sentries. They stayed until daybreak when the ship sailed off towards Havana.
The first suicide occurred on the third day and for each day after that, an average of three jumped overboard until they reached the Straits of Sunda. On 15 April, the captain was warned that a plan to take the ship was brewing. When it came about later that day, he was prepared, with canon placed facing the crowd and cutlasses at the ready. The attempt failed, and more than a dozen of the more unruly men were placed in irons. On the evening of the 28th, an attempt was made to rescue one of their ringleaders who had been placed in irons. When one of them threw a large bone at the captain, he thought it time to clear the decks, and in the ensuing struggle, one crewman was wounded in the side.
The general opinion on leaving China was that the coolies appeared in good health. The emigrants were not on short allowance during the voyage. There was plenty of water, rice, and meat. The provisions were served out to the ten cooks twice a day, and they then shared them among the men. The doctor went round twice every day to visit the sick men, and of a night, when called upon.
The water closets were not built for the way in which the Chinese used them. There was always a great stench in the ship. The urine not carried off was left to run along the deck. One water closet was within five feet of the ship's galley. The men slept on mats, which were very lousy. As no soap was provided by the ship, except to the sick, they were very filthy, and were covered with vermin.
The ship lost 136 Chinese (40.72%) on the 151-day passage to Havana, chiefly from congestive fever, similar to the Hong Kong fever. When they could not eat, the crew tried
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to force food down their throats. The captain and Doctor could see the difference between those who died from congestive fever, and those who suffered from the want of opium. The opium required by law was put on board in China, but it was all consumed before the ship arrived at St Helena. The captain gave the doctor full authority to get all the opium and medicines he required at St Helena.
The Duke of Portland had called at the Cocos Islands in the hope of getting vegetables, fresh meat, and fish for the invalids, but to no avail. It was 100 days to St Helena, where, after remaining three days taking on provisions, they had vegetables to within a few days of Havana. No reason was given as to why the ship did not stop at Cape Town. High mortality concerns
The high mortality suffered by the two British ships from Hong Kong caused great concern in London. The John Calvin had sailed three weeks before, but arrived after the Duke of Portland, the first ship to arrive at Havana without scurvy on board 51
The losses of the Chinese was reported in the Havana press, which was repeated in a New York newspaper. The British Shipping and Mercantile Gazette, in turn printed the report stating that the John Calvin had lost 110 men on a 185- day passage, while the Duke of Portland, it was claimed, had lost 130 on her voyage from Hong Kong.
This article was seen by the President of the "Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders" in London. This institution was founded in 1855 by the Church Missionary Society to provide for destitute foreign seamen, who had been abandoned when their ships arrived in England, after being recruited from overseas ports. In what must have seemed an unusual request from a party not directly involved in such matters, President Edward Buxton wrote to the Earl of Clarendon, the Foreign Minister, asking for the facts to be established; not about any Lascar seamen on board, but about the fate of the coolies. As they had boarded in a British colony, Mr Buxton then wrote to Henry
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Labouchere, the Colonial Secretary, also asking about the coolies.
While Clarendon very quickly wrote to John Bowring seeking clarification, Labouchere initially sought information from the CLEC. The Commissioners had no information on the John Calvin, but the owners of the Duke of Portland were able to confirm that 130 coolies had died on that voyage, and that the number engaged was 330, not 500 as reported. The CLEC suggested that the Consul at Havana be asked for further information.
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Consul-General J.T. Crawford, in Havana, was able to reply that he had already instituted investigations, and it was found that neither Master was to blame for the high mortality rates on their vessels. Despite both vessels being well suited for the carriage of emigrants, the deaths could be attributed to the poor quality of the men embarked, and while the water taken on in Hong Kong was good, the voyages were probably too long for the quality to be maintained. He enclosed a translation of the detailed Cuban medical report.
But that was not the end of the matter. On 5 December, the Times printed a police report on proceedings relating to the Duke of Portland. The Committee of Privy Council for Trade saw that report, and immediately requested the Local Marine Board of London to inquire into the case.
Not satisfied with directing the Marine Board to inquire into the Duke of Portland, the Privy Council for Trade also requested the Lord Advocate for Scotland to inquire into the case of the John Calvin, which was then in Greenock.
The investigation team took depositions from several of the crew, but not the Master, who had by then left the ship for London. As the ship was still in port, Edwin Hanley, the measuring surveyor of the Customs at Greenock, was directed to measure her in accordance with the Chinese Passengers Act, 1855, Schedule A s.4.
Hanley's measurements showed that the 1,823 superficial feet in the 'tween decks, gave twelve superficial feet to each of 152 adult passengers. The cubic feet in the same space amounted to 12,152, which also gave 80 cubic feet to each of those passengers. The height of the 'tween
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decks was six feet eight inches; and it was this extraordinary height which allowed 80 cubic feet to each passenger. Had the 'tween decks been the usual height of six feet, the cubic space would have been only 72 feet, being the space prescribed in the said Act. The measurement showed that there was, on the upper deck of the John Calvin, 1,329 superficial feet, which give a space of five superficial feet per adult left clear on the upper deck for 266 passengers.
It was determined that there was no reason to attribute the sickness on board both vessels to overcrowding. However, it was found that the Emigration Officer in Hong Kong included all those parts of the upper deck which were housed over in his measurement, which were not the intention of the Act.
High mortality rates suffered by all four shipments for Drake from Amoy. Two British ships, the 783-ton Admiral in 1857 and the 1,190-ton Tasmania in 1858 had losses of 24.73% and 29.16% respectively. This was in spite of Captain James Nourse (1828-1897)" taking only 92 days for the voyage. The passenger/ton ratio on the Tasmania was only 0.31 which led to some doubt as to the effectiveness of that control formula.
Bellona was the 885-ton Dutch ship used for Drake's second shipment from Amoy. Captain Tentam needed 226 days to deliver 319 men after taking on 500 on 10 May 1856. The mortality rate amounted to 36.20%. That was followed by the Robinet-chartered Cora, which departed on her second coolie voyage on 20 October 1856. On that voyage only 315 men landed out of a total complement of 600, a mortality rate of 47.50%. The rest had died of dysentery along with the Mate, doctor and nine of the crew. This was the highest mortality rate since the inception of the indentured labour trades.
Drake shipments continued to suffer high mortality rates. The one sailing from Hong Kong undertaken by the 342-ton American ship Tuskina had a loss of 24.53%. Captain Broadbent lost 55 of the 227 men he loaded there. This loss was matched by the British 1,327-ton Catherine Glen which left Swatow on 5 December with 597 men. She suffered a
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mortality rate of 26.80%. This loss rate was equalled by another British ship, the 892-ton Earl of Eglinton with the last of twelve Drake shipments from Swatow in 1856-57.
After a long period of shuffling between ports seeking a cargo, the 279-ton Chilean brig Alianza finally departed from Swatow on 1 April 1857 with 256 Chinese consigned to Drake. When she arrived in Havana on 26 October, Captain A. Wilson was able to land only 155 of them. This large mortality rate of 39.45% was put down to the extended 208- day passage and the serious overcrowding on the vessel. The passenger/ton ratio was 0.92.
Macao Regulations for Chinese Emigration
By 1855, it became clear that Macao was the most suitable port for shipping coolies. The Portuguese authorities were well aware of the abuses, which characterised the traffic in coolies at Amoy, Swatow, Cumsingmoon, and Whampoa, and adopted measures which should have satisfied the most cautious of legislators and humanitarians around the world. Ordinances in 1853 and 1855 allowed the Macao government to assume control of the coolie houses, the registering of contracts and for the coolies to be inspected by the Procurador on shore and by the Port Capitan on board ship.
Taking the lead from the Chinese Passengers' Act, on 5 June 1856, the Portuguese authorities immediately issued "Regulations for Chinese Emigration at Macao", which detailed the processes to be followed by brokers, emigration agents and their registered depots, and the vessels on which the colonists (emigrants) were shipped.54
Mutinies
A low point for Ferran was the number of mutinies his captains had to endure. Of the eight vessels he was responsible for, four of them resulted in the vessels not reaching their destination. There were four other Torices mutinies, three undertaken by his successor Vargas, and the final one from Whampoa.
The 395-ton British barque Samuel Enderby sailed from Macao on 24 November 1855 with 200 Chinese for Havana.
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In a letter from St Helena, Captain Henderson said the coolies rose two days after clearing the Straits of Sunda Strait, "making a rush aft, yelling and howling hideously, and armed with everything they could lay their hands on, viz., the axes used for cutting their firewood, the choppers, knives and cleavers used for cooking etc". The crew got out muskets and overpowered them and they retreated to the 'tween decks. Two of the ringleaders were put in irons. There had been no indication of subordination, and all had appeared to be remarkably contented and happy.
They had been fed beef, pork and salt fish on alternate days, with pickles and all the rice and bread they wished for. One gallon of water was provided each per day. After that a continuous guard was kept with loaded muskets as the captain dared not close the hatchways for fear of suffocation. He was strongly of the opinion that, "Every vessel in the trade ought to have iron bars across all the hatchways so as to have only one passage up and down to the 'tween decks"." The ship continued on her voyage of 101 days, delivering 196 persons to Torices on 4 March 1856.
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The 492-ton Portuguese ship Resolucao left Macao on 19 February 1856 for Havana with 450 men on board. There were two versions of what happened then. Singapore and Hong Kong newspapers reported that, three days out, the Resolucao ran into heavy weather and sprung a leak. Over the next few days the leak got worse and Captain Fernandes attempted to make course for Singapore, but as the leak got worse, he then headed for Cape St Jacques. On arrival in the bay, Captain Fernandes ran her aground as there was no hope of saving her. The Chinese passengers overloaded the first boat and many were drowned. The crew then abandoned ship, leaving one boat for the Chinese. Only the captain and ten of the crew managed to reach the shore, and were eventually sent on to Singapore by the local authorities. Two of the passengers who reached the shore reported that all the Chinese, except for about 40 or 50 of them, had reached the shore.
The other version was an account from the Boletim do Governo.56 On the sixth day out, when they saw land the
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coolies embarked on a predetermined plan to murder the crew and run the ship ashore. They stole knives from the galley and assaulted the boatswain before heading for the cabin. There they were met by the captain and mate who drove them back into the hold. Doubting his ability to contain the conflict Captain Fernandes decided to desert the ship, taking the wounded boatswain and the rest of the crew in the boats. They made for Cape St Jacques, where to his surprise he found the Resolucao stranded in the bay. They did not reboard the ship but proceeded ashore where they were harshly treated by the natives. Captain Fernandes eventually reached Singapore where he successfully obtained insurance for the vessel for his owners.
Against the prevailing monsoon, the 760-ton Dutch ship Banca under Captain Heymans left Macao on 12 July 1856 for Havana with 350 passengers. She had been only a few days out when she encountered a severe typhoon. The cargo shifted, and her water casks broke loose, requiring her to put back to Macao, where she anchored in the outer roads. While she was under repair, her officers exercised strict vigilance to prevent the coolies from escaping ashore. All went well for three weeks, until the Chinese doctor warned the captain that mischief was brewing. In preparation for any rising, small arms were placed on the poop, and two guns were loaded with grape and pointed forward.
About 9 o'clock on the night of 8 August, the disturbance commenced, and the crew took refuge on the poop. The captain at first fired a shot or two overhead, but that had no effect. Armed with belaying pins, and bricks from the cooking places, the coolies advanced towards them, yelling frightfully. The captain then gave orders to fire, and immediately a volley was poured into the infuriated mass from the two guns and from the small arms. This put down the riot, and the coolies were driven below. But they sought revenge by setting fire to the ship. Within a few minutes, the captain was appalled to see flames issuing up from the fore hatch.
A frightful scene of carnage followed, as the coolies rushed up on deck, and murdered all the officers. None of
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them, including the captain, were seen again. The ship was soon in a blaze, fore and aft. In about an hour the mainmast fell with a crash, then the fore and mizzen, and about midnight, the magazine blew up with a a tremendous explosion. The ship was hurled into fragments, and a vast number of poor creatures, who had climbed on to the two chains, perished with her. Of the approximately 400 passengers and crew who were on board, only 150 escaped with their lives, the remainder were either burnt in the ship or drowned.
A ship not to arrive was the 675-ton French ship Port de Bordeaux under Captain Minandes, which left Macao on 11 January 1857 with 450 on board. One day out, a fire broke out in the 'tween decks. As the crew fought the fire, a large number of the passengers went aft and took possession of the arms. The interpreter told the captain that some fifty or sixty of them had taken passage for the Straits, and not for Havana. With no choice, Captain Mirandes returned to Macao and threw up his charter. The other emigrants were then put on a Dutch vessel soon after.
In yet another tragedy, the 632-ton French ship Anais, under Captain J. Carignac, departed Swatow on 29 January 1857 with 420 passengers for Havana. The day after departure, the Chinese revolted, killing the captain, officers, supercargo and his son, and took possession of the vessel. They then ran her ashore on Tonglea, five miles distant from Breaker's Point.
The Dutch schooner Boreas, on passage from Singapore to Macao, came across the French vessel Fernandez, flying signals of distress on 16 April 1857 when off Pulo Sepatu. On boarding, the Dutch captain was informed that the coolies had twice risen on the crew and thirteen of them had been killed. They tried to set fire to the ship, but when forced back below they put the fire out themselves. Captain Penney suppressed the insurrection then continued on the 162-day voyage to Havana, losing only a further six men on the way.
Kate Hooper was a 1,489-ton American clipper built in 1853. She was 205ft long, with a 30ft 6in beam, and 20ft of depth, with two passenger decks. On 18 August 1857,
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Captain John J. Jackson entered into a contract with Lyall, Still & Co., agents for A.R. Ferran of Macao, to transport Chinese to Cuba. She was consigned to Don Rafael Rodriguez Torices." The Kate Hooper undertook modifications in Hong Kong. In the 'tween decks, the whole space, fore, aft, and amidships, was completely lined with bunks. On main deck, four large cookhouses were constructed, three with six large in-built pots, similar to furnaces, and fit to cook for six or seven hundred men. In the lower hold, there were two tiers of casks for water. At each of the fore, main and after hatches, coamings for gratings were prepared. The hatches were encircled with iron bars securely fastened to the deck, creating impregnable cages in which the crew could watch over their passengers in time of trouble. These iron gratings were then put in place after the ship left Hong Kong.
She left Hong Kong on 3 October 1857 for Macao, arriving 16 hours later. Two days before leaving, the Chinese labourers boarded. They came in small junks, each with approximately fifty men, and well guarded by policemen. The Kate Hooper then left Macao on 15 October 1857 with 652 Chinese labourers. The Chinese realised that they were heading to Cuba when they noticed the ship was sailing on a southerly course, toward the Indian Ocean and Cape of Good Hope, rather than north-east to North America, their expected destination. On 19 October, some of the labourers threatened the crew with an insurrection. Well over three hundred were on deck at the time, but the crew on watch was able to force them below deck and fasten the hatches. With this uprising, Captain Jackson had four men put in irons, and three flogged.
On 6 November, the Kate Hooper was preparing to enter the Gaspar Straits separating Java and Sumatra. On sighting land, the Chinese again rose in revolt, but the crew forced the men below and fastened the hatches. The agitators then took straw stuffing out of the sleeping mattresses, added straw hats to the piles, and set them afire. The crew immediately placed tarpaulins over the hatches which cut the air flow and put out their fires. Three more times the coolies set fire to straw and
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each time the fires were extinguished with tarpaulins placed over the covers.
Captain Jackson had taken ill soon after they left Macao, and his condition worsened as the journey proceeded. He felt that if these disturbances continued, the ship and crew would be in danger. Flying the American flag upside down as a signal of distress, he ordered two lifeboats to be prepared for abandoning ship. One lifeboat was loaded with food supplies, charts, and a compass and lowered into the water. A second lifeboat was kept hanging from the davits.
Another American vessel, the Flying Childers spotted the distress signal, and sent the chief mate across to the Kate Hooper. Captain Jackson stated that the Kate Hooper should be abandoned or even blown up. Chief Mate Bowden argued that if the crew stuck with the ship, they could restore order if they had more arms, which the Flying Childers provided. She accompanied the Kate Hooper into Anjer on 13 November.
Chief Mate Bowden then asked the Chinese to identify the ringleaders. No mercy was given to the five ringleaders. One was bound head and foot and thrown overboard. While he was floundering at sea, he was shot by the coolie master, as were two others on the poop deck. Another was shot between decks, and the last one was hanged by the spanker gaff. Four more were flogged, and eighteen others were picked out and put in double irons until just before landing in Havana.
Then the Chinese were allowed to come up on deck, but only twenty-four at a time. The fearful crew decided not to return to their quarters but to sleep on deck. Captain Jackson appealed to the Harbour Master at Anjer for a guard of soldiers to help him. He was advised to seek assistance from the American consulate in Batavia (now Jakarta), some sixty miles away. Vice Consul Henry Anthon, Jr was unsure what to do but found eleven men who were prepared to sign the shipping articles in the consul's office. After returning to Anjer, another four sailors were found.
The Kate Hooper resumed her voyage on 25 November. On 15 December, while off the coast of Madagascar, Captain Jackson died. After rounding the Cape of Good Hope, she
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arrived at St Helena on 5 January 1858, where she took on fresh provisions and stores. The remainder of the trip was uneventful, with no more trouble from the Chinese. The Kate Hooper anchored in Havana on 12 February 1858. Of the 652 men who boarded in Macao, 612 survived the voyage.
Mutiny or Piracy?
Occasionally, an emigration agent would remark that it appeared that some intending
some intending emigrants had actually presented themselves with the sole purpose of gaining temporary entry to a ship. Once on board these men plotted to overcome the captain and crew, and if possible sack the ship along the China coast. Such plots would therefore not be considered acts of mutiny but rather acts of piracy.
The 1,915-ton American clipper, Flora Temple, made her first voyage in the coolie trade on 1 February 1857 when she took 900 coolies from Macao to Havana. After a 100-day voyage, 852 of them were landed.
Her second voyage commenced on 8 October 1859, when Captain Charles R. Johnson, sailed from Macao, with some 850 coolie labourers bound for Havana. Her crew, including officers, numbered about 50 men. On the Monday after they left all seemed comfortable and cheerful. The coolies' food was plentiful and good, and their state was well cared for, the necessary order and discipline among them being enforced by their own headmen. An outbreak was the last thing anticipated.
Three days after leaving Macao, the morning watch on deck were scattered about the ship. While the guard at the port gate of the barricade was away from his post, the coolies suddenly fell upon the guard at the starboard gate, struck him on the head with an iron belaying pin as he was stooping down. They then drew out his sword, cut him with cruel ferocity, and dispatched him with a hatchet. They then made a rush through the barricade towards the cabin. While this was going on aft, other coolies were calling "fire, fire" to induce the watch, who were forward, to go down below.
The captain had come to the poop in time to see the rush aft. He ran to his cabin, seized his revolver, and called the
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surgeon up. The captain's brother armed himself too, and with half a dozen shots put them to the rout, as one of the crew was hacked to pieces and others wounded. The coolies were armed with the cook's axes, chain-hooks, iron belaying pins, spikes, and every weapon they could lay their hands upon.
The next day they encountered a heavy gale from the south-west. Captain Johnson declined to put on more sail, worried that a current might set the ship to the eastward where reefs were marked on the chart. The captain directed a good lookout to be kept, with orders to maintain their course until 8pm. The sights obtained at noon were good. The cry of "hard up" was heard when the ship was within a short distance of the breakers, which could now be distinctly seen and heard. The Flora Temple struck slightly and then several times with very heavy bumps. With water rapidly increasing until it reached between the decks, she developed a heavy list to port. The ship was 300 miles from land.
Captain Johnson had no intention of abandoning his ship, but had the two quarter boats lowered, and placed an officer and five men in each, with orders to remain close to the ship so that refuge and assistance might be at hand. At 12 o'clock, the other boats were got out, only leaving the longboat, which the panic-stricken men had declared impossible to get out. It was finally got over the side, and its crew including Captain Johnson, his brother, and A.P. Childs, the surgeon, passed safely through the breakers. The coolies, who had remained below all night, were now up and clustered on the upper
decks.
Throughout the seven days while the gale lasted, the longboat was hove to under a close-reefed mainsail. On the 22nd the wind and sea abated. Captain Johnson had saved his sextant and chart, and as they found their longboat had been driven by the gale as far as 13N, he decided to make for Touron, the French settlement in Cochin China.
They reached Touron on the evening of the 28th, where they were received on board His Imperial Majesty's steamer Gironde. Captain Johnson begged French Admiral M. Page, to search for the missing boats, as well as to rescue the
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coolies. On 2 November, they sighted the ship, on her port side, but floating. Of the 860 coolies, no trace remained.
Captain Johnson was said to be very humane and a courageous man, but the crew were so terrified that it was only by the exertions of the captain, his brother, and a few others, that the crew were saved. The boats were no more than sufficient to save the crew. No attempt was made to save the coolies.
British Consular Agent Cleverly at Macao reported that he had had a conversation with the surgeon of the Flora Temple on his return to Macao. Dr Childs had said that after the suppression of the attack it was discovered that among the rebels was one sufficiently educated in foreign vessels to take entire charge of one. The business-like manner in which the coolies furled sails and took judicious precautions clearly showed that he was supported by many trained Chinese seamen. Cleverly suggested that the attempt to seize the ship was planned, with the supposed emigrants intending to seize and plunder the ship. However there was only one other mutiny in 1859.
A similar mutiny occurred on the American ship, Norway. Captain Hugo B. Major left Macao on 26 November 1859 bound for Havana with 1,038 coolies. Five days out, a mutiny broke out among the coolies who set fire to the ship in two places, and endeavoured to force the hatches. Mr Stimpson, one of the mates, had charge of the deck. The watch, with the exception of the man at the wheel, was aloft taking in sail. As Stimpson rushed to the hatch to repulse the coolies, the crew from aloft and below tried to seize the boats and leave the ship. The surgeon, an Englishman, drew his pistol and threatened to shoot the first man who dared to make that attempt. The crew then rallied and went to the assistance of the officers, and a fight ensued, which continued until after daylight the next morning.
Thirty of the coolies were killed, and more than ninety wounded before the mutiny was quelled. The captain then gave the coolies one hour to deliver up their arms. If they did not, he threatened to cut away the masts, set fire to the ship,
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take away the boats and provisions, and leave them to their fate. The mutineers soon came to terms.
Ironically Cleverly had commented that the Norway had been fitted up with great care and expense, and no pains had been spared to render the passengers comfortable and the ship secure from outbreak or attack. He said he had visited the principal barracoon then in operation in Macao and saw some 500 men and boys destined for the Norway. They appeared contented, happy and healthy. They were for the most part young and undersized, and from their appearance, could have little to hope for in their own country, but for the precarious subsistence that might be afforded elsewhere. The men were clean and well dressed and the food plentiful and good. Each man was given a few cash daily to buy on the premises whatever luxury they wanted. The barracoon was well secured and watched, but in every other respect, excellent in its arrangements.
The receiving ship Messenger arrived at Macao from Whampoa on 16 February 1860, where she took a cargo of 380 coolies to Havana, consigned to Torices. According to Gideon Nye, the American Vice Consul at Macao, Captain Manton had requested clearance on the evening of 22 February. He was extremely rude and insulting on arrival at the Consulate.
It was not until 23 July 1883 that the New York Times published an account from Captain James Keene on what happened on the voyage of the Messenger. He had sailed on her as Quartermaster at that time. His recollections did not entirely coincide with documented events, but included the unsuccessful attempt by what was claimed to be a group of twenty-five Ladrone pirates who had joined the ship with the specific intention of capturing her, plundering her cargo and converting her boats into pirate ships.
Keene told how the men came on board in Macao in the middle of the night from four lorchas, and the ship was well at sea by morning. The men were all numbered by a tin medal hung around the neck, Chinese on one side, and the English equivalent on the other. They were fed on rice and fish. Bread made from rice and flour was also provided, but it was so
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora 143
hard it could be thrown the length of the ship without breaking it. Ten days out, and close to Hainan, Sing Hi and his cohorts stormed the high picket barricade after securing most of the crew below. They were subdued with cutlasses and revolvers. Sing Hi did not survive the attack. Keene then vividly described the punishment doled out to the ringleaders. They were whipped with bamboos such that the cross cuts would rip off pieces of flesh, and, with blood flowing freely, they were doused with sea water. They were stripped naked before being trussed up in small cages kept on deck and not allowed out except for a wash once a week. They were also made to ensure the greatest humiliation of having their pigtails cut off. They were given their clothes back on arrival at Havana where the coolies were sold at auction for between $600 and $1,100 each.
Despite his displeasure at the treatment he had received from the Chinese and American authorities, Captain Manton still found employment in the trade profitable. He returned to Macao, and took another consignment of 555 coolies on 20 March 1861. There were no reports of any problems on that voyage which was arranged by new Emigration Agent C.J. Yturraide. That was also the last voyage by an American ship in the coolie trade to Cuba.
On 3 November 1860, Mr Thorndike of the Anglo American Cuban Emigration Agency was advised that an outbreak had occurred on the Chilean ship Greyhound anchored half way between Shameen and the Macao Passage Fort. During the night, as they were being allowed on deck, two of the coolies attacked the crew. In the ensuing struggle, 30 of the 138 men on board managed to reach the deck. Nine jumped overboard, one had his skull clove and another was shot.
On the day following the investigation, some Customs officers pointed out to the Chinese that under the new Royal Decree, unless they left Cuba within two months of the conclusion of their contract they would be liable to serve another term of eight years, or a shorter term to earn enough to pay for their return passages. This had a remarkable effect on the coolies and they asked for a mandarin to explain it to
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them. This was promised but not fulfilled. After the coolies embarked on a hunger-strike, the Emigrant Inspectors boarded and the resulting inquiry resulted in seventy-eight of the men refusing to leave. The Inspectors determined that, as they had accepted their advance payment, they were bound to depart. The Greyhound eventually sailed for Havana on 20 November 1860 with 230 men.
High mortality
Five of the ten Ferran departures from Swatow had mortality rates above 21%. Captain Henderson of the 683-ton British ship Ellen Oliver risked losing his ship by not calling at Hong Kong after loading 336 coolies for Havana on 11 May 1856. After an exceedingly long voyage of 198 days, he was able to land only 261 of them. This equates to a mortality rate of 22.32%.
The American clipper, Kitty Simpson, left Swatow on 28 November 1857, for Havana. When she arrived in Havana on 19 March 1858, Dr Thomas H. Somerville, surgeon of the Kitty Simpson, reported as follows: "The high mortality of 93 Chinese coolies is attributable to the vast amount of disease. on board, and the broken-down debilitated condition of the patients, which rendered them not only prone to disease but unfitted them for contending with it when attacked. Of the coolies, only about 50 were in good health, the remainder feeble, sickly, emaciated wretches, whom hardship, disease, and hunger had reduced to the lowest ebb of vitality. Almost all trace of muscular substance had disappeared. Most of them were covered with spots from recent skin disease, some covered with blotches from head to foot.
"The number of cases averaged 50 per day, never below 30, with deaths averaging one per day. The diseases were from intestinal worms, opium, and tubercles. Worms are not fatal to Europeans, but the size and number in the Chinese were intense, as shown when the intestine of a dead man was opened, the worms gushed out as under considerable pressure. The accommodation was ample, well ventilated and kept scrupulously clean. The provisions were of good quality and abundant; and minimal discipline was required.'
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Dr Somerville's report had been seconded by Dr. E.B. Pellew of the Tasmania and Dr Thomas Gwynne of the Edwin Fox. They had arrived at Havana within days of each other; the Tasmania had lost 107 of her passengers from Swatow, a mortality rate of 29.16%.
The Julian de Unzueta was the fourth vessel in 1857 to suffer a high loss at 25.71%. This was followed in 1858 with the 1,007-ton Danish ship Freya suffering a 35.74% loss on her voyage from Swatow on 20 February. Captain J.P. Sorenson landed 302 of the 470 he had taken on board.
The highest rate suffered that year however was on the Norwegian barque, Norma. Captain Johan Normann chartered his 440-ton vessel to take Chinese to Havana at $75 for each man landed. The ship was not surveyed in either Hong Kong or Swatow. The hold was 100 feet long and there was seven feet between decks. Two tiers of bunks were built to sleep the men three, four, or five to a berth.
Captain Normann sailed from Swatow on 30 March 1858 with 276 men. Only 139 of them landed in Havana after a 146-day voyage. The Chinese doctor Chuy Foy claimed that the 137 who died (a mortality rate of 49.64%) had done so from sudden deprivation of opium, pestilence, heart disease, and insufficient water. Captain Normann had taken Chuy on as a doctor but he was useless. He had two boxes full of opium and despite being told not to, he was seen to sell it to the men. At St Helena, he bought more even though he did not go ashore. The captain maintained that he was so incompetent he once declared a man dead and asked permission to throw him overboard. In the process of doing so, the bosun noticed that the man was breathing. He subsequently fully recovered.
Chuy sued Captain Normann in Hong Kong on 1 June 1860, for $500 in back-wages. He had received only $208. In defence, Normann said that Chuy had been hired at $25 per month and had been paid $60 in Hong Kong, $20 in Swatow, $100 in Havana and $16 in Charleston after leaving Havana. Chuy did not win his case.
High mortality plagued Ferran with his only shipment from Amoy on 8 May 1857. Captain Pouyallet of the 538-ton
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French ship Giscours was not able to explain why only 171 of the original 334 coolies embarked were able to walk ashore after the 161-day voyage. The mortality rate was 48.80%. There were also two Ferran shipments from Macao with high mortalities. Captain L. Poszetto on the 657-ton Peruvian ship Tinita Torices left on 6 May 1857 with 370 coolies but could declare only 167 on arrival 185 days later. The mortality rate was 54.86%. The other was on the 1,145-ton Dutch ship Admiraal Van Heemskerk on 31 March 1858. That voyage incurred a mortality rate of 20.98%. This was Antonio Ferran's last vessel for Torices. Ferran then returned home in 1858 after a short handover period to a Peruvian national, S.R. Vargas. Over the next two years Vargas employed three vessels with mortality rates in excess of 23%. They were the two French ships Malabar in 1858 and Succes in 1859 and the 1,319-ton Spanish Primera de Espana also in 1858.
The 1,435-ton American clipper, Swallow, under Captain J.H. Morton, had 750 coolies on board and was waiting for only a few more before departing for Havana. She was jointly managed by Ferran and Vargas and sailed from Whampoa on 3 July 1859 with 650 men consigned to Torices but only 552 managed to land. In reporting the vessel, Vice Consul Frederick Howe Hale wrote to Acting Consul Winchester telling of a new ploy now being used to lure unsuspecting persons. A woman with a child on her back would drop her bonnet, and when it was picked up and returned, the victim would be sincerely thanked and offered drugged cakes as a reward. When the drugged targets sat down to rest, they would be accosted by two accomplices who on the pretext of helping the men home would take them to the receiving ships instead.
Vargas's first American vessel was the 1,637-ton clipper ship, Live Yankee, delivering 778 coolies out of 800 that were taken on in Macao on 4 March 1859. Dr Gerald Potts wrote to the Friend of China from Anjer to say that all the coolies were alive and well. No sickness, and as quiet as could be. He said he was far happier with the Chinese than he had been when he looked after English Government emigrants to the colonies who were fifty times more trouble. He had the full
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support of Captain Eben A. Thorndike and Captain Holmes who was the coolie master. Dr Potts and the captain had good reason to look after the Chinese. He was to be paid $10 for every coolie landed, but down to 50c if greater than 50% of the 700 taken on board did not reach Cuba. Live Yankee returned to complete another equally good voyage in 1860.
The aggressive recruitment methods of Torices's Agents, brokers and crimps in the Canton area led to the eventual acceptance by Chinese officials that emigration had to be condoned. The cynical way in which his Emigrant Agent Vargas utilised American ships would have been instrumental in the United States banning the participation of American ships in this controversial trade.
59
Vargas gained notoriety for himself with his use of American vessels as receiving ships in Whampoa. In conjunction with Lyall, Still & Co. of Hong Kong, Vargas chartered six American vessels in early 1859 for an estimated half a million dollars."" After serving as receiving ships, the 1,849-ton Pioneer and Kitty Simpson eventually sailed from Whampoa without passengers. The 1,429-ton clipper ship Governor Morton succeeded in taking 557 coolies away from Whampoa on 5 May 1859, leaving the 1,350-ton Messenger and 1,637-ton Live Yankee to revert to Macao to embark their complements in 1860. The 1,225-ton, J Wakefield, and 619- ton, May Queen,were the two other American vessels to sail from Macao to Havana in 1860. The last ship that Vargas despatched was the Francis P Sage, which left Macao on 17 January 1861 with 550 Chinese for Havana. Captain Thos. R. Ingersoll took 103 days to deliver the 520 that were still on board.
Two American ships departed from Whampoa for Havana in 1861. The Alice Thorndike and the Independence were filled by the Thorndike house and left without incident and experienced very low mortality rates.
The New York Times of 31 May 1861 reported the suspension of payments by its principal R.R. Torices. It added that it was a singular fact that most of the houses that had been engaged in the coolie trade had "gone to the bad".
�
The losses associated with three American receiving ships at Whampoa may have been a factor in this enterprise.
The Torices involvement in the coolie trade lasted for seven years from 1855 to 1861. In all, fifty-five shipments were made. Macao was the centre of their operations, with only one shipment from Amoy, and ten from Swatow. Torices agents recruited 25,497 Chinese coolies of whom 20,149 duly arrived in Cuba. Overall the mortality rate was 20.98%, with five shipments exceeding 40%. There were eleven mutinies, four of which resulted in the vessel not completing its voyage. Four of the mutinies were on American vessels.
In the five years to 1859 that Ferran was based in Macao he recruited 15,975 Chinese for the 39 shipments he conducted. With eight mutinies and ten voyages with high mortality, 12,270 coolies were landed in Havana. The mortality for those five years amounted to 23.19%. Between 1858 and 1861 Vargas handled 15 shipments for Torices, three of which had casualties in excess of 22% and three mutinies, one of which resulted in the ship being wrecked. The mortality rate of 19.02% was achieved from embarking 8,880 men while leaving 7,191 to disembark in Havana.
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5
Spanish Free Importation
Blenheim
Sailed from Amoy for Cuba on 23 October 1852 with 453 coolies.
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C
apitan-General Jos� Gutierrez de la Concha had been critical of the licences granted to Villodo, Pereda, Torices and Pedroso, and wanted a freer market. Acting on advice from planters such as Zulueta, Concha, in Cuba, recommended to the authorities in Spain on 12 February 1857 that the introduction of free Chinese settlers should be without limit, possibly as many as 60,000. With this encouragement seven companies entered the trade.
Colonizadora
Torices was a very astute man. Knowing that Capitan-general Concha wanted to see a freer market, it appears that Torices persuaded his Asiatico de Habana partners-Antonio Ferran, Marcial Dupierris, and Juan A. Colome-to accept the Earl of Lombillo into a new partnership to be known as "Colonizadora". Concha subsequently allowed the formation of this consortium. This could be regarded as tokenism as Torices continued to be the named consignee for all but three of the shipments which were made after this arrangement was put in place.
These three shipments were made in 1858, the only year when shipments were made under the name of Colonizadora. The 533-ton Peruvian Don Julian left Macao on 22 January 1858. She arrived in Havana 110 days later where Captain Cortina delivered all of the 326 men he had embarked. The second voyage was by the now veteran of the coolie trades, the Westward Ho. On 10 July 1858 Captain A. de Araucoa was able to land in Havana only 611 of the 700 he had embarked in Macao. This mortality rate of 12.71% was surpassed when Colonizadora's third vessel arrived in Havana on 31 August 1858. Captain N. Koens of the 997-ton Dutch ship Pieter Cornelis zn Hooft could show only 368 of
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora 151
the 570 coolies he had taken on in Macao. The mortality rate was 35.44%.
The first vessel of the three was handled on arrival by Escauriza y Serpa and the captains of the other two were responsible for their own vessels. The
The Boletin de Colonizacion listed Colonizadora as the consignee for all three arrivals.
Campbell and Caro
The Campbell brothers were planters who had also applied to introduce colonists on their own account in accordance with the Royal Decree of 1854. However it was not until 1856 that they made their first shipment in conjunction with a fellow planter, Charles Caro.
The 687-ton Dutch ship Doggersbank arrived in Macao late in October 1856 and left after 30 days on 28 November 1856. As Campbell and Caro had no agent in Macao, contracts were exchanged directly between Captain A.P. Achenbach and each of the 380 recruits he had managed to procure. He arrived in Havana 141 days later with 373 of them landing safely.
To the north of Amoy, Foochow (Fuzhou) is the capital of the Province of Fukien, and the principal port for the export of tea from China. It was a Treaty Port but was not generally regarded as being within the main recruiting districts of China. However, on 23 February 1857, Vice Consul Frederick Howe Hale reported to Governor Bowring, that the firm of Campbell and Caro of Havana had appointed Mr Flotard of Hong Kong and Macao as agent, together with Messrs Vaucher Freres & Co. of Hong Kong and the Swiss firm Borel in Foochow, to act as sub-agents for the recruitment of Chinese emigrants.
Borel met with strong resistance from the local authorities and population, and it was only after a prolonged period that he was able to find sufficient men to fill his chartered 589-ton French vessel Etoile for a voyage to Havana. However as the 320 men were about to embark, local opposition was so great that the charter had to be aborted. Carlo Flotard was not to be put off however, and
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went on to arrange the next two shipments for Campbell and Caro.
60
It was in 1857 that the first ship, fitted with an auxiliary steam engine, was used in the coolie trades. The French shipping company Bazin & L�on Gay of Marseilles entered the trade with the 1,583-ton Francois 1. The Friend of China described her as of 72 metres (237ft) and a beam of 11 metres (36ft) with a depth of hold from upper deck to top of keel of 21ft. The height between decks was seven ft with a further 8ft to the orlop deck. Her 60hp engine and screw propeller enabled her to make six knots in calms and light airs. She also had a condensing machine which converted the escaping steam to make 75 gallons of water each day. For ventilation, she had ports of between 2ft and 3ft square every 15ft, and large hatchways with cupola iron gratings. That charter had been arranged by Pereda Machado in conjunction with Campbell and Caro in Havana.
British Consul-General Jos. T. Crawford was parti- cularly impressed with this French steamer. Even though Captain H. Closmadeau and his crew of 51 had had to suppress a mutiny prior to arriving on 25 November 1857, they had been able to land 842 men out of the 900 who had boarded in Macao on 4 August 1857. However, he gave no details of the mutiny.
The Francois I made two more voyages from Macao in 1858 and 1860. With a complement of 1,000, the mortality rate on the second voyage was 16.50%, compared with 6.44% on the first voyage. On her third voyage, Captain Conil took on only 790 Chinese and was able to discharge 773 of them at a mortality rate of just 2.15%.
Had Crawford delayed his report on the first voyage by a few days, he might have modified his admiration for steamers. Another French-flagged steamer, the Charles Martell, was of a similar size to the Francois 1. Also owned by Bazin & L�on Gay, she left Macao on 17 October 1857 with 830 Chinese on board. Whereas Francois I took 115 days on the voyage, the Charles Martell needed 143 to reach Havana. Those additional 23 days may have accounted for the 154 deaths which represented a mortality rate of 18.55%.
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Charles Martell was to suffer a worse tragedy on her next voyage on 11 September 1959. Captain A. David lost 560 of the 900 men taken on board in Macao. The mortality rate of 62.22% after 148 days again raised concerns over steamers undertaking long voyages. She was not employed again.
The Chinese Passengers' Act still required British ships with passengers to declare them in Hong Kong in 1857. Captain Alexander Wilson of the 1,106-ton Dream however thought he would circumvent the Act by simply applying for clearance at Hong Kong for Macao, claiming it was a ballast voyage. Once at Macao, he then commenced taking on 503 coolies and sailed on 14 November 1857, without returning to Hong Kong. When Emigration Officer Mitchell learned of this breach of the Act, he advised the Harbour Master, who in turn alerted John Bowring. In his despatch to Labouchere, Bowring expressed the hope that the Dream would be captured before she could discharge her cargo. That did not come about, and the Dream arrived at Havana on 24 March 1858 discharging her 438 coolies without intervention from the British Consul there. The mortality rate had been 12.92 percent.
Charles Caro introduced two emigrant agents to China, Lorenzo Pereira and French emigrant agent, L. Boye, recently-arrived in Macao. The former recruited 356 Chinese for the 566-ton Daguerre, which left Macao on 2 April 1859 with 356 coolies. The latter, in conjunction with French shipowner Bazin & L�on Gay, chartered the 849-ton barque Emile Pereire for a 108-day voyage from Macao, which sailed on 23 January 1860. There were only three deaths among the 460 who were taken onboard.
Boye continued with the 1,015-ton ship Sigisbert Cezard leaving Macao on 4 April 1860 together with Campbell's 534-ton French barque Brave Lourmel which was loaded by H. de Closmadeau who had been Captain on the Francois 1. The former had eleven deaths out of 410 embarked while the latter lost two from a total of 302.
The 1,151-ton American ship Forest Eagle under first- time Captain Thomas Pillsbury was chartered to take 500
Chinese emigrants under the age of 30, men and boys, from Macao to Havana. They were all described as being in very good health when placed on board by Emigration Agent L. Boye on 8 February 1861. As an incentive, Captain Pillsbury was to receive $5 a head if the mortality rate did not exceed 5% and $3 if it did not exceed 10%. As was usual with coolie ships by then, she had a barricade built across the after deck to protect the crew, a qualified doctor, and a coolie master to manage the emigrants. There was also an interpreter, Mr Souza, whose name suggests that he was born in Macao of Portuguese and possibly Chinese extraction. Each coolie was given a numbered card, which he had to keep with him for identification purposes. Forest Eagle sailed on 8 February 1861, and arrived at Havana on 20 May after a largely uneventful voyage of 101 days during which 42 Chinese died. She was placed in quarantine until 4 July where another 69 died from causes undetermined by the local doctors.
61
The coolie master's logo faithfully records the routine doling-out of food rations, and the frequent cleaning of the living spaces. It also records some of the causes of death and the unnatural practices first recorded by Dr Ely on the Samuel Boddington to Demerara. The number of deaths recorded in the log differs from that published by Zulueta's publication Boletin de Colonizacion which indicated that 458 asiaticos had arrived on the ship
In December 1860, Captain John Wood of the 690-ton American ship Leonidas entered into a charter party with H. Closmadeau on behalf of J. Campbell of Havana. She was to proceed to Macao for at least 300 passengers and provisions. The sum of $65 was to be paid for every passenger delivered alive at Havana. The 70 lay-days had a 15-day grace period after which the demurrage rate was $75 per day. The ship was to provide berths, privies and cooking places and water for 100 days at 6 gallons per day�2 and firewood. The Charterer was to provide food. At least half the passengers at a time. would be allowed on deck for exercise and to smoke, except in bad weather. The captain was to receive $5 per head if losses did not exceed 5%, and $3 per head if losses were in
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excess of 10%. $10 per head was to be advanced to Captain Wood to defray expenses at Havana.'
The Leonidas was dispatched from Canton on 25 February 1861, by the French Maritime Agency in connection with Credit Mobiller for Caro & Co. While she was at anchor two or three miles below the Macao Passage Fort, waiting for a breeze to carry her over the bar, a disturbance broke out in the 'tween decks. This was simply a ruse to attract the officers to the spot. The chief mate and third mate immediately went below to ascertain the cause, when they were savagely set upon by the coolies. The chief mate managed to get back on deck, though severely cut about the head and neck. He then found that a large batch of the coolies, whom he had left on deck at breakfast, had rushed into the cabin and were assaulting the captain, on whom they had inflicted two desperate cuts. The captain's wife was assailed with basins, etc. and severely cut on the head. The captain managed to seize a musket with which he shot and killed one of the coolies, felling another with the butt.
By this time, the crew had come aft, loaded arms, and driven the coolies below, shooting some twenty-nine of them. The coolies then collected a heap of wood and set fire to it. The captain battened them down, until the coolies put out the fire themselves. The hatches were then removed and the third mate extricated. He was so badly wounded that he was not expected to live. As this was happening some eighty or ninety coolies jumped overboard, but only about half of them reached the shore. The coolie master chased them with a cutlass and re-captured thirteen of them. He lost a finger from the bursting of a musket he was firing and the steward received a severe cut to the back of his head.
The captain then sent his wife away to Canton in the pilot boat. In passing the Macao fort, she gave the alarm. The officer in charge sent thirty soldiers down, with orders to put down all resistance with arms. Captain Wood who had received two severe cuts across his nose was taken ashore together with the third mate. HM gunboat Weasel then towed the Leonidas back to the anchorage. Out of 289 coolies, only 210 could be accounted for, and of these 195 appeared in no
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condition to continue the voyage. The Leonidas eventually sailed for Havana on 18 March 1861 with 290 men. They were consigned to Caro.
In a letter dated 21 March 1861 to the Editor of the Friend of China "A Lover of Liberality" drew attention to the injustice handed to Captain Wood. According to this letter, instead of condoling with the captain, the French Emigration Company had demanded that he take on new coolies to make up for those who had jumped overboard. It had also insisted on a reduced rate of $10 for each of them. The loss to the ship amounted to $900 which, in addition to $600 in demurrage, meant it suffered a loss of $1500. The French company had also promised to pay $100 to the coolie master for his gallantry, but reneged on that too.
The Leonidas was the third vessel to suffer a mutiny in Whampoa, after the Greyhound (as described above), and the Sebastopol (described below). Attacks on three of the five vessels loading coolies at Whampoa led to speculation as to the true motive behind them. The Friend of China of 2 March 1861 suggested that they could have been planned by the mandarins themselves, who were determined to stop all emigration from Canton after the armies of the Allied Commission left the city later that year.
Caro y Cia
64
Caro left the trade in 1861 but returned in 1866 with two shipments by French vessels from Whampoa. The first was the 374-ton French barque Ville de St Lo, which left Whampoa on 22 January 1866 with 260 men bound for Havana. Several days out Captain F. Dubois had to quell a mutiny, killing 12 men in suppressing it. The Ville de St Lo then made for Saigon before continuing on to Havana. The second was the 479-ton barque Gaulois, which departed on 3 April 1866. Captain Lavignac was able to disembark 290 of the 300 Chinese he had taken on board.
Caro made eight other shipments from Macao in the same period, utilising various flags. Three of them were marred by high mortality rates. The 381-ton Austrian barque, Barone Kellner, under Captain J.M. Corich, had 268 men
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora 157
come on board on 1 February 1866, but after 116 days was able to see only 177 of them walk off. The mortality rate was 33.96%. The next was on the 329-ton French barque, Sagittaire, which lost 42 of her 165 passengers, a mortality rate of 25.45%. Captain M. Cardonnet was in command for the 155-day voyage, which left Macao on 15 November 1866. In 1867, the 1,025-ton Spanish Cervantes suffered a loss of 31.24% of the 541 men taken on in Macao.
Over the 17 shipments Charles Caro made in the coolie trade, he recruited 6,130 men and landed 5,475of them. The mortality rate averaged 10.69%.
Morales y Cia
Jos� Maria Morales was originally a partner in Drake y Cia. As the Drakes gradually withdrew from the trade, Morales took over their allocation and continued trading in his own right. Morales continued to use Nicolas Tanco Armero as his agent, as Drake had done, and made eight shipments in 1858 then only one each in 1859 and 1860.
Still showing the preference for British ships indicated above, Morales made four shipments, including, for the first time, three by auxiliary steamers. The first was by the 2,134- ton Mauritius under Captain D. Cruikshank, which left Macao on 18 May 1858 with 741 Chinese for Havana. The mortality rate was 11.07%. However mortality rates were generally higher than this, with three shipments exceeding 24%. Another high loss was on the 1,195-ton auxiliary steamer Scotia, which had arrived at Amoy to load, but, experiencing difficulty in collecting coolies, proceeded to Macao, leaving port on 24 June 1858. Captain John Bell recorded a mortality rate of 24.39% when only 431 of his original 570 passengers disembarked. These high mortality rates sparked an urgent enquiry by British authorities.
On 31 May 1858, Cleopatra, a 300hp, 1,089-ton British steamer, left Amoy for Havana by way of Manila, Singapore, Cape Town and Barbados. British Consul M.C. Morrison reported on 16 June 1858 that he had personally ascertained from each individual that he proceeded of his own free will. In the presence of the Spanish Consul he re-landed 15 who
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did not wish to proceed. The Cleopatra experienced strong winds throughout her passage down the South China Sea, and had to call at Manila and at Singapore on 25 June for coals, water, and a crew change. While there, twenty coolies absconded from the vessel. It took Captain Peregrine 144 days to deliver the remaining 364 men out of the 464 taken on board in Amoy. The mortality rate on that voyage was 19.40%. The Cleopatra had been several weeks in Amoy awaiting her complement and eventually sailed, about 100 men short.
Morales's first American ship was the 978-ton Mary Whitridge, which had an uneventful voyage from Swatow to Havana. His second ship from Swatow, however, was not as fortunate. The 871-ton Competitor took only 98 days for the voyage under Captain White, but still lost 157 of her initial complement of 382, 41.10% of the coolies who had embarked.
When the small 168-ton Chilean brig Diana arrived in Havana from Swatow on 12 July 1858 with 74 from an original complement of 113, British Captain Mortimer O. Sullivan could not even say the 134-day voyage was excessively long. The eight shipments made by Morales in 1858 took on board 3,640 coolies. The mortality rate for 1858 was a discouraging 20.11%.
After the disastrous voyage in 1857 (described above), the 698-ton Kitty Simpson went on to New York where she took on passengers for Melbourne, Australia. She then continued carrying passengers whenever she could, eventually returning to Macao on 22 December 1859. On 20 February 1860, she left Macao with 350 coolies for Havana.
On 3 March 1860, the coolies attempted to take the Kitty Simpson. One was shot dead and several wounded. The ringleaders subsequently received 50 to 100 lashes each, and were then secured in irons. She put into Table Bay on 3 May for water and refreshments before continuing on to Havana without further incident. This was the last shipment for Morales who shipped 4,490 Chinese and landed 3,648 of them in three years. The overall mortality rate came to 18.7%.
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Fernandez Schimper
A new entrant to the trade in 1859 made three shipments only in the two years he participated. Fernandez Schimper's first shipment was on the 678-ton ship Alexandre Ralli, when Captain J. Ferras took on 424 coolies in Macao on 16 January 1859. After a 131-day voyage he delivered 398 of them safely in Havana. Schimper was even more successful with his second ship. The 1,016-ton French ship Ville de Dieppe sailed from Whampoa on 5 March 1859 with Captain C. Rousseau taking on 530 men and landing 521 of them after a 113-day voyage. The ships were chartered, respectively, from the French shipowners Bazin & L�on Gay, based in Marseilles, and another French shipowner, Sellier, based in Dieppe. In contrast, Schimper's third and last ship was an American one.
On 13 February 1860, the Hong Kong Daily Press reported that it had received a letter from Swatow telling of 26 kidnapped coolies who jumped off the American ship Staghound while loading at Double Point for Havana. Eighteen of the men drowned in attempting to swim ashore. Of the eight remaining, four managed to reach home where they described their ordeal, greatly discrediting the fame and credit of foreigners. The Daily Press correspondent related that a few days earlier he had met a woman whose husband had been kidnapped for the Staghound. On enquiry, she learned that a ransom of six dollars could free him. To pay the ransom she sold her daughter for four dollars, and was then begging in the streets for the other two dollars.
The atrocities associated with the coolie trade had resulted in foreigners being held in great odium, and coolies could be procured only with great difficulty. The Staghound had been months in loading, whereas a Siamese ship of 900 tons had more than 1500 Chinese on board, each paying $6 for the privilege. So crowded were the decks that lying down was out of the question. The crew had to work the ship on the rail, and cooking for the captain and Officers had to be done in the cabin.
65
The crew of the Staghound comprised three mates and 32 men before the mast. There was a carpenter, two ship's
cooks and a cabin steward, as well as six quartermasters, whose main duty was that of keeping guard over the coolies.
The Staghound eventually sailed for Havana on 23 March 1860 with 612 passengers. Captain Samuel B. Hussey was reported by Henry Anthon Jr, US Consul in Batavia on 1 May 1860 as saying all the Chinese on board understood perfectly what they signed on for. He had rejected 250 of them who did not appear to be leaving of their own free will.
After suppressing a mutiny in the Sunda Strait, she arrived at Anjer on 30 March. While at anchor the next day, some of the crew refused to obey orders, and in the ensuing struggle the second mate, Captain Hussey's son, was stabbed in the abdomen. He later died in hospital. The mutiny was quelled with the assistance of HMS Odin which was at Anjer at that time. The ringleaders were sent to Singapore for eventual return to America.
66
Staghound finally arrived at Havana on 10 August 1860 with only 343 left on board. The 269 coolies who did not complete the 140-day voyage represented a mortality rate of 43.95%. Captain Hussey died on arrival in Havana.
Zangronis
Another newcomer to the trade in 1859 was Y.M. Zangronis. The Zangronis brothers first became interested in shipping when they started a steamship service between Cuba and Europe in 1854 with a shipping office in Paris. Their French connections were well represented in the ten years they participated in the coolie trade. Of the 26 shipments they undertook, only three were not on French ships.
Zangronis entered the trade with the chartered 780-ton French ship Formose owned by Louis O'Lanyer of Bordeaux. O'Lanyer had previously become involved in coolie shipping to the French West Indies. On this voyage, 465 Chinese embarked at Macao for Havana on 2 April 1859. The mortality rate for this first Zangronis shipment recruited by Emigration Agent E. Chabert came to 13.98%.
In 1860 Zangronis employed Bauran as his Emigration Agent and entered into an arrangement with Sellier of Dieppe. The 935-ton Ville de Lima sailed on 14 January
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Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
161
1860, taking 500 emigrants to Havana. Captain G. David delivered 476 of them safely after a 110-day voyage. Two smaller ships completed Zangonis's first foray into the Chinese trade. The 299-ton barque Solide, departing on 16 February 1860, took 184 without loss, and the 456-ton Alexandre Delphine followed on 4 April 1860 with 201 Chinese. Captain Ravult landed 196 of them after a 152-day voyage.
Like Caro, Zangronis then withdrew from the trade only to return in 1864 with three uneventful voyages in conjunction with yet another French shipowner, St Ange Richon, Bernado Solares being the emigration agent in Macao. There were also three shipments in 1865. Their only non-French ship in 1865 was the 1,169-ton Italian ship, Queen of England, with a mortality rate of 6.51%. The 360- ton German barque, Ammerland, had a loss rate of 10.67% in 1866 while the 1.206-ton Italian Luisa Canevaro lost 11.17% of her passengers.
Sama, Sotolongo y Cia were one-time importers of Chinese coolies in 1859. Captain Castillo of the 246-ton Spanish barque Gravina embarked 120 men at Macao on 26 July. After a 145-day voyage, eighty-two only were able to walk off. The mortality rate was 31.67%.
Galdiz y Nenninger were also one-time importers. On 31 January 1860, Captain J. de Galdiz of the Spanish ship Serafina took on board 430 coolies in Amoy. Built in Bilboa, Spain, in 1849, her dimensions were 123ft long with a beam of 29ft and a depth of 14ft. If either the American edition of Lloyd's Register, which listed her as of 491 tons, or the French Bureau Veritas Register, which listed her at 416 tons, was correct, the fact that 400 of the coolies were able to land in Havana 117 days later would make it very difficult to show that tonnage was necessarily a critical factor in determining passenger capacity. However the Cuban newspaper Diario de la Marina reported her on arrival as of 700 tons, thus making it difficult to determine the true situation.
Mutinies
Many mutinies were reported but often without sufficient detail as to the cause. The French Maritime Agency in Whampoa reopened its doors in 1865 in response to Cuban demand. Three French vessels sailed from Whampoa in 1865, all for Zangronis. The C�te d'Or did not encounter any problems, with only two casualties on her voyage to Havana. The two others however suffered insurrections. Of the seven departures from Whampoa in 1866, three were for Caro and four were for Zangronis. One Caro ship, as mentioned above, and two Zangronis ships were each subjected to mutinies; tangible evidence of the problems British emigration agent Sampson was having recruiting for the West Indies around Canton at that time.
The first mutiny was on the 535-ton barque Louis, which left Whampoa on 5 May 1865. A few days out, the ship experienced a mutiny and Captain Auguste Aubril took his ship to Hong Kong. Despite speculation that the ship was then subject to the Chinese Passengers' Act, she was allowed to return to Whampoa with her passengers. Louis resumed her voyage to Havana on 6 June, but suffered a mortality rate of 30.34% on the passage. The next sailing was by the 666-ton Caroline which left Canton for Havana on 12 October 1865 with 360 Chinese coolies. The insurrection was subdued only by shooting twelve of the Chinese. The ship then made for Saigon.
The 470-ton French barque Hong Kong did not start her career in the coolie trades on a good note. She left Whampoa for Havana on 23 January 1866 with 260 Chinese consigned to Zangronis. Within four days, the coolies mutinied, and the vessel had to return to Hong Kong. After a nine month refit, she returned to the trade as a Spanish vessel under Captain Ignacio Yriberri.
Over the next 5 years, Captain Yriberri commanded the Hong Kong for five voyages. On the two voyages to Havana for Troncoso, each of 107 days, only one man died on the first and on the second there were no deaths. In 1870 the Hong Kong changed her flag to that of Peru in anticipation of
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Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora 163
calling at Callao only. Her last voyage to that port was in 1873 under Captain Domingos Borainca. With a career total of 1,885 men embarked and 1,819 landed, her average mortality was 3.5%.
The 389-ton French barque Flore was about to set out from Whampoa on a second voyage, this time to Havana, when a disturbance broke out. It was quelled only by severe measures, which resulted in the death of at least one coolie. The China Mail was not able to provide details, complaining that secrecy was a matter of course prevalent in such matters. The Flore sailed on 10 February 1866 with 310 men. No. further incidents were reported even after a 182-day voyage. Captain LaFontaine delivered all but one man on arrival.
The last ship to sail from Swatow with Chinese coolies was the 754-ton French barque Ste. Croix which sailed on 18 June 1866. The 130-day voyage by Captain J. Robert was uneventful, with 432 of the 444 men embarked landing safely. Emigration Agent Solares in Macao had arranged that shipment on behalf of Zangronis.
Zangrois did not return to China in 1867 and only made one final shipment with Chinese coolies in 1868. The 448-ton French barque Pactole left Macao on 8 November 1868 with 245 coolies. Captain J. Olivaud delivered 220 of them after a prolonged 153-day voyage. In the ten years Zangronis was in the trade he undertook 26 shipments taking 8,593 Chinese to Cuba. With 7,793 disembarking, the average mortality rate was 9.31%.
Spanish Royal Decree of 1860
On 10 February 1860, Governor Captain-General Francisco Serrano issued a decree based on several Royal Orders saying that the importation of Chinese coolies would be tolerated from 10 February to 31 December 1860 only. It would be strictly forbidden from 1 January 1861. The discontinuance of this emigration had been recommended on 28 December 1859, citing considerations of humanity to the colonists.
However, a Royal Decree, dated 6 July 1860, issued by the Spanish Government in Madrid, permitted the free importation of Chinese coolies under certain regulations. The
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Friend of China summarised the 82 points of the decree on 24 November 1860.
Among the enormous amount of detail, it described the information required in each contract with four copies to be made together with three copies of the Chinese translation. They were to be legalised by the Spanish Consul at the port of embarkation, who was to keep one copy and return the rest for distribution. Passenger lists were also to be completed with quadruple copies.
The maximum number of passengers whom ships would be allowed to carry would be restricted to one person per two tons, with the space calculated on the remaining room available after allowance for cargo. Sufficient food and water was to be proportioned to the numbers carried and length of voyage, but no quantities were mandated. Cleanliness and ventilation were indispensible, but again this was not defined. A physician and medicine chest were to be provided if the number carried exceeded forty. Whenever examination of the papers showed that the mortality rate exceeded 6% on arrival at Havana (the only Cuban port permitted), a special inquiry would be required, with the Governor or tribunal determining the fine to be imposed.
Clause 7 stipulated that the immigrant was to leave Cuba on expiry of his contract at his own expense if not re- contracted. Clause 18 emphasized that the Chinese had to renew their contracts within two months of expiry or leave. If unable to do so they would be made a public works labourer until sufficient funds had been raised for them to be repatriated.
Cost of Cuban labour
On 5 February 1861 Jos. T. Crawford, now
now British Commissary Judge in Havana, wrote to Lord John Russell ruefully reporting that the slave trade was still rampant in Cuba, with corrupt officials colluding with estate owners to avoid detection. In his long despatch, Crawford included calculations of the cost of a negro per day compared to that of a Chinese. That for a negro came to $57.50 a month or �11.10.0 per month or 8s 10d for each of 313 working days a
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora 165
year. As slaves worked 365 days in the year the daily cost to their masters was reduced to 7s 6d. For a Chinese coolie the cost came to $21.41, or �4.5.9 per month, 3s 3d a day of 313 working days.
This compared very unfavourably with the price of labour in the British West Indies. He submitted that no agricultural produce could sustain such wages, and therefore would result in ruin for all those who engaged in such enterprises. Crawford then observed that a proposal could be made to Her Catholic Majesty for the introduction of Africans as free labourers under contract, but it would still be a farce. In conclusion, Crawford estimated that upwards of 58,000 Chinese had been brought to Cuba since 1847, with the majority of them not desirous of returning home.
Concern at the cost of labour had already led to a tightening of credit. Crawford would have been quoting from the Cuban press which saw the number of shipments drop from 16 in 1859 and 21 in 1860, then to ten in 1861 and down to just two in 1862. But the need for labour was too great and shipments once again began to rise in 1863.
Troncoso, Castro, Bustamente
Narciso Troncoso entered the coolie trade in an
unconventional manner. On 19 March 1860 the 236-ton Spanish brig Carmencita left Manila with an unknown number of Chinese under unstated terms. Captain J. Villeta delivered 126 of them to Troncoso after completing a 132- day voyage. It is unclear why he chose Manila for his first shipment, but it was a success.
With the withdrawal of Pereda from the trade, Emigration Agent I.F. de Castro began recruiting for Troncoso with the 913-ton Guadaloupe taking 400 Chinese from Macao to Havana on 1 April 1860. This Spanish ship went about her business with no fuss during the early years of the 1860s. First commanded by Captain Ramon Nunez in 1860, he took her on three voyages to Havana without incident.
Antonio G. Bustamente was a land owner. His first involvement in the coolie trade was with the Colonizadora
when he took their first whole consignment of 326 men off the Don Julian in 1858. There was not a single mortality on that voyage. He then entered the trade directly, with the Maria Clotilde, in conjunction with both Troncoso and Castro the latter having just returned from China (in 1861). There were only two lives lost on a 106-day voyage commencing on 7 February 1861.
The only two shipments to Cuba in 1862 were both for the loose partnership of Troncoso, Castro and Bustamente in Havana and Joao Garcia in Macao-the 832-ton Belgian ship Leopold Cateaux and the Guadaloupe on her second voyage. Leopold Cateaux was ordered as the Bengale but was renamed on 1 March 1857 before being launched on 24 June that year. After a 118-day voyage, Captain A. Nicaise was able to produce all of the 416 men he had taken on board in Macao on 5 November 1862. Bustamente then undertook a second shipment in 1863 with the 597-ton Spanish barque Arizona which departed from Macao on 20 December 1863 with 298 coolies. The voyage under Captain A. de Valparda took 126 days and the lives of eighteen men.
Bustamente made a second sortie into the coolie trade in conjunction with Troncoso and Castro in 1866. Troncoso paid a visit to Macao in 1866, and supervised two shipments with Virana Garcia as his agent. Troncoso relied on the Emigrante to make her sixth voyage to Havana with 359 coolies on board. Captain D. Tramoja was able to deliver only 319 of them 124 days later. He then called on Captain J.A. Gardoqui of the Guadaloupe to make a third voyage on 14 February 1866. This trip took 125 days with a much better result, 438 men landing of the 454 taken on board.
The 618-ton Spanish barque Altagracia under Captain N. Landa sailed from Macao on 16 March 1866 with 361 passengers. On this, the first of five voyages she was to make, she arrived at Havana after a 115-day passage with 350 Chinese able to walk off the ship. On her second voyage the following year, Captain Landa was able to deliver only 303 of the 360 men he had taken on in Macao. Altagracia made a third voyage for Troncoso in 1868.
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Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora 167
In the nine years Troncoso was in the trade, he and his associates made 25 voyages, all but three in Spanish ships. The Altagracia was used for three voyages, Encarnacion for four, Guadaloupe for two and the Hong Kong for two. There were two voyages with no casualties at all. The only voyage with a mortality rate above 25% was on the 673-ton Bilbaina which sailed on 18 October 1866. Overall, 93.64% of the 8,630 Chinese embarked were delivered safely.
Emigration Agents
On 21 September 1861, O Boletim published three tables showing the ships which had sailed from Macao between May 1860 and March 1861, and identified the eight barracoons that were then being operated by the six Emigration Agents licensed in Macao. A third Table showed the numbers of recruits registered at each address and the numbers that were actually embarked during that period.
The Peruvian J.M. de Ugarte and Spaniard Ignacio F. de Castro worked together to gather recruits for both Peru and Cuba. According to one source, Ugarte had 2,618 men awaiting shipment from his barracoon at Tarrafeiro, but only 1,534 were taken on the four ships he supplied. Castro, on the other hand, had 602 coolies in his barracoon on the Largo da Santo Antonio, which exactly matched his first two shipments to Cuba. For his other two shipments, he had to rely on Ugarte to make up his shortfall.
The numbers above have been extracted from the O Boletim list. However, there is a discrepancy in the number actually shipped on one of the four ships, the Reina del Oceano. The O Boletim list shows only 294 men were placed on this 1,011-ton vessel, which was capable of carrying at least 505 passengers. As the Cuban authorities reported 497 as having landed the more likely departure figure would have been 529 on a 0.52 passengers/ton ratio. The difference, if any, would have been amply accommodated from the Ugarte surplus. But as the Friend of China also reported that two other of the four ships, the Reina del Oceano and Francois 1, had taken on unspecified numbers at Whampoa before going to Macao, the actual number is indeterminate.
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With just one shipment, Camino y Cia housed their 330 recruits to Peru at Ponyta da Redo. Of the three Agents recruiting for Cuba, Vargas had two "establishments", one at Gamboa and the other at Rua de Sm Louren�o, and H. de Closmadeau, ex-Captain of the Francois 1, also had two addresses, one on the Praia Grande and one on Travessa da Palanchica. Frenchman L. Boye, with only one location on the Rua do Hospital, had 838 men to ship but was able to provide only 571 from his premises. Vargas would have provided him with the shortfall.
During the period, 10,690 men were initially registered in the eight establishments. Because of subsequent refusals to proceed, only 8,499 were eventually placed on ships. For example, for his single shipment, Camino admitted 545 coolies, but was able to place only 330. The success rate (the percentage of coolies shipped from among the number initially registered) was 60%. Closmadeau also had a poor record with success rates of 65% and 73% at his barracoons. Vargas's record was 76% and 82%, with the latter figure also for Castro. Despite his large recruitment pool Ugarte had a good return of 84%. In contrast to Camino, Boye was able to keep 571 of the 580 he admitted into his barracoon. That was a success rate of 98%.
In 1866 there were at least fifteen emigration agents in Macao. The most active at that time was Calderon who filled eight ships. Calderon sent 3,198 Chinese to Cuba on behalf of the Alianza in 1866. Solares was another active agent with 1,736 coolies in six ships consigned to Zangronis in Havana. At least 45 other foreigners have been identified as emigration agents in Macao in the 23 years of emigration. Prominent general traders, Caro as well as Troncoso in Havana and Canevaro in Lima, sent their principals to Macao to supervise recruitment. But most importing houses employed agents resident in Macao.
For example, Sagues was the main agent for the wealthy plantation owner Domingo. When Rafael Torices closed his doors, Antonio Ferran worked for the Empresa de Colonization consortium from 1856 until 1865 after arranging at least 29 shipments to Havana. Following his return to start
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora 169
his own importing house in Havana, he had F.P. Noronha handle five shipments from Macao.
Henrique W. Pearce arrived on the Uncowah on 22 November 1866 along with sixteen Chinese expatriates from Callao. Until his departure in December 1873, Pearce arranged for sixteen shipments to Callao and one to Havana. These seventeen shipments were matched by Francisco Landabaso between 1870 and 1872 when he too completed seventeen shipments, all for Canevaro of Lima.
When Troncoso returned to Cuba, he appointed Jos� A. Tuton as his agent in Macao. Tuton was to become by far the most active Emigration Agent in Macao. He opened his office in Macao in 1866 and filled his first ship, the Bilbaina, with 492 Chinese consigned to Troncoso in Havana. She arrived with 367 Chinese, the 25.41% loss being the only Troncoso shipmentwith a mortality above 20%. Tuton provided recruits for three of the six shipments Troncoso made on his own account in 1867.
Jos� then brought his son Fernando into the firm. They assiduously cultivated the Spanish Consul Munoz del Cano and his staff, but did not win favour with the Portuguese Governor over a new regulation changing the space allocation for passengers boarding in Macao. However, he did win back some esteem when he inaugurated a fund to assist in the welfare of destitute children and orphans in Macao. He advised the Governor that he would be contributing 10 cents for each emigrant he shipped from Macao, and would be asking fellow agents to do the same. His initial contribution of $52.70 was payment for the 527 Chinese he had placed on the Italia. The amounts received were published in the weekly Boletim.
When Lombillo began operations in China, he appointed Nicholas Tanco Armero as his agent. A native of Colombia, he had first arrived in Hong Kong on 23 June 1855 following his appointment as agent for the Cuban planters Morales and Pedroso. Between 1855 and 1858, he arranged nine shipments to Havana before travelling the world. Armero returned to Macao in 1866 where he recruited enough men to fill twenty-two ships for Lombillo in Havana and one for
Peru. He left Macao again in 1869, only to return in 1872 to conduct another nine shipments, this time for Canevaro, in Lima as well as the only shipment of Chinese coolies to Costa Rica.
Another Havana agent was Francisco Abella. He first acted as assistant to Armero, then, between 1869 and 1873, in conjunction with Ybanes. It seems that Abella did not go out of his way to please Consul del Cano, for he was accused of shipping minors without permission, while Tuton excused for the same indiscretion.
ZAKRA QUO 38 AT MACAO
"Barracoons at Macao.
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, June 1864.
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Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
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Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora
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Canton Becomes
An Emigration Port
nder the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, Canton was one of five ports open to foreign trade. However, the local Governor refused to accept this and the British were still confined to their original factories and unable to secure the right of entry into Canton proper. Despite repeated attempts, British Consul Parkes was unable to persuade Governor Ye Ming Chen to accept the treaty. In total frustration, Parkes then used the seizure in 1856 of the Chinese-owned, but British-flagged, Arrow as the basis for demanding redress. With the active backing of Governor Bowring in Hong Kong, he persisted in demanding an apology. When none was forthcoming, a naval force was used to storm the city. After a brief occupation of the town, the European settlement was set on fire, forcing Parkes to retreat to Hong Kong for a year.
Then in December 1857, British forces once again attacked Canton, this time in conjunction with the French. During a lull in the battle, a party of sailors led by Parkes succeeded in entering Governor Ye's yamen (compound). There Parkes discovered the original Treaty documents relating to the opening of Canton to foreign trade. Ye had refused to accept the treaty and had hidden the documents. He was taken prisoner and transported to Calcutta where he died two years later. He was unrepentant to the end.
The occupying armies led by British Sir Charles van Straubenzee and the French commander, M. d'Abouville, appointed a mixed commission of military and consular officials to supervise the city's administration. Pih Kwei, the Governor of Canton was reinstated, but the real government
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora 173
was exercised by three Allied Commissioners, a British officer, Colonel Holloway, a French soldier, Captain Martineau de Chesnez, and a British consular official, Harry Parkes. They were ostensibly equal, but in actuality were led by Parkes, as he was the only one able to speak Chinese.
The demand from Cuba continued apace with annual shipments rising from over 8,000 in 1856 to more than 12,000 in the next two years, before falling back to 9,000 in 1859. With contracts amounting to more than half a million dollars, foreign agents, mainly Spanish, began recruiting Chinese labour on a massive scale throughout Kwangtung. Between 1859 and 1860, no fewer than 37 vessels were used to take on 17,637 Chinese coolies. In the following two years, however, shipments fell back to an all-time low of two in 1862, due in part to rising costs and to the uncertain political situation at that time.
As the supply of labour diminished in the northern hinterlands around Amoy and Swatow, Spanish attention turned south. As the pool of mendicants and layabouts dwindled in the population centres surrounding Canton, the Chinese brokers, earning between twenty and thirty dollars or more for each coolie presented, did not hesitate to employ any means to meet the required numbers. Common methods were to offer to help unsuspecting youths to find work, to pay for a meal, or to advance a few coins to gamble with. When thus trapped, pressure was put on the luckless man to agree to emigrate.
When such methods failed, kidnapping was resorted to. It had become so rampant, that the local population ventured from their homes only when necessary. In desperation, they began taking things into their own hands, killing several kidnappers early in April 1859. Twenty-three traders of the Chinese mercantile community petitioned Consul Rutherford Alcock 70
for the British authorities to put an end to the atrocities.71
Kwangtung Emigration Proclamations
The Chief Magistrates of the Districts of Nanhai and Panyu had become so concerned about the rampant kidnapping that
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they issued a proclamation, advising all persons who wished to emigrate that there would be no objection to them going with the foreign emigration agents. Two days later, Governor Pih Kwei belatedly confirmed the magistrates' proclamation, with one of his own, with far-reaching consequences. He acknowledged that because of the crowded population some people were compelled to accept employment overseas for various reasons. He then decreed, "Permission to them doing so should not, it is clear, be withheld in any of these cases, provided the parties themselves really consented to the arrangement .
Pih Kwei then warned of villains kidnapping men under the pretence of providing them with employment. He said that the traffic had now become known as the "sale of pigs". Pih said he had directed all civil and military authorities to arrest such villains, offered rewards for information leading to the arrest of kidnappers, and warned that the houses in which kidnapped persons were found would be pulled down.
In the course of the year, Governor Pih died and was succeeded by Governor Laou. With the freeing up of emigration by the Chinese mandarins confirmed, the problem facing Laou was the need to establish a system of emigration free of the abuses now endemic in the province.
Whampoa Kidnappings
In reality, the Proclamations of April 1859 did not serve to lessen the extent of kidnapping that still flourished. Laou ordered a crackdown on the kidnappers. Chinese officials boarded several junks at the Whampoa anchorage on 1 November 1859 and arrested 77 men, of whom 41 claimed to have been kidnapped and the remaining 36 were identified as kidnappers.
The kidnappers themselves seemed to be opportunists. Ho yew stated, "I am 29 years of age, and belong to Shwuy kiao village in Tung kwan district. My father is dead. My mother, Hwang she, is 56 years of age. I have no brothers. My wife is dead; she died childless. I have in general been employed on board Ho a ching's cargo boat. On the 31st October, when in Tung kwan district, the idea came into my
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora 175
head of kidnapping an acquaintance of mine, Chang ah sai, belonging to Hwang village, in that district, and I offered him work on board a fishing boat, engaging to give him thirteen dollars a year for seven years, at the expiration of which time he should return home. Chang ah sai expressed his willingness to go with me, and I gave him two dollars. On the same day, we embarked in a Shih lung passage boat for Canton. As we were passing Chang chow, I hailed a sampan, which took us to the coolie boat of Yung ah tsin, where I sold Chang ah sai for thirteen dollars, telling him at the time that he was to be taken to the fishing boat. I was just about to return home, when I was arrested. This is the first time I have kidnapped and sold a man as a coolie. I have never been brought up before for any crime".
Sing woo also knew of the coolie boats. "I am 28 years of age, and belong to Kwei shen district. I live at home, and practise surgery to gain my living. I was acquainted with Chang ah urh; and through his telling me that twenty or thirty dollars could easily be gained by kidnapping, and that he knew a Tung kwan man called 'Pockmarked Yao' who kept a sugar boat at Chang chow, and who was intimate with the coolie brokers, I was persuaded to join him, on the 4th of the 8th moon, in kidnapping, at the town of Po lo, a man named, Chang ah che. Pockmarked Yao took and sold him to the coolie brokers, and gave us twelve dollars, which Chang ah urh and myself divided. Again, on the 27th of the 9th moon, I by myself, in the town of Po lo, kidnapped Chin ah yao, and gave him to Pockmarked Yao, from whom I received twenty dollars. I had gone to the sugar boat to live at ease for awhile, when, on the 2nd November, the soldiers arrested me and brought me hither".
As had been proclaimed, Laou had originally intended to execute twenty-three of the kidnappers, but on mitigation from the Allied Commissioners, beheaded eighteen of them only. Seven of their heads were later displayed at Whampoa as a warning to potential kidnappers. Laou also ordered the stationing of three war junks at Whampoa to watch for kidnappers.
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Victim Depositions
From the depositions of some of the kidnapped persons, it would appear that many were simply naive. Li fu deposed, "Am from the Hai feng district aged 38, a labourer; have a younger brother named Li a ming, a shopkeeper at Macao. On the 1st of the 10th month being at San to chu, in the Hai feng district, I crossed over in the ferry to Hwei chow, and met an acquaintance, named A kwei, on the road. This man said that he also knew my brother, and persuaded me to go to him in his boat. I followed him without suspicion on board, and was taken to Chang chow, to be sold against my will as a coolie. I was confined in the hold of a vessel, until released and sent up for examination by a military officer who came to institute a search".
No force was used then but another victim Yu leang stated, "I am 25, and belong to the Tung kwan district. On the 4th of the 5th moon I was in the Ching kwang meao when I first met Tai ah shing, the man who kidnapped me. I went with him on board a boat to get a meal, little thinking, as I entered the boat, that he would, as he did, unmoor the boat and go to Chang chow. At Chang chow, he took me to sell to the foreigners. On my resisting, he took a club and struck me at random. I then, finding I had no recourse, went with him to the foreigners; but when they saw the marks of the blows on my body, they refused to take me, and I remained on board the boat until the soldiers who were charged to examine came."
That statement showed that the recruiters actually examined the men as they boarded. Liang chi yeng also deposed, "Was formerly a resident in the Nan hai district, but removed with my father to Lio chow fu in Kwangsi; I am 33 years old. In the third month of the current year, became one of the guards of a mandarin named Tou, went in the seventh month to Te ching, where I was discharged; later I served as a brave at Shao ching fu but was thrown out of employ together with more than twenty others, on being attacked with ulcers, and on the 12th of the 9th month, I went to Te ching chow to seek medical assistance. I had never been to Canton, and on the 25th of the 9th month, a man named Hwang a siu, of the
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177
Po lo district, imposed upon me with the statement that he was about to return to Canton to serve as a soldier under the above-mentioned Tou. I was on board Hwang A Siu's boat until the 29th of the 9th month, being quite ignorant of the locality; when I witnessed him offering me for sale to foreigners, who, however, on seeing that I was suffering from ulcers would not purchase. Later I was released by soldiers, who took me up for examination."
Receiving ships in Whampoa
In early 1859, recruiting houses, depots or barracoons as they were more commonly known, were not to be found in Canton. Instead, the Tait practice of using a ship at Amoy was employed.
One of the first receiving ships to arrive in Whampoa was the Vargas-controlled 1,429-ton American Governor Morton. Captain J.C. Berry arrived on 15 March 1859, while the 1,350-ton American-flagged Messenger arrived at Whampoa under Captain Ben Manton on 15 May 1859. Vargas had also arranged for Lyall, Still & Co. of Hong Kong to charter two other American ships, the 1,849-ton Pioneer, Captain Montgomery, which arrived on 8 August 1859, while the American ship Swallow was also anchored at Whampoa in June 1859.
Transfers to Macao were then regularly made but the first reported incident was when the Messenger had accumulated eighty-seven coolies and transferred them to the Portuguese lorcha Louisa No 10, for transportation to Macao on 12 August 1859. The lorcha was found washed ashore between the two ports with her masts and rigging cut away. She was deserted with all her guns removed. It was presumed that the coolies had revolted and that the crew had escaped only by jumping overboard.
In addition to the American ships at Whampoa, there was the 633-ton Dutch barque, Soolo, which was expecting to undertake a second voyage to Cuba. Captain Van der Moulen had already taken a shipment of 400 men to Havana for Pereda Machado early in 1858. With different recruiting agents, the 1,409 Peruvian ship Westward Ho under Captain
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Araucoa had been chartered for Callao, but because of the increased surveillance, headed for Macao instead, as did the 935-ton French ship Ville de Lima, and the 385-ton Spanish Santa Lucia.
Alarmed at news of the happenings at Whampoa, Governor Laou wrote to the Allied Commissioners on 8 November 1859, asking them to communicate to the various Consuls in Canton the necessity for their nationals to lodge with his office the regulations under which they would hire coolies. If the regulations were not satisfactory, they would be prohibited from hiring Chinese, and kidnapping would be prevented. In response to this request, the Soolo was compelled by the Dutch Consul to revoke her charter.
com-
On receipt of the Allied Commissioners' munication, the American Consul, Oliver H. Perry, wrote to Laou, asking for an officer to be appointed at Whampoa to assist in procuring labourers and in following the rules for the prevention of kidnapping. Laou was adamant that the request was at variance with what had been agreed by the French and British for establishments at Canton, where recruitment would be under constant Chinese supervision. Laou rejected having an officer at Whampoa, "which was too far away", and where the officer would find it difficult to work.
In rejecting Perry's request, Laou also wrote to the Allied Commissioners enclosing a copy of his reply to Perry. He stressed that procuring labourers was to be at the provincial city only and not at different places away from the city.
Eight petitions had been lodged with the Allied Commissioners, seeking kidnapped relatives thought to be on board the ships. They were forwarded to Laou, who requested the American Consul to allow a Chinese officer to accompany him to search for the men. Consul Perry agreed and found the men on board, but in doing so was assailed by scores of others begging to be liberated.
With this evidence, Laou then requested Perry to have all the American vessels inspected. As the ships were too large to reach Canton, Perry in return asked Laou for permission to have the coolies inspected at Whampoa, but the
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179
73
request was rejected. It was then agreed that a Chinese delegation would proceed with Perry to Whampoa. A British interpreter, William S. Frederick Mayers, was to assist, purely to interpret for Perry, whose own interpreter could speak only the local dialect.'"
They were also to inspect the 477-ton Oldenburgh (German) barque Fanny Kirchner. She had arrived early in December 1859 under Captain Bluck and was anchored at Whampoa. She had been chartered by Emigration Agent Bidau, on behalf of Morales, to take 350 coolies to Havana at $55 a head. On 7 December, she transferred 150 coolies to Macao for onward shipment. On 31 December 1859, the party left for Whampoa, but as, by then, Perry had gone to Hong Kong, Vice Consul Blanchard agreed to attend, but expressed reservation over the presence of Mayers, whom he thought could be prejudiced against the Americans. Accordingly, Blanchard and one official visited the American ships, while Mayers went on board the Oldenburg vessel. Fifty men were released from the American ships. Another fifty were removed from the Fanny Kirchner.
Laou refused to accept the result and demanded that 578 men be brought to Canton and that clearance for the Messenger would not be granted. In two despatches to Perry, he warned that the Messenger was about to leave with unauthorised passengers and demanded she not be given her papers. Perry agreed; then, together with Mayers, he visited the Messenger on 2 January. Captain Manton was most belligerent and threatened to have the Chinese taken off. When Manton saw Mayers, he physically threatened him, such that Perry, after a ten-minute heated argument advised Mayers to leave. Whilst waiting in the small boat alongside, Mayers witnessed the arrival of the captains from the other American vessels. As it was then late, it was agreed that the inspections would be carried out the next day. This was despite Mayers warning the officials that the coolies had to be taken to Canton.
On 3 January Perry and some Chinese officials went on board the American vessels. Perry was able to identify 28 coolies from the Messenger, seven from the Governor
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Morton, and fifteen from the Pioneer, who did not want to leave China. Both sets of Chinese officials appeared to be more interested in partaking of the refreshments provided by the various captains than interviewing the men. Meanwhile Mayers and the other officials again visited the Fanny Kirchner. It took the whole day before 59 coolies indicated their unwillingness to go abroad. However, they were not allowed to leave the ship.
Perry returned to Canton the next day, while Mayers went back to the Fanny Kirchner. Once again, the officials were provided with champagne and sweetmeats, and it took all day before Bidau the recruiter and Richard von Carlowitz the Spanish Consul, agreed that the men who did not want to emigrate could be taken ashore to Canton for processing. But before they were taken off, they were made to strip naked, their new clothes taken from them; and they were then told to select from the rags they had originally come on board in. The remaining ones were transferred to the American Kitty Simpson on 5 January.
The following day, Perry called upon Laou, who was fuming because his (Laou's) officials were not following instructions. (They had been too-well entertained the previous day!) Laou had demanded that all coolies be brought to Canton for examination. Perry replied that he was not aware of this instruction, but if that was what was desired, he would arrange for boats to bring the men up. On return to his office, Perry found Captain Manton waiting for him. Manton was told to bring his ship to Canton, but when Perry was told she was too deep to cross the bar, he advised Manton to charter steamers to bring the men up. Manton complained bitterly of the injustice being done to him, and pleaded for his papers.
Captain Manton returned to the Consulate the following evening to advise Perry that while he (Manton) was in Canton, all the men on the Messenger had been taken off, on the order of Vargas. He did not know what had happened to them. On being told that, unless he produced them, he would not receive his papers, Manton complained that he could not produce what he had no control over. He had never given a receipt for the men.
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It was later learned that the previous night, most of the passengers from the other two American ships had been transferred to the Messenger, which then weighed anchor and went down river where in the dead of night she transferred most of the 578 men to a small American steamer, the Mei- lie, which immediately left for Macao. The remainder were placed on native junks, and were later recovered by the Custom house chartered steamer Cum-fa. Ironically, she was also an American vessel. The Messenger then, in all innocence, returned to her original anchorage.
On 7 January 1860, Captain Manton applied to the Customs house at Whampoa for a clearance. Despite paying the tonnage dues, and having the ship devoid of coolies, this was not granted on the grounds that he had not paid duty on the rice he had on board. Later it was acknowledged that this was done on the express orders of the Governor General. Manton then wrote to Perry demanding his intervention. Perry refused.
An exasperated Laou wrote six letters to Perry over this incident, then in total frustration wrote to John Elliott Ward (1814-1902), the American
American Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in Hong Kong, deploring the disregard of his requests. When Ward met with Laou on 1 February 1860, Ward stated that, of the 475 coolies who had been taken off the Messenger, twenty-five had absconded at Macao, twenty-six had been handed to Chinese officers by the Portuguese authorities, and over 200 had already been returned; the remainder were expected back within the next two days.
Like the Spanish and Peruvians, the Americans were keen to be assured that the Allied Commissioners would not be involved. They were very suspicious of Harry Parkes, believing that he was trying to establish a recruiting monopoly through the establishment of an English emigration depot. Ward was not prepared to submit the Chinese for examination by the Allied Commissioners. However, when he was given an assurance by Parkes, Ward told Laou the men would be brought to Canton for examination whenever
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the Governor desired. Ward then had the men retrieved from
Macao.
Samuel Wells Williams (1812-1884) a long time China resident and fluent Chinese speaker-with Oliver Perry, sat on the bench, together with the district magistrates of Nanhai and Panyu. Each of the 215 men questioned unhesitatingly answered that they did not go on board willingly, nor did they voluntarily sign contracts, some even declaring they would rather die than go in the ship. The men were aged between 16 and 25, generally in good health, and belonged to the lowest order of society-field labourers, boatmen, artisans and porters, with only a few able to read. Nearly all of them complained of harsh treatment, some having been beaten with sticks or thongs. Others had knives drawn across their throats, or had been strapped on boards, with their toes and wrists bound. One man produced a tooth that had been knocked out of his mouth. Others displayed creases left by cords, or weals made by sticks.
When made to sign the contracts, they knew only that they were going to a Spanish country for eight years at four dollars a month. They did not think they had any option but to sign, and did so with the tip of a finger dipped in ink and stamping the paper. Often their hands were seized by one man, and the stamp made by another, but in every case without their consent. Most of the men
were from Kwangtung, from nearly every district, with only a few from adjoining provinces. In total 432 men were lodged in quarters before being presented to the Governor General and sent home.
In Ward's 24 January 1860 report to Secretary of State Cass, he sincerely hoped that the attention of Congress would be called to the coolie trade, and that some law be passed regulating it and putting it more under the control of the American Minister or Chief Diplomatic agent in China. It was two years before the "Prohibition of Coolie Trade Act was passed by Congress.
On 24 February 1860, Ward described the method in which the coolies were induced to express their willingness to emigrate. He described how Vargas, the recruiting agent in
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Macao, simultaneously chartered four ships to arrive at staggered intervals. When a Chinese man was kidnapped or stolen, he would be taken to the first ship and asked if he wished to emigrate. If he declined, the captain, with apparent honesty, would then declare he could not be received on board. His captors would then leave the ship with him, and he would be held in the water, or tied by his thumbs, or cold water would be poured down his back, or some other torture, until he consented to go. He would then be taken to the next ship, and the same question repeated. If he still declined, he would be taken off, and the process repeated until consent was wrung from him, and he would then be received as a "willing emigrant". When the Consul came on board, he would be questioned under the painful recollection of what he had already endured, and would continue to endure until he consented.
Ward said that all the captains of the American ships at Whampoa were connected with the coolie trade, and thus seriously affecting American relations with China. He praised Perry for his untiring labours; but with no law to sustain him, he was not able to achieve much.
Shipping to the British West Indies resumes
In October 1855, the Governor of British Guiana, P.E. Wodehouse, advised Lord Grey, the British Colonial Secretary, that the planters wanted more Chinese labourers. On 8 April 1856, Governor Charles Elliot of Trinidad also wrote to Lord Grey requesting that 300 Chinese immigrants be immediately introduced. It was not until 31 July 1856, however that incoming Colonial Secretary Labouchere replied, declining the request for Chinese labour. He claimed the resident British authority in China considered it undesirable at present, and also
at present, and also mentioned that the impossibility of obtaining the requisite proportion of female emigrants would not make the emigration successful.
On 22 January 1858, Governor Wodehouse again advised Labouchere that the planters of that Colony had reconsidered their position, and wanted more Chinese labourers. With that renewed request from Governor
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Wodehouse, the Emigration Commissioners agreed that private emigration, with some women, was desirable and proposed a draft Ordinance for the Legislatures of British Guiana and Trinidad, allowing proprietors to introduce Chinese immigrants at their own expense, within the general provisions of the Chinese Passengers' Act.
On learning of the proposed Ordinance, the WIC lost no time in canvassing members' requirements and appointed an agent of their own to go to China. Thomas Gerard was to proceed to China to procure 2,990 immigrants, including women, at no more than �25 per head. His salary was to be �1,500 per annum, to commence on his departure from England, and to include clerical assistance and all personal expenses. The agreement was for two years, terminable at the end of the first year, at the option of either party. In his instructions, dated 3 June 1858, he was fully authorised to engage shipping as required, and to affect charter-parties. Only able-bodied agricultural labourers should be allowed to embark, and special care was to be taken to exclude all who were addicted to opium. The Committee had no objection to a small proportion of boys under 15, and girls under 13, equal to 10 percent of the total of males and females, being recruited. His instructions permitted him to recruit anywhere in China where he considered suitable emigrants could be procured.
Gerard was said to have had some experience in China. It was probably as the mate of the opium-receiving ship Hong Kong, which was stationed in Swatow at the time of the riots in Amoy. He set off in time to effect recruitment for the 1858-59 shipping season. On arrival in Hong Kong, he introduced himself to Governor Bowring, who provided him with introductions to each of the Consuls in China.
Gerard had intended heading directly to Canton, but as he was warned that the city was in a state of turmoil, Gerard went to Macao instead. During November 1858, he was able to find enough coolies to fill a ship, simply by visiting a single barracoon.
On 22 November 1858, Gerard applied to have the 545- ton Royal George cleared at Macao. The reason he gave was
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that it would save six to eight days by not calling at Hong Kong. Gerard's application was supported by Andrew Lysaught Inglis" in his capacity as Emigration Officer in Hong Kong.
Gerard's application was also supported by the Acting Colonial Secretary, Frederick H.A. Forth, who was of the opinion that it was within the Governor's power to approve the application. Governor Bowring however, thought otherwise, and on 27 November, instructed the Hong Kong Colonial Secretary, William T. Mercer, to deny Gerard's request to leave directly from Macao.
The Royal George accordingly left Macao on 3 December 1858 and was cleared to sail from Hong Kong for Demerara on 7 December 1858, with 292 coolies on the passenger-list, a delay of at most four days.
The Royal George had been measured at Liverpool by an officer of the Emigration Commissioners which allowed 280.4 adults to be legally carried." In Hong Kong, the Government Surveyor's measurements were based on a different interpretation, which allowed for 293 adults. Neither set of measurements was correct, as the proper calculation would have allowed for 260 adults only. Somewhat unfairly, only Mr G.H. Heaton in Hong Kong was severely censured by the Duke of Newcastle. The unnamed surveyor in Liverpool escaped censure.
Gerard had actually placed 300 Chinese on board her in Macao, following advice from Inglis that additional cooks would be required for the number of men embarked. Even though the six additional men would be landed in Demerara, they had cunningly been signed on as ship's cooks, hence part of the crew, and not passengers. No reason was given as to why Inglis permitted this flagrant breach of the Government Notification of 9 April 1856, which expressly prohibited such a practice; and there was no inquiry as to how this was permitted.
Gerard then prepared another shipment from Macao, this time on the General Wyndham. She had been idle at Macao for many months, waiting while the Royal George was being loaded. Gerard had 461 Chinese to ship, and the 865-ton
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vessel would have allowed for only 433 adults. By including some dubious spaces in his calculation, Inglis once again pointedly allowed the ship to sail with 440 adults and six boys on 14 February 1859. As with the Royal George, no women were embarked. The ages of the children on the General Wyndham were not stated, but she would have been liable to detention had those passengers whose ages exceeded 12 years been entered on the list as children. Once again, the extra Chinese were classed as ship's crew.
The Royal George arrived at Demerara on 29 March 1859 after a voyage of 112 days, which saw the deaths of 49 Chinese. The subsequent inquiry found the major causes were the small size of the vessel, the difficult ventilation, and insufficient room for exercise, especially as the excessive supply of food caused many to become fat and dropsical in the feet. An unexpected recommendation was the disuse of berths, as was the case with East Indian ships. The Emigration Commissioners agreed, but took the view that, as much depended on the habits of the people, a decision on this would be best ascertained by the agent in China. The General Wyndham, a roomy clipper ship, arrived at Georgetown on 13 May after a rather shorter voyage of 91 days during which eleven lives were lost.
Gerard returned to England soon after despatching the Royal George. With the controversy over his method of recruitment in Macao, his use of superseded contracts left behind by White, and the confirmed appointment of a government officer, the option to renew his contract was not taken up.
British Emigration Depot established
77
The WIC had commissioned its own emigration agent at the very same time as John Gardiner Austin' was offered the position of emigration agent in China by the Combined Court in British Guiana. Surprisingly, the long time proponent of Chinese immigration, the Hon. Peter Rose, was the only dissenter when Austin was offered the position on 25 May 1858. His salary was to be �1,500 per annum from 1 July 1858, exclusive of travelling expenses. As his employment
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was not expected to be of a long duration, he would be entitled to resume his former office on its termination.
The Government had no wish to engage in abusive behaviour in securing these migrants, and considered, above all, that it was desirable to secure a large proportion of females. It was emphasized that every emigrant was to leave China of his own free will, and with a full knowledge of the terms of his undertaking. Austin was to submit proposals for the establishment of a permanent system of immigration. Trinidad agreed to the appointment of Austin.
78
Austin did not arrive in China until August 1859 after some negotiations over his entitlement to passage at the Government rate. There he was informed that the Governor of Canton had placed the emigration of Chinese men and women on a legal footing that April. On learning of this, he immediately went to Canton to ascertain the possibility of establishing a depot in that city, and sought permission from the Colonial Office to commence recruiting from Canton while maintaining Hong Kong as his base.
With Government approval received on 12 October, he wrote to Harry Parkes, seeking confirmation on the legality of Chinese emigration, and assistance in establishing such an operation." Parkes was only too pleased to establish a well- regulated emigration programme free of coercion and unscrupulous recruiting practices. Relieved that a well- administered system was at last a possibility, he convinced his fellow Commissioners to write to the replacement Acting Governor-General of the southern Chinese provinces, backing the Austin proposal. They were not sure how Governor Laou would react.
On 26 October 1859, Austin was able to provide Parkes with the Regulations under which the proposed emigration programme to the British West Indies would be conducted. Much to the relief of the Commissioners, Laou's reply, the next day, confirmed his recognition of voluntary emigration and acceptance of these regulations. This was communicated to Austin. On Parkes' instigation, Laou issued a Proclamation on 28 October, making known that Austin's emigration plan had the fullest sanction of the local government.
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Within a week, Austin had found waterfront premises suitable for a depot. It was at the rear of the western extremity of the Shameen site, within the city limits, and thus easily accessible by the authorities who had been nominated to monitor conditions at the depot. To regulate the depot, Austin drew up another set of regulations. This time it was to define how the depot would be administered.
He appointed Theophilus Sampson as his deputy, who would be resident at the Emigration House. Sampson had been a seafarer who became stranded without a ship in Whampoa in 1856. Befriended by Parkes, he became the cashier and chief clerk to the Allied Commission in 1858.
Next, Austin had public notices printed, setting out the objectives of the British emigration programme. The Emigration House was opened on 10 November 1859, with one prospective labourer already waiting at the door. Despite some tampering by Whampoa crimps, 170 Chinese had registered to emigrate by the end of the month, not all being able to be accommodated in the unfinished building. The success of the British emigration programme was welcomed by the Chinese authorities.
With the enthusiastic urging of Parkes, the Admiral of Kwangtung undertook to distribute 100 copies of Austin's Notice in the maritime districts, and Governor Laou ordered that the Notices be posted at every village or market town throughout the province. Three sub-districts in Nam Hoi, to the west of Canton, were chosen, the most populous being Shing An. A two-man team visited the eight townships and many of the 170 villages in this sub-district.
Allied Commissioners' Depot Rules
Following the approval of the British Emigration Depot, the Allied Commissioners took Chinese emigration from Canton under their control and paid the inspectors' salaries, Mr Mackay on behalf of the English, and Mr Jekyll on behalf of the French agents.
They then set about establishing procedures for the office and promulgated rules for the inspection of depots. Permission to open an emigration house required written
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora 189
particulars of the applicant, of the nature and extent of the operation and the rules for the establishment. Proprietors had to provide suitable offices for the Allied Inspecting Officers, who would visit each day together with Chinese officers. At each visit the inspectors would match the register with any new applicants, who were to be allowed free egress and ingress within certain hours each day.
Inspections were to take place each afternoon, and contracts signed every alternate morning. The contracts were not to be signed until four days had elapsed since registration. Each applicant would be asked if he accepted the terms of the contract and whether he was willing to sign. If so, the contract was then read to the applicant, and his advance paid over. After this was paid over, he was no longer be allowed to leave the premises. The contract reading and signing was normally done by Mr Mackay, who could speak fluent Chinese, in conjunction with the Chinese officials.
The applicant's name would then be entered in the "Shipping List", which the Inspectors closed when the Agent signified that the ship's complement had been completed. Permission to depart would only be granted when the Agent provided a Certificate from a competent authority to say the ship was fit for purpose, and the number of emigrants it could accommodate.
When Vargas found his business greatly disrupted at Whampoa, he applied to open a depot in Canton in December 1859, but his application was rejected because the Macao contract he presented was considered inadmissible. These contracts expressly took away the right of the labourer to appeal to the laws which the Government of Cuba had made, for the protection of immigrants.
Vargas then arranged to have an American citizen, E.A. Thorndike, establish a depot in a joint agency with the Cuban house of Torices, Ferran, and Dupierris, to operate from Canton and Whampoa. With the recommendation of Consul Perry in March 1860, the Allied Commissioners reluctantly accepted his application after several objectionable clauses were removed, but Thorndike was warned that as the Chinese translation was so imperfectly made, the application could be
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rejected by the Inspecting Officers. This was to become known as the Anglo-American house.
The application differed widely in several significant points from the version approved for another Spanish agent, Don Ignacio Fernandez de Castro, for Camino & Co., a Peruvian company with an office in Macao. This was known as the Spanish house, and a fourth house was granted to the French Maritime Agency.
The armies of the Allied Commissioners ended their occupation on 19 October 1861. With the termination of the Allied Commission in Canton, emigration became solely the responsibility of the Chinese government.
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Co-incident with this handover of responsibility, the emigration depots for Peru and Cuba closed their doors. However, British emigration efforts continued to be the responsibility of the Colonial Office, the Canton-based Consul, and the Emigration Agent based in Hong Kong. The depot was transferred from Hong Kong back to Canton in 1864. The French Maritime Agency also closed but reopened in 1865, a few doors down from the British Agency, in response to a record demand in Cuba, which saw ten shipments from Whampoa between 1865 and 1866.
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C
iy
AMEXICA
Chart of the World, showing Hong Kong, Macau, Callao, Cuba, West Indies. National Library of Australia.
Whampoa from Dane's Island, 1843.
Departure port, 1852-1873.
Drawn by Thomas Allom.
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�
Coolie Ships. Plate 1. Pp. 192a-192h
Macao. Departure port, 1851-1874. Chinese artist. Photo: Martyn Gregory Gallery, London.
Hong Kong. Departure port, 1848-1870. Chinese artist. Photo: Martyn Gregory Gallery, London.
Coolie Ships. Plate 2. Pp. 192a-192h
Coolie Ships. Plate 3. Pp. 192a-192h
LASSA LAMY
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Amoy. Departure port, 1846-1869. Chinese artist. Photo: Martyn Gregory Gallery, London.
Whampoa. Departure port 1852-1873. Chinese artist. Photo: Martyn Gregory Gallery, London.
Coolie Ships. Plate 4. Pp. 192a-192h
Coolie Ships. Plate 5. Pp. 192a-192h
Kingston harbour, Jamaica, c. 1870. Destination port, 1852-54, 1858-1884.
10
Havana harbour, Cuba. Destination port, 1847-1873.
Coolie Ships. Plate 6. Pp. 192a-192h
Coolie Ships. Plate 7. Pp. 192a-192h
Port of Callao, Peru. From Lima by Manuel A. Fuentes, 1866. Destination port, 1852-1874.
Coolie Ships. Plate 8. Pp. 192a-192h
7
Ships For The West Indies
T
The continual rise in the price of sugar sparked an interest among the planters in the Dutch, French and British West Indian colonies in recruiting Chinese labourers. The planters however needed to improve productivity to meet the strong competition from Cuba. The
renewed inerest for Chinese labourers began with two shipments for Surinam from Macao in 1858, one French shipment to Martinique from Shanghai and then another from Whampoa. British planters resumed recruitng Chinese laboureres, first from Macao and then Whampoa in 1859.
This renewed interest began with two shipments from Macao to Surinam in 1858. However, after these, the Dutch suspended further shipments until 1865, when they resumed occasional shipments until 1869. The French had only two experimental shipments-in 1859 and 1860-and ceased further shipments, following strong resentment from the native population.
French West Indian shipments
With an official French presence in China, the Administration of Martinique entered into an agreement with the firm of Gastel, Malavois, & Assier on 25 November 1858 for the supply of up to 10,000 Chinese workers over a period of five years. The French Minister of Colonies however, would only allow an initial trial of two shipments. Accordingly, the Paris firm signed an agreement with Louis O'Lanyer of Bordeaux for the introduction of 600 Chinese agriculturists to the Colonies. The outcome is unclear."
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When the French 502-ton Admiral Baudin departed from Shanghai on 27 April 1859, she had 355 on board for Martinique. The British Consul reported two women were
Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora 193
among the 331 who landed at St Pierre, on 29 September. Prior to that sailing, another French ship, the Indien, was reported by the North China Herald to have sailed on 6 April, in ballast for Guadaloupe. However, according to Jean-Luc Cardin, the Fulton took 223 from the Indien to Martinique after the Guadalopeans refused 300 of the Indien contingent of 512 from Shanghai.
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The 463-ton French ship Gertrude, under Captain LaBelle, had been lying in the Huangpo River near Woosung for some time, amid speculation that a good many people including children had disappeared.** One day a Chinese boy escaped from the ship just as the coolies on board began to mutiny. The coolies were fired upon by the crew and 60 or 70 of them jumped overboard, when the crew continued to shoot at them in the water. In explanation of the mutiny, it was said a French merchant had been contracted to furnish labourers for the French West Indies. His crimps had resorted to every sort of pretence to bring them in, brazenly taking people from the Bund, the hongs and sampans, and even the fields. The French Consul and Vice Consul were said to have agents among the Chinese, including policemen and even higher Chinese officials.
After waiting for more than three months, the Galilee eventually sailed from Whampoa for Martinique on 14 March 1860 with 426 Chinese. The shipment included seven families of from three to eight individuals, twelve married couples without infants, thirteen girls from three to seven years. There were 38 women on board including one aged 63 and an infant of tender age. There were 86 boys aged between 15 and 20, 226 men from 20 to 30 years old, 75 from 31 to 45 years old and one man aged over sixty.
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On 29 September 1859, the British Consul in Martinique reported the arrival of another vessel belonging to the same firm as having arrived at Guadalupe, but due to the reluctance of local planters to accept the Chinese, 225 of them were eventually transferred by Government steamer to Martinique, where they immediately found employment. Consul Lawless did not identify the ship that called at Guadaloupe, leaving it unclear as to which ship actually carried that shipment. The
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final three shipments to the French colonies were surprisingly undertaken by non-French vessels carrying 1,135 Chinese to Tahiti.
The French inducements were not enough, especially when compared with the contracts being offered by the Spanish for the same eight years servitude. The French contract was at the rate of four piastres a month, with 13 piastres advanced for clothing and other necessities to be repaid at one piaster a month. The Spanish contract of Don R. Bidau on behalf of Morales & Co. was for the same numerical number, but related to dollars rather than piastres. The piastre was introduced by the French in Annam. It was roughly equal in value to the dollar but was not well known in China. The big attraction of his contract however, was the payment of a $20 bounty, which was never to be recovered from wages.
British Emigration Agency in Hong Kong
With the British depot firmly established in Canton, Austin left Sampson in charge before returning to Hong Kong, where he met the Rev. William Lobscheid.
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Lobscheid had a deep understanding of the Chinese people, who trusted him, and he was able to promise to recruit 5,000 married families from the north and northeast of Hong Kong, areas where the women's feet were not bound. During December, Austin, with the able assistance of Lobschied's nominee, Wong Cheung Pak, was able to recruit 133 emigrants from the countryside who had been attracted by his notices, and another twenty, including seven women, in Hong Kong.
The first recruits in Hong Kong were held in temporary bamboo sheds, but Austin soon found it more economical to have a floating depot, with only an office and medical inspection room ashore. It also provided better supervision once advances had been paid.
The 977-ton Whirlwind was the first ship chartered by Austin. In Canton he placed 89 members of families, including 40 women and twelve children, on the ship taking them to Demerara. The first 127 single men from the Canton
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depot were taken to Hong Kong by steamer, joining 13 men and seven women already there. The final total of 372 persons included 47 women and eleven children and one infant sailing from Hong Kong on 23 December 1859.
The Whirlwind was the first vessel to take Chinese women to the British West Indies. There was great scepticism as to the true relationship of these women, and that was soon borne out when so many of them were repudiated, even before the voyage commenced. In general, they were not of a strong nature, and most were not able, nor inclined, to perform any form of field work. The Whirlwind arrived at Demerara on 11 March 1860 after a speedy passage of 79 days, and without a single death. The British Guiana Royal Gazette of 23 March 1860 reported that the married folk lived in the after-part of the ship separated by a screen from the single men. Each couple had their own space, with the partitions dividing the berths only 5ft high to allow circulation of air. The men from Hong Kong were kept apart from those from Canton, while a few troublesome ones were housed in the longboat, away from all others.
Surgeon Superintendent J.A. Chaldecott was on the Whirlwind on her second voyage to Demerara. She was the last vessel of the season to sail from Hong Kong on 8 April 1861 with 365 men, women, and children on board. Nine men and four women died on the 114-day voyage which reached Demerara on 31 July 1861.
On 13 August, Dr Chaldecott wrote about the voyage, with remarks and suggestions under headings ranging from family emigration, opium smoking, the voyage itself, the lack of a receiving depot on arrival, the dearness of provisions, and the prospects for the Chinese in Demerara. He was sceptical of family migration, claiming that the women on board included two notorious prostitutes, four idiots, a helpless cripple, a hunchback, one deaf and dumb and several others disfigured by scars. He did not believe that opium addicts made good labourers, and decried the lack of medical comforts for the sick, even the very basic arrowroot and sago, which he claimed were very useful in sickness.
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In 1866, in what may have been the same ship, but this time having a measurement of 868 tons, the Whirlwind left Hong Kong under Captain R. Hughes for Surinam with 409 Chinese. On this 76-day voyage, five deaths were recorded.
Given the success of the Canton emigration depot, Austin decided to try loading directly from that port. His next ship was the 720-ton Red Riding Hood. With little understanding of the operational constraints on ships, Austin had expected her to anchor very close to his depot on Shameen Island. But ocean-going ships could not go that far up the river, being able to progress only as far as Whampoa, some ten miles downstream. With 314 men, women and infants on board, the Red Riding Hood left for Demerara on 19 January 1860, having being cleared by Acting British Consul Winchester in his capacity as Emigration Officer. She left in a cacophony of 10,000 firecrackers. There was some excitement on that very fast 75-day voyage, when, on the twelfth day out, a disturbance erupted. The two ringleaders were seized and put in irons. With increased vigilance, no further disturbances occurred, and the men in irons were eventually released along with the rest of the passengers. She arrived at Demerara on 8 April 1860 having suffered only three losses.
The Red Riding Hood was built in 1857 with dimensions of 184ft in length, a beam of 29ft and a depth of 14ft. She is the only ship which can be regarded as engaging in the Chinese equivalent of the triangular trade. Her voyage pattern was to sail from England with a cargo of general merchandise for China. Then to replicate the Middle Passage with a cargo of Chinese indentured labour for Demerara. On completion of that leg, she then took on a cargo of sugar back to England.
She made three consecutive voyages from Whampoa to British Guiana between 1860 and 1862. Her second was in January 1861, also with 314 Chinese. She arrived at Demerara on 13 April 1861 with four deaths during another fast voyage of 84 days. On her third voyage, she departed from Whampoa on 19 January 1862 with 326 men women and children. With three deaths and the birth of a baby the arrival count was short by just two. The average mortality
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rate for the three voyages was 1.05%. On a subsequent fourth voyage to Trinidad in 1865, two deaths only were reported out of the 327 Chinese who embarked. On that 82-day voyage, just 0.61% did not survive.
At least two of the men who had escaped from the Greyhound, as described above, were subsequently found on the 908-ton ship Sebastopol, which was loading for British Guiana. About 5 December 1860, a group of coolies rushed the crew in broad daylight, severely wounding several of them. They failed in their attempt, which was speculated to be attempted robbery rather than mutiny, as the vessel was still in port. Captain Lowther sailed from Whampoa on 23 December 1860 with 333 Chinese.
British Branch Agencies
In his letter to the Emigration Commissioners on 15 March 1860, Austin said that, from the tenor of communications from the West Indies, he had not expected to have to set the emigration programmes in train, and the requirement for families was a complete surprise to him. Nevertheless, through his resourcefulness and attention to detail, Austin had succeeded in shipping 1,974 emigrants, including 299 women and 108 children, to British Guiana. As an added achievement, all this was accomplished within the budget allowed, recording a saving of nearly $50,000. He had fully complied with the wishes of the British Guiana planters.
Looking to the future, Austin was confident that, through the prudent counsel of the commissioners of Canton, and supported by the European consuls, the Governor-General of Kwangtung had driven the slave-ships from the Canton River. Also, with the surveillance of emigrant ships at Swatow by European customs officers, a healthy emigration system to relieve a superabundant population was now possible.
An increased quota was requested for the next season, and, in preparation for this, Austin appointed W. Maxwell to open a branch agency at Hang tai, about 50 miles from Hong Kong. It was a dangerous area. A price had been placed on every foreigner. And on one occasion, Maxwell was beaten
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and robbed. Austin never openly disclosed his movements, and always carried a revolver.
Rev. Lobschied had promised the Chinese parishioners whom he had sent to British Guiana, that, should he ever return to Europe, he would call on them on his way over. When he took ill, late in 1860, he sought to return to Europe to recuperate. When Austin learned of this, he offered him a free passage to Demerara on any ship he chose.
Lobschied chose the 1,074-ton Mystery which left Hong Kong on 1 March 1861 with 360 men women and children. Lobschied was effusive about the ship, claiming that the decks were so high and well-ventilated that he could sit among the emigrants without feeling claustrophobic among so many people.
On the other hand, he was highly critical of the recruiting methods he had experienced on a recent visit to Canton. The example he used was that of a Portuguese crimp who had gathered up a group of emaciated men. He coached them into declaring that they did not understand the local dialect, but were willing to emigrate as a group. The crimp then began offering them around the various brokers. Lobschied claimed that Austin yielded to this fraud, even when he saw that the advance he had given them was immediately passed on to the Portuguese man.
Lobschied claimed he was shocked at the sight of those men on board, where at least two-thirds were opium addicts. Teeming with vermin, full of sores, nothing but skin and bone, scaly and spotted all over from former diseases, they could hardly walk. At least ninety of the men were opium addicts, and even though Lobschied tried to nurse them, at least sixteen of them died, while two others attempted suicide on the first day out. Nevertheless, only five other men, and two women, died, leaving 337 Chinese emigrants to walk off the Mystery on 9 June after a 97-day voyage.
Austin was quick to respond, writing to Lobschied on 19 December 1861. Austin reminded Lobschied of the first voyage on the Whirlwind in 1859 saying that despite Lobschied's knowledge of the language and active interest in Chinese emigration, it did not free either of them from the
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deceits of native agents. Lobschied's agent, Wong Cheung Pak, had collected sixty women, whom he presented to Austin as having led a previously impure life. Lobschied would have known the Doctor's wife was the only bona fide wife of any standing. All the others became wives only on the day of embarkation.
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The 714-ton Agra, under Captain Philip de St Croix, left Canton on 26 November 1861 with 285 men and women, and two boys. After a very speedy voyage of just 81 days, she arrived at the Demerara on 15 February without loss. The Agra was the first to carry a Chinese medical practitioner only, Tsoi-a-fai. He and the interpreter Ko-wan-Ki were both praised for their part in the successful voyage and their intelligence.
The next ship to sail was the 738 ton Earl of Windsor. Captain Dick departed Hong Kong on 3 December 1861 with 325 Chinese, including six children. On the 104-day voyage six men and seventeen women died, and one man jumped overboard. There were two births during the voyage. Captain David Dick reported that he tried in vain to maintain separation between the sexes, but was not very successful. British Recruiting problems
The 1,332-ton Maggie Miller arrived in Hong Kong, and was being offered for charter just as Austin was gathering recruits for the Earl of Windsor. Austin was in a dilemma. He had an annual quota to fill. As the CLEC could not source sufficient ships in England to meet the quota, Austin had to find ships out East at a price within his budget. He did not have barracoons to hold men waiting for a ship so he could only recruit small numbers until he had ships chartered. He was already having trouble recruiting for the Earl of Windsor for Britih Guiana, when the Maggie Miller be came available. He had to charter her to fill his Trinidad quota but did not have enough recruits waiting for this second ship so soon after the Earl of Windsor. He called on Captain Frederick Johns and explained his situation on 30 October. No contract was entered into at that time. Later, Austin maintained that the verbal agreement was that he (Austin) would sign the charter
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party when he knew when the Earl of Windsor could sail. He declared his ability to do so on 2 December with 40 lay-days. Like most captains, Johns was a cunning man, and when he knew about Austin's dilemna, saw his chance possibly to claim demurrage earlier than discussed. Johns on the other hand said the agreement was to commence on 1 November, the day after they first met, even though his ship was still discharging cargo on 10 November.
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On 12 November, Austin sent Johns the list of provisions required. Within two days, Johns notified Austin of his readiness to take on the emigrants and requested the Harbour Master to inspect the vessel. Johns also told Austin that all the stores had already been placed on board by the 10th, which was not true as the Maggie Miller was still discharging her cargo of rice.
When Austin learnt that the Earl of Windsor could sail on 2 December 1861, he immediately advised Jardine, Matheson & Co., agents for the Maggie Miller, that he was ready to sign the charter party to commence on 3 December 1861, with 40 days to complete, known as lay-days. This was communicated to Captain Johns, who immediately responded by saying that the ship was taken by Austin on 30 October, and to be despatched in all of November, meaning the Maggie Miller was to be available to Austin from 1 November. Johns told Jardine to claim demurrage from 1 December 1861. Austin rebutted that interpretation and refused to go on board until the charter party was signed.
Following very heated arguments between the two, Captain Johns finally agreed that continued delay only compounded the dilemma, and signed the charter party on 9 December 1861. In a spirit of compromise, Austin offered to provide twenty more emigrants, even though he was struggling to provide even the original number.
But things were about to get stressful for Austin. He speculated that the check at the branch agency at Hang tai was due to the meddling of the German missionaries, not aligned with Rev. Lobschied, who had begun circulating adverse reports from some of the Chinese who had earlier arrived in British Guiana. They were not happy with the
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arrangements under which they worked as cane workers. Recruitment from the original areas ceased almost immediately, and Austin found he needed to open another depot at O'tau near Swatow with James Jones in charge, and a sub-depot under M. Fitzgibbon at Tat hao pu near Changchow. Swatow by then had been opened to foreign trade and was now therefore a legitimate loading port. Austin personally went on to Swatow to oversee a contingent of emigrants.
In anticipation of 49 more men from Swatow arriving on 10 February, Austin had the Government Surveyor re- measure the Maggie Miller. The new measurement allowed for 541 adults. At the ratio of two children being counted as one adult, Austin's total of 364 men, 170 women, and fifteen children was acceptable.
Three days before the Maggie Miller was due to sail, the captain of the Persia, also loading at Hong Kong, confided to Austin and the Harbour Master that Captain Johns had spoken of a serious incident on his ship. Apparently, a petty officer had molested and treated with great harshness some of the females on board the Maggie Miller. When the chief mate learned of this, he sanctioned the action with no rebuke. The Harbour Master, in his capacity as Emigration Officer, immediately held an investigation after which he ordered the dismissal of the petty officer, reprimanded the chief mate, and warned Captain Johns.
When at last the Maggie Miller sailed on 12 February 1862, it was still not without controversy. In his haste to be rid of Austin, Johns left without his full complement of seamen. For a ship of Maggie Miller's tonnage and rig, a normal crew complement would have been between thirty and thirty-five, but it was stated that he had fifteen men only. Some of the crew refused to sail short-handed, but without the prospect of replacements anytime soon, he slipped away during the night. He planned on recruiting additional hands from amongst the emigrants if necessary.
But fate was not kind to Captain Johns. He had enjoyed a swift passage down the China Sea, through the Gaspar Straits, and only glimpsed Anjer as he sailed through the
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Sunda Straits. But then, on 28 February, the Maggie Miller encountered a severe hurricane in the Indian Ocean. The vicious storm battered the 1,332-ton ship, and with only fifteen experienced seamen, she was tossed about with bare masts. The depleted crew were not able to rig or handle sails, which would have been torn to shreds anyway. When the main mast came away, the falling timber stove in the deck, breaking beams and carlines. Three of her boats were carried away, and the seas breaking over her destroyed bulwarks and rails. Then the rudder sprung, and a quantity of copper sheathing was stripped off the bottom. Stores and the cargo became waterlogged, and one man was washed overboard, while another was severely injured.
When the storm passed, Captain Johns managed to rig a jury rudder, and with only the stump of the mizzen-mast left, limped towards Mauritius, arriving on 25 March. Fifteen men and two women had died by the time she got to Mauritius. There, the Chinese were placed in quarantine on Flat Island until 2 April, when 345 men, 165 women and 15 children were placed on the Wanata to continue their journey.
The Wanata was a slightly larger vessel at 1,442 tons, but her dimensions were much smaller, being 174 by 38ft compared with the 214 by 39ft of the Maggie Miller A previous conveyor of emigrants from England to Australia, she was on her way home when Captain Johns contracted with Captain John Henry to take the remaining passengers on to Trinidad for a lump sum of �5,000, irrespective of the number actually disembarking. Wanata sailed from Mauritius on 7 May 1862 with 345 men, 165 women, and 15 children, calling at St Helena on 6 June before arriving at Trinidad on 3 July 1862.
Governor Robert W. Keate wrote to the Duke of Newcastle on 7 July 1862 reporting the arrival of the Wanata, and again on 18 July. Keate confirmed that several of the immigrants had been employed by Captain Johns to assist in working the ship, and had been paid wages of $5 per month for doing so. Keate went on to detail the interim payments made, and the sum to be retained pending the settlement of claim against Johns for sailing short-handed. He raised
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questions about the Charter Party and queried the payment of gratuities only to "inferior" officers rather than follow the established practice of paying the captain and chief mate. He was also very critical of the quality of females, and the advances paid to the men as inducements for bringing a wife, and children.
In response, Austin explained that the chief mate had nothing to do with the emigrants. The second and third mates were the ones in hourly contact with them, distributing provisions etc. Austin considered it good policy to depart from the established system, especially as it was common for captains to appropriate the whole bounty, and not necessarily distribute a portion to the officers. The Wanata was the first ship to deliver Chinese women to the island of Trinidad, as all previous shipments there had consisted only of men.
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Persia, a ship of 1,683 tons, arrived as the Maggie Miller was preparing to sail from Hong Kong. Captain J.H. Smith promptly presented his Notice of Readiness. Austin was still stressed from not being able to revive his recruitment from Hang tai. With the spectre of having to pay demurrage, Austin called upon his depots at Canton, Swatow, and Amoy to provide the necessary numbers. Including the few men he had gathered in Hong Kong, he was able to send off 531 men, women, and children on 19 March 1862. After a voyage lasting 113 days during which one man and five women died, the Persia arrived at Demerara on 10 July.
On board the Persia was a cabin passenger bound for Cape Town, Lieutenant Shinkwin of His Majesty's 59th regiment. For some reason Shinkwin took a dislike to Clarence Chapman, the Surgeon Superintendent, accusing him of ill-treatment of the emigrants. He began to keep a diary of the injustices inflicted. But it was only after the Persia had left Cape Town that Shinkwin made a declaration before a Justice of the Peace in that town. He used extravagant language in his accusations of the doctor. The Governor of Cape Town forwarded the declaration to the Duke of Newcastle who then ordered an inquiry into the matter by the Emigration Commissioners. The Secretary of the Commission, Stephen Walcott, explained the situation by
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enclosing a letter from Chapman detailing the steps he took in maintaining discipline on board. A statement from the Interpreter on the Persia said that the doctor was not generally liked because of his free use of the cane, but the punishments on the Persia would not have been considered punishments at all in China.
Dr Chapman was well known to the Emigration Commission, having previously been in their service for eight years, and he had made nine voyages in their vessels; to Australia, to Madras with soldiers; with coolies from India, and from China. In his defence, Chapman admitted to using the several modes of punishment as alleged, but denied that they were used to excess. He also asked how he was to maintain discipline between men who came from four very different districts, and speaking two different dialects. They were fighting among themselves even as they boarded. This continued almost daily with the parties yelling and screaming at each other and throwing dangerous objects about in great abandon.
He first tried remonstrance and reasoning, then locking up the more boisterous ones in the hospital. He admitted to placing caustic marks on offenders in order to identify them. The marks disappeared after a few days. When placing them in irons did not deter them, he resorted to using the cane. He was adamant that they were not excessive, and never broke any skin. The only time when three dozen were inflicted was when a plot to kill the Chinese interpreter was discovered. He administered the punishments himself, as he did not wish revenge to be inflicted on any other person who might have been nominated to do so. Mr Chapman's statements were confirmed by the chief mate and the Interpreter who were then in London. The Emigration Commissioners considered that Chapman was exculpated, but disapproved of his liberal use of the cane, especially against women, however lightly used.
With difficulty in recruiting being experienced in Canton in 1862, Austin despatched the Lady Elma Bruce to Amoy to load her complement that April. Even then, the numbers were insufficient, and had to be supplemented by a contingent from
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Swatow, risking the outbreak of disturbances between men from different regions.
While contingents from Swatow were also placed on each of the Genghis Khan and Sir George Seymour, which also had a third group from Canton placed on board, there is no record that those vessels actually made direct calls at Swatow to take the labourers on. It is more likely that the Chinese had been transhipped to Hong Kong. With all this stress, Austin's health necessitated his return to England on 15 April 1862, leaving Sampson to supervise the loading of both ships in Hong Kong without incident.
The cost of shipping in the first period under White was about $110. That for the two ships under Gerard reached nearly $144 a head, while in Austin's first season it was $125 a head. It fell to $120 in 1860-61 then up to $139 the following year. The Emigration Commissioners had allowed $145 a head during his first season.
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British Emigration Agency transferred to Canton Sampson, now in sole charge of the British Emigration Agency in Hong Kong, supervised the only two sailings in the 1863 season. The 839-ton Ganges, owned by and sailing under Captain James Nourse, left Whampoa on 4 April 1863 with 413 Chinese, and the larger 1,323-ton Zouave under Captain J. Malcolm on 19 December 1863, with another 517. Both vessels had speedy voyages and sustained minimal losses.
In 1864, Sampson transferred the headquarters of the agency to Canton from Hong Kong. He cited among his reasons the extensive river system to the interior, its political importance, and his own personal influence and knowledge. Whatever the reason, only two shipments were required that year. Both the Brechin Castle for British Guiana and the Montrose for Trinidad had no difficulty in loading, or on the voyage.
But by 1865 Sampson was having difficulty in sourcing sufficient numbers from the Canton region. At Whampoa, he was only just able to load the Queen of the East with 490 labourers for British Guiana, among them 112 women and 16
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children, and the Paria with 213 men and 76 women for Trinidad. In an attempt to meet the full requirements of the colonies, he then commissioned a mercantile firm in Amoy to procure sufficient numbers to fill two other ships. Unfamiliar with the requirements of the British colonies, the agents recruited emigrants of such a nature that it led to complaints that insufficient attention had been paid in their selection.
Meanwhile Sampson struggled to fill the Sevilla which had sailed from Whampoa on 7 March 1865, and the Arima which sailed on 30 March. He then had a month in which to find recruits for the last shipment of the season, the Bucton Castle, with 266 men, 74 women, 10 children, and 3 infants.
This led to the question being asked whether Canton could still be relied upon or whether the agency should be moved to Amoy. British Consul Morrison had drawn attention to the lack of suitable emigrants in 1858 and predicted it would need time for a proper system to be organised. But as Sampson was also not confident that sufficient females could be found in Amoy, the move to that port was no longer considered. Alternatively, Sampson considered providing overall supervision from Canton, with a sub-agency at Amoy. Even though Sampson had to have his finances approved in Hong Kong, he never contemplated returning the headquarters to Hong Kong, much to the chagrin of the Hong Kong Government.
On 27 April 1865 Sampson complained that competition from the French-Cuban emigration depot, situated just a few doors from the British Agency was causing him great difficulty in recruiting the 1,950 Chinese, requested by British Guiana and Trinidad. With a nearly identical prospectus, the French were unscrupulous in securing the most and the best emigrants. As a consequence Sampson was forced to raise the advance offered to $20.
It was not until 1865 that Amoy was resorted to again. This time Sampson placed the Light of the Age on the berth in March 1865 to load 480 Chinese-among them 16 women and three children-for a new destination, British Honduras. The request for Chinese labourers to that colony was made by J. Gardiner Austin, who was by then the Lieutenant-
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Governor of the colony. This was the first and only shipment of Chinese to that Central American colony. Two shipments from Amoy to Trinidad followed later that year, both without incident. The Dudbrook left in October arriving in Trinidad on 12 February 1866 with 272 of 286 passengers put on board, among them a solitary female. The Red Riding Hood arrived two weeks later, with 325 out of 327 embarked, among them six females.
The 1,214-ton Light Brigade, previously the Ocean Telegraph, left Amoy on 18 January 1866 with 493 emigrants including five women. Captain H. Evans landed 487 of them in British Guiana 86 days later equalling the low mortality rate of 1.22% achieved by the 977-ton-also British-ship Whirlwind, which had left Hong Kong three days earlier for Surinam. This was her third coolie voyage as she had made previous such voyages in 1859 and 1861.
British disasters
Britain prided itself on the manner in which its recruiting practices for the West Indies were being conducted. With strict rules and regulations, Britain was confident that the horrors of the African Middle Passage could not be associated with the West Indian programme. It was not anticipated that the problems of the main participants in the coolie trade would also flow on to the British. Even though mutinies had been reported onboard the Samuel Boddington in 1852, and the Sebastopol in 1861, both had been unsuccessful, and the ships had made their way safely to their destinations. It was therefore with great astonishment that they learned of two successful insurrections in 1866 on British ships bound for British Guiana.
The Pride of the Ganges loaded her emigrants bound for British Guiana and sailed from Whampoa early in 1866. Within a day of leaving, a mutiny broke out and the master was thrown overboard. The mutineers compelled the chief mate to proceed to Hainan, where all the emigrants abandoned the ship. The ship was afterwards taken to Hong Kong by the mate. The alleged cause of the mutiny was the indifferent quality of the rice on board, but as the rice was
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subsequently sold in open market at the highest price of the day, it seemed to disprove the truth of that allegation. The mutineers did no injury to the ship and took away from it nothing but provisions. Sampson then placed another group of 305 fresh emigrants on board and on 31 March 1866 the ship sailed again for Demerara. Nothing untoward occurred on this 122-day voyage, with just three deaths reported on arrival on 31 July.
Jeddo was to become the only total loss of a ship in the British recruitment programme. On 18 March 1866, the 1,059-ton British ship Jeddo, under Captain Joseph West, sailed from Amoy with 480 Chinese emigrants; and a little cargo, for Demerara. Typhus fever broke out soon after she sailed, and about 20 of the emigrants died. On the 27th, one of the interpreters informed the Master that there was a plot to kill all the Europeans and seize the ship. When the ringleaders were identified, he had them flogged, and kept in irons on the poop till the 15th April, when apparently they were allowed to return to the other emigrants.
About 8am the next day, while the Jeddo was standing through the Straits of Sunda, a fire broke out in the fore hold where all the fuel was stored. After a vain attempt to extinguish the fire, the Master determined to run the ship ashore to save life. As she was close to Anjer at about 9pm, Captain West managed to carry a line ashore, by which he, and Dr Lang the surgeon, succeeded in passing a large number of the emigrants through the surf to land. Eventually 319 were saved, but the number drowned was no less than 141. The chief mate, an apprentice, and two European seamen were also drowned.
All the Europeans and some of the Chinese were drowned in an attempt by the latter to seize a boat. The surgeon remained on the ship, assisting the emigrants as long as he could without endangering his own life, but when he finally left, 60 of the emigrants were still left on board.
The survivors entered the service of the Netherlands Inland Railway Company at Semarang, with the company reimbursing the expenses incurred in China. A court of enquiry on the loss of the ship was held at Singapore. The
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finding of the court was that, under the circumstances, the master acted judiciously in flogging the leaders of the conspiracy. Though there was no positive evidence as to the origin of the fire, there were strong grounds for suspecting that it was caused by the coolies themselves. The court recorded that the conduct of the master and surgeon in their efforts to save the coolies was in the highest degree praiseworthy, and the master was fully acquitted of all blame for the loss of his ship.
Kung Convention and the end of British migration On March 1866, the English and French Ministers at Peking entered into a convention with the Chinese government. This convention, commonly known as the Kung Convention, contained 22 articles to regulate the engagement of Chinese emigrants by British and French subjects. British and French merchants had not been consulted, and protested vigorously at the great increase in the expense of emigration which would result. The main opposition centred around the article that entitled every Chinese emigrant to be conveyed back to China at public expense at the end of five years. If the emigrant wished to remain in the colony, the sum which would otherwise have been paid for his passage should be handed over to him. If he entered into a second five years he should receive a gratuity equal to half the cost of his return passage, his right to a return passage at the end of his engagement remaining as before. Invalids, or men incapable of work, should be entitled at any time to claim payment of the sum necessary to cover the expense of their return to China.
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Expense was not the only objection. There was great concern that the 12,000 Chinese in British Guiana and the 1,600 already in Trinidad, without any stipulation as to a return passage, would be greatly discontented and irritated. Under those circumstances, there was no alternative but to redirect the vessels, which had been taken up for Chinese emigrants, to India. Sampson was to suspend all operations, and the British Government eventually decided not to confirm the convention.
This was a subject of much regret, because, that October, there was a proposal from the local Chinese officials for Sampson to provide passages to the West Indies for a number of Hakka families, comprising in all several thousand persons. These people, all of the agricultural class, had been defeated, and reduced to destitution, in their clan-fights with the Puntis. The Chinese government was anxious to find the means of disposing of them in a humane and satisfactory manner. Theo Sampson offered to take them, provided the emigrants would consent to a monthly deduction from their wages to cover the expense of the return passage stipulated for by the convention. The Chinese Viceroy did not consider himself at liberty to agree, and the negotiation dropped. No further British shipments were made, but the Dutch, not being party to the convention, continued to recruit for Surinam.
Coolies for Surinam
Chinese emigration to the Dutch West Indies commenced from Macao in January 1858, when two Dutch vessels-the 777-ton Minister Pahud, and the 710-ton Twee Guzusters took 500 coolies between them to Surinam. No further shipments were made until 1865, when the de Surinaamsche Immigratie-Maatschappij (Immigration Corporation) was founded in Amsterdam for Dutch recruitment in China. In his 1866 Annual Report, Hong Kong Harbour Master Thomsett (1825-1892),91 gave details of the efforts to encourage Chinese emigration to Surinam. The liberal terms provided each emigrant with two suits of clothing in Hong Kong, together with bedding and other comforts for the voyage. In addition, each was given $11 to spend as they wished. Their contracts were for five years at $7 a month, and there was no work on Sundays or public holidays. At the end of their contract, they were to receive a bonus of $60 to pay for their return passage or to engage in shopkeeping. Alternatively, they could opt to cultivate their own plot of land which the Government gave to settlers.
The 1,497-ton British ship Tricolor, under Captain James G. Price, left Hong Kong on 2 May 1865, with 356 men, 120 women and 17 boys for Paramaribo. The large
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number of females and children were the direct result of the involvement of the Rev. Lobschied. Unfortunately, the Tricolor suffered from a high mortality rate, losing 190 on the voyage, and Lobscheid was held to account for the quality of the people embarked." Successful shipments were then made in 1866 on the British vessels Whirlwind and Golden Horn.
Lobschied had also been careless in lending his name to recruiting leaflets utilised by Chinese crimps, known to be kidnappers. In 1867, he, together with Bourjan Hubener, was arrested for breaches of the Emigration Ordinances in Hong Kong. When key witnesses failed to appear, the matter was not pursued, but not before Governor MacDonnell put on record his lack of faith in the Rev. Lobschied. Harbour Master Thomsett had discovered that Chinese women had been kidnapped and transported to premises close to the Sailors' Home in Hong Kong, there to await transportation on the British ship Portland to Surinam. When Lobschied learned of this, he immediately visited the premises and freed the women, and at the same time threw up the charter for the ship. The Dutch Government, not aware of the full facts, protested to the Hong Kong Authorities.
In defence of his reputation, Lobschied wrote a letter to the Governor on 17 May 1867 referring to the Governor's remarks at the Legislative Council. He started by claiming that the mortality on the Tricolor did not stand alone in the annals of history. He cited the 8,000 pilgrims who had left British India in 1865, of whom only 2,000 returned. The Tricolor could carry 663, but he chose to send only 486 men women and children-in consideration of the advanced season. The Commission of Inquiry that sat in Surinam distinctly stated that there had been an abundance of excellent water and provisions on board but that the presence of beriberi must have prevailed. Lobschied wanted to know what means MacDonnell had to stop an epidemic.
Lobschied claimed he had frequently been on board the Tricolor and the emigrants were quiet and satisfied, and left with cheerfulness. He then went on to say that if the Governor continued making remarks upon his character, he demanded the right of reply to the letter he was sent when he
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had solicited MacDonnell's interference in the action commenced against him by Police Superintendent Deane and Registrar General Tonnochy. He was of the opinion that MacDonnell's declaration of incompetency to interfere was not convincing, as MacDonnell had sufficient discretional power to intercede on his behalf.
Lobschied continued in his bitter condemnation of the injustice done to him, claiming that, as the Government servant Ho Aloy, was aware of the house, he would have been aware of the illegality of the proceedings. Barricaded windows were a violation of the law. The notices explaining the conditions of the contract which Lobschied had placed there had been altered by Ho and the people had been prevented from seeking his (Lobschied's) advice.
Continuing Surinam shipments
With the Kung Convention coming into effect, no shipments were made to the British West Indies, leaving Hong Kong with just one departure for Surinam in each of 1867 and 1868. However there were two sailings in 1869.
The British ship Veritas left Hong Kong on 6 November 1867 with 291 Chinese emigrants including nine or ten females, wives of the emigrants bound for Surinam. The women had each received a bonus of $20. The men had signed agreements before the Harbour Master to serve for five years at $7 per month. The year was to consist of 300 working days, with Sundays and festivals observed as holidays. They had received advances of between $8 and $11 and two suits of clothes, the value to be deducted. They were to receive a bonus of $60 at the end of their contracts and the option of re-engaging or returning home.
The Veritas was described as a fine strong British-built ship with lofty 'tween decks with two tiers of bunks with a small portion partitioned off for the women. Ventilators were placed along the deck and there was a fire engine on standby." Five headmen were chosen to look after the men together with twelve cooks who were all paid. The emigrants were allowed on deck during the day while one man continually patrolled the 'tween decks. The crew of twenty
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had a good supply of firearms in case of an untoward event, so it was a surprise to learn of an attempted mutiny on the voyage. No details were forthcoming.
In 1868, a certain Mr Baak approached Hong Kong Harbour Master Thomsett, saying he was acting for a company of Dutch planters in Dutch Guiana, and was authorised by his Government to enlist Chinese for services in that Colony. He was about to despatch coolies from Hong Kong on the Marie Therese, as he had done by other ships. Thomsett immediately had the ship properly surveyed and measured by a Government Surveyor, and examined her himself as to her capabilities for the voyage. A house had been hired near the Sailors' Home, in which the coolies were lodged until the ship was properly fitted and provisioned. He visited the house occasionally, and had printed copies of the contract they were about to sign posted. He was accompanied by an Interpreter who explained the nature of the contract.
When the vessel was ready, the first batch of 100 was placed on board. He then visited the vessel along with the Dutch Consul and Mr Baak, explaining the contracts to the men again as they were being signed by the consul and himself. As they accepted their contracts, they were handed their bonus and clothing, and individually asked if they were desirous of proceeding. The same procedure was followed as each batch of coolies was brought on board. Occasionally a coolie objected to proceeding and he was immediately landed, as were those whose relatives petitioned for their release. Thomsett wondered what would have happened if the Agent had objected, but this did not eventuate. On the day of departure, 1 May 1868, Thomsett made a final inspection of the ship, and remained on board until she weighed anchor, many of the coolies assisting with the sails.
But the coolies mutinied soon after leaving port. No details of the mutiny were published, as was the case with a previous attempted mutiny on the British-flagged Veritas, which had also sailed from Hong Kong for Surinam the previous November, as mentioned above.
On 30 November 1868, the British ships Omba and Veritas were reported to have shifted anchorage in Hong
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Kong to load 395 and 301 Chinese emigrants respectively for Surinam. Each was carrying a Chinese doctor and interpreter. Each had water for 144 days and the accommodation was described as very good. The provision and clothing however was proving a problem with a considerable quantity having to be sent ashore as rotten and worthless. The Vertias did eventually sail (her second voyage), carrying 202 labourers from Hong Kong on 6 February 1869. Captain Ingram disembarked 180 Chinese labourers 112 days later, the highest mortality rate to date.
Despite being extensively advertised as sailing for Surinam, the Omba eventually sailed for Whampoa in January 1869. Her charter for Surinam was taken over by the Russian Ferdinand Brumm making her second voyage carrying Chinese coolies. She departed from Hong Kong on 28 April 1869 with 298 of them. Captain A.F. Voss also took 112 days to Surinam, but there were only 225 left to land on arrival.
After this, the Amsterdam-founded de Surinaamsche Immigratie-Maatschappij was wound up, the Dutch Government assuming direct control. But with the cessation of indentured labour from Macao no further shipments were made directly from China.
Workers for Tahiti
In April 1862, the Rev. Lobschied had planned to return to China by way of Trinidad and British Guiana, where he hoped to collect any labourers who might wish to return home, in the expectation that they would there expound the virtues of their recent home. He volunteered to the West India Committee that he was prepared to undertake the task on a pro bono basis." His offer was declined, but this did not deter him from continuing his involvement in Chinese emigration. No further British shipments were being made from Hong Kong, but, after an interview with Governor Hercules Robinson, Lobschied successfully started recruiting labourers for the new destinations of Surinam and Tahiti.
In 1864, Harbour Master Thomsett explained the system under which the Russian vessel Ferdinand Brumm was to
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load 337 males for Tahiti. They had been contracted by the Rev. Lobschied, with the assistance of a highly respectable Chinese merchant named Wohang who had been for many years engaged in forwarding emigrants to the goldfields of Australia and California. The arrangement was that, for a stated sum per head, he would procure the emigrants, and fit and victual the ship by which they were to be sent. Thomsett approved of this, as Wohang knew the stringency of the laws and rules respecting emigration, and would be sure to engage only such men as were willing to go.
As the intended emigrants arrived in Hong Kong, they were to be kept, either in the houses licensed for the purpose under Ordinance 8 of 1858, or placed at once on board the ship if ready, as was done with those whose destination was British Guiana. The contracts were then completed and their advance wages, or bonus, paid in his presence.
Two further shipments were made to Tahiti the following year. The 845-ton British ship Spray of the Ocean with 351 emigrants and the 1,209-ton German clipper ship Albertine with 347 Chinese.
Hawaiian resumption
In 1865, shipments to Hawaii were undertaken from Hong Kong. The 653-ton Chilean Alberto carried 250 Chinese, and the 508-ton British Roscoe carried 276. In 1866, the 769-ton British Mary Frances left with a part shipment of 62 for Honolulu on her way to San Francisco.
On 3 October 1866, the 642-ton Dutch ship Antonia Petronella left Hong Kong for Honolulu with 200 Chinese. She encountered bad weather soon after leaving, and was so badly damaged she had to call at Manila, where she was condemned. The British barque Eastfield under Captain Worth was despatched to Manila to collect her passengers and cargo. She arrived in Honolulu on 23 April 1867 after a passage of eighty days.
As with other destinations, the Chinese caused grave concern in some circles and shipments were stopped until 1870, when two Hawaiian vessels, the 377-ton R W Wood and the 1,021-ton Solo brought 249 Chinese to the islands in
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June and the 381-ton British Violette brought another 112 in December.
Louisiana shipments
Following the American Civil War, Louisiana planters learnt of the productive Chinese workers in Cuba. They tried first to recruit some of them from the Hawaiian islands, and then from California, but with little success. They then turned directly to China, but this was met with serious opposition from the American government.
In his Annual Report for 1870, the Hong Kong harbour master noted that the opposition in the USA to Chinese emigration was having an effect. However, this did not prevent 8,879 Chinese embarking for San Francisco that year, along with 1,121 to Portland.
Another 195 were despatched to New Orleans on the 374-ton French barque Ville de St Lo on 9 February 1870 and another 213 on another French barque, the 740-ton Charles Auguste, on 2 April 1870.
Lingering British Interest
The West Indian colonies were still interested in Chinese labour, and in 1867 Governor Hamilton-Gordon of Trinidad instructed his Calcutta emigration agent to visit China to inquire and report on Chinese emigration. Thornton Warner arrived on 7 May 1868 and was received by Governor MacDonnell, who introduced him to the consuls at Canton, Swatow, Amoy and Foochow. He also met J. Gardiner Austin (who had returned to Hong Kong as Colonial Secretary), Harbour Master Thomsett, and Emigration Agent Sampson.
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In his report Warner was full of enthusiasm for the Chinese, praising Austin's plans but was less pleased with the way in which Sampson conducted business. He considered Swatow was a good place for a sub-depot, as was Amoy, but overall considered Hong Kong the best place to maintain the office.
He was informed that the cost of placing kidnapped and destitute paupers into the Macao barracoons ranged from $40 to $50. The Peruvian Consul at Macao was offering $100 a
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head. With the cost of the passage money, a coolie could be delivered for less than $200. At Callao, contracts were being sold for between $300 and $350, while in Cuba the price was between $400 and $500. He could not believe the costs, but they had been given to him on good authority.
As the demand for Chinese labour was still extant, the Governor of Hong Kong was asked if it was possible to continue recruitment from the colony. Sir Richard MacDonnell replied that it could be done only by employing native agents on the mainland, which would breach Chinese law. The Emigration Commissioners however found it difficult to understand how it was impossible to procure a small number for the British colonies without resorting to illegal practices to entice them from the mainland, yet possible for the Hong Kong Government to allow the establishment of depots for emigration."
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The planters of British Guiana were still optimistic of receiving Chinese immigrants. In view of their prolonged residence and assimilation in the colony, it was proposed that consideration be given to the provision of back passages as available to Indians after a period of ten years. The offer was for a period of ten years, the first five under indenture, and the remaining time at their own disposal. In anticipation of an agreement, British Guiana planters applied for 1,225 Chinese immigrants in 1871-72 and 3,000 for 1872-73. The planters in Trinidad too were convinced of the superiority of the Chinese and submitted an application for 400 of them for the same year (1872-73). The proposal had been sent to the British Minister in Peking but there was no agreement from the French Minister.
A compromise with the Governor General of Kwangtung was reached in 1873, and on 14 February 1874 Theo Sampson re-opened an emigration house in Canton. But very few prospective emigrants applied. The Taiping Rebellion was over, and the need to escape no longer existed. As the shipping season was about to end, the depot was closed until September when marginally sufficient numbers came forward to enable Sampson to charter the 1,199-ton Corona. After much difficulty combating crimps, who were
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luring away his recruits, Sampson managed to sail the Corona from Whampoa on 23 December 1874. Captain Bate conducted one of the fastest passages to Georgetown-62 days in the large spacious vessel. The only death of a single man was offset with the birth of an infant, leaving the count of 388 souls embarked and 388 disembarking.
This contingent left after extensive consultations between the British and Chinese governments involving a modified form of indenture, now termed a contract, under which $50 would be paid towards a return passage if desired on the expiry of the contract.
Chinese non-contract shipments
Despite the demand, no more Chinese were shipped until 24 December 1878 when the 915-ton Dartmouth left Hong Kong with 516 emigrants. On the 81-day passage, only one man did not reach Demerara on 17 March 1879.
On 3 November 1881, the Emigration Officer in Hong Kong cleared the 939-ton Clara, Captain A.S. Cutler, with 308 men, 11 women and 3 boys bound for Antigua. Four of the men were identified as being shipped under a contract of service, the rest were emigrating on their own initiative.
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The Hong Kong Harbour Master's Returns for 1884 showed the German steamer Prinz Alexander of 1,911 tons, as having left Hong Kong on 7 May 1884 under Captain R. Eckert, with 509 men, 109 women, 59 boys and 17 girls making a total of 694 passengers bound for Jamaica." After calling at Gibraltar on 24 June 1884, the 501 men, 105 women, 54 boys, 17 girls, and 3 babies arrived in Jamaica on 12 July 1884. They were the last direct immigrants from China.
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8
Peruvian Focus On Macao
Light Brigade
Left Amoy on 18 January1866 with 493 emigrants including five women.
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T
The abrogation of the Peruvian "Chinese Law" in 1856 was never fully accepted by the Peruvian plantation owners, who continued to lobby the Government for its re-introduction. On the plea of absolute necessity, special licences were then granted for introducing fixed numbers of coolies under direct contract wth the recipients of the licences, most of them issued to planters.
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A.F. da Cunha, the Macao Port Captain, reported that the 750-ton Sardinian (Italian) barque Guiseppe Rocca had departed on 23 June 1858 with Captain Lavagna, taking 300 Chinese to Callao.100 She had arrived only six days before. The Port Captain also recorded the 581-ton Peruvian ship Maria Natividad as having departed on 12 January 1859 with Captain Nissour Arue, carrying 321 on to Callao. There were at least two other sailings to Peru in 1859, both from Swatow. The 370-ton Colombian (New Granadian) brig Napoleon arrived at Honolulu from Swatow on 15 November 1859 with 200 Chinese, and departed on 19 November for Callao, but with only 160.101 The other was the 420-ton Peruvian ship Victoria under Captain Henley, which sailed on 24 December 1859 with 426 Chinese. It turned out to be an extraordinarily long voyage of 190 days, with only 205 of the Chinese being able to disembark on 1 July 1860. The mortality rate was 51.88%.
With special licences being freely issued to farmers on a one-off basis, demand rose to eight shipments in 1860 and seven in 1861, before falling back to four in 1862. Mendoza lists five ships which arrived in Callao in 1860. The first was an unusual shipment. The 1,188-ton American clipper ship Florence Nightingale had a tween deck of 192ft by 34ft with a height of 81D 2ft to the beams and 9ft 4 inches to the ceiling.
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The space was capable of accommodating 300 to 340 passengers. However, on this voyage departing from Macao on 20 January 1860, Captain E.W. Holmes only brought 20 Chinese, whom Mendoza classified as passengers.
The 1,633-ton Peruvian dedicated shuttle ship Westward Ho managed to perform two voyages in 1860. Captain A. de Araucoa conducted the first, in February, in 78 days with a loss of 4.98%. The second voyage, in November, took 110 days with only 12 deaths out of the 670 embarked.
The 281-ton Spanish brig Neptuno sailed on 1 June 1860 taking the north Pacific route past the Sandwich Islands. The Daily Alta reported her at San Francisco as the Natoma, arriving on 23 July. Captain Echevarria did not report his arrival, and when the US Marshall learned of her presence, he sent the revenue cutter Wm L Marcy to detain the vessel on the grounds of being a slaver and of not reporting her arrival within 48 hours. The Neptuno left before the cutter could reach her. She arrived at Callao on 31 October 1860 with the 130 Chinese she had taken onboard. This was the last sailing from Amoy to Peru.
In October 1860 Don F. Pineyro, the Consul for Peru in Canton, had placards advertising the sailing of the Empresa for Peru. The notice called for intending passengers to register their names, and declare their willingness to go to Peru of their own accord. They were invited to board the vessel from boats at four boarding points along the river. On declaring before the Allied Commissioners and Chinese Authorities their willingness to proceed, they would be free to leave at any time before the ship sailed. On signing an agreement after a second notice, they would be given a $12 advance, but would then not be free to leave the ship.
The Allied Commissioners had the placards torn down, because the Peruvian Consul did not have an establishment on shore, as required under the rules established by the Commissioners. The aggrieved Consul protested. But with no resolution in sight, the Empresa sailed for Siam. However, she later returned and eventually sailed for Callao on 27 June 1861 with 280 Chinese.
Macao attempts at regulation
With the establishment of the British, French, and then American emigration depots in Canton, under strict supervision, and the prohibition of receiving ships at Whampoa, brokers and crimps curtailed their activities in the immediate vicinity. With seemingly unlimited amounts of money to bribe their Chinese brokers and Portuguese officials, Spanish and Peruvian agents concentrated their recruiting efforts at Macao.
Events were to reveal that the existing Macao Regulations were not only unable to control the abuses connected with the recruitment process, but were also a cause of the numerous conflicts generated on
the voyages themselves between men from different districts. Many of these conflicts derived from the faulty recruitment process itself, but many also resulted from circumstances arising on the vessels. Whether the events were disorder and rebellion among the coolie passengers, or high mortality and sickness debilitating passengers and often the crew, many voyages became a hellish experience which justified the term, a new Middle Passage", which the china-coast newspapers and critics of the coolie trade began to apply indiscriminately to the voyages to Latin America.
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In yet another attempt to stem abuses, another Regulation for the Shipment of Colonists, dated 30 April 1860, established an Office of Chinese Emigration in Macao. The first Superintendent of Chinese Emigration was A. Marques Pereira. He was to receive a fixed fee not dependent on the number of emigrants passing through the port. He was to have an Interpreter also on a fixed salary. He would be required to be present at the presentation of every migrant prior to embarkation, to sign each contract in the same manner as the Procurador, and was to maintain a register of all applicants, listing name, age, and native place, along with employment and state of health. With existing regulations tightened, prospective emigrants, on first presentation, were to be given a copy of the contract, the terms of which were to be explained to them. They would not
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be permitted to sign such contracts until six days had elapsed and, if under the age of 25, without the agreement of a parent.
Like the House Rules which Austin had instituted at Canton, similar
similar rules, agreed to by the Chinese Superintendent, were to be prominently displayed in every depot. While in the depots, Agents were to allow recruits free egress from the barracoons, and refunds were not to be extracted from the emigrants for the cost of food, accommodation, or expenses for the voyage. On confirmation that the emigrant was willing to go, he was to sign the contract and be given his advance payment while awaiting shipment. Should he change his mind before sailing, the emigrant was bound to refund all expenses incurred by the agent.
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A Supplement to the Regulations was published on 12 October 1860, strengthening its provisions, but most commentators were of the opinion that, while the Ordinance established an official superintendence over the engagement and embarkation of coolies, lack of supervision would impair the effectiveness of the strengthened regulations.
Watt Stewart credits the Macao authorities with definite regulations concerning the ship itself. The between decks had to be at least 6ft high and the space for each person to be at least 2.5 metres. Three suits of clothing, a small chest about the size of a tea chest, a blanket, and bamboo pillow were to be supplied for each man. They were also to be provided with eating utensils, and if the ship was to approach a cold climate, winter clothing was to be issued.
Before the ship could embark passengers, it was to be thoroughly disinfected with chloride of lime. The regulations extended to what was to be done at sea, but as they were impossible to supervise, it was up to the captain to see that the ship was disinfected regularly and that clothing was changed often and laundered once a week in boiling water and bleaching powder.
Following the Spanish Royal Decree of 1860, which restricted the number of passengers allowed on ships arriving in Cuba to one per two tons of the ship's register, a Portuguese Decree was issued on 5 September 1861, applying
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0
the rule to all ships sailing for Cuba. 104 However, the 11D 2 ton rule was still to apply to all other destinations. But then, on 13 August 1864, another Decree was issued by the new Governor Amaral.105 He decreed that the tonnage rule was to be superseded by one based on the light available in the cabin and the ventilation of the ship. From 1 January 1865, for ships with side ports and air funnels, 2 cubic metres, approximately 55 cubic feet, would be required for each passenger. For ships with side ports but no air funnels, the space allowed was to be 2.5 cubic metres, and for a ship with neither, 3 cubic metres per passenger would be required.
But it was not until 1868 that Macao implemented regulations requiring shipmasters to apply for a certificate stating the number of passengers that could be carried for a particular voyage.
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Peru re-introduces Asiatic colonists
The onset of the American Civil War in 1861 provided Peru with the opportunity of great profits in the production of cotton. But this required labour, and the Government was forced to pass a new "Chinese Law" on 15 January 1861. This new law cancelled the 1856 legislation and allowed for the re-introduction of Asiatic colonists to cultivate rural lands and for domestic service. It specifically prohibited the transfer of contracts without the consent of the colonist, and significantly, incorporated the old British standard of only allowing one passenger for every two tons of the ship's registry on a potential penalty of 500 pesos for each person in excess of that number.
President Ramon Castilla was not in favour of the legislation and had initially vetoed it on the grounds, inter alia, that the Chinese were weak, sickly, degraded, and corrupted. Experience had shown that Chinese men had either died at their hard tasks with great frequency, or abandoned their obligations not to pillage or engage in other occupations. The Castilla objections were not accepted and the law was promulgated on 14 March 1861.
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Pacific Islands recruitment
Just as the Peruvian Immigration Law of 1849 was intended to encourage European migrants, but was turned into the "Chinese law", so too, was the new "Chinese Law" of 15 January 1861 manipulated. The law was finally passed on 14 March, and by 1 April, permission was sought by, and granted to, D.J.L. Byrne to bring colonists from the islands of the South Western Pacific for a period of six years. The rules of the 15 January 1861 law were to be followed.
The expectation was that they would be better workers than the Chinese. The practice that followed, which was to become known as "blackbirding", became a scandal, with recruitment practices even more abhorrent than that practiced in China. Islanders would be entertained on board, and while there, were persuaded to go to Peru. In some instances, the ships simply sailed away with their bewildered visitors trapped on board.
No fewer than 32 vessels were employed in this dark period of Peruvian immigration from Polynesia. They were mostly small Peruvian brigs and schooners. The number of South Pacific islanders transported in the two years between 1862 and 1863 amounted to 3,483. This may explain the dip to 1,459 in 1862 in the exponential growth of Chinese immigrants which had steadily risen from 2,552 in 1860 to the first peak of 9,037 in 1865.
Persistent representations from foreign governments eventually forced the Peruvian Government, on 28 April 1863, to cancel the special licences, referred to above.
The 205-ton barque General Prim-previously Prussian, then British, and now Peruvian-arrived in Callao in 1852. On 26 November 1862, she joined the lengthening list of vessels engaged in roaming the South Pacific in search of labour. On the first of her two "blackbirding" expeditions, she succeeded in deceiving 115 Polynesians from Easter Island into emigrating; and after discharging them in Callao on 6 January 1863, turned around and set off again on 2 March 1863 on another expedition, but now as a Peruvian vessel. She returned on 19 July with 174 Polynesians.
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Captain Aureliano Olano then headed for Macao, arriving on 12 December 1863. With his usual efficiency Emigration Agent Ignacio F. de Castro filled the vessel with 182 coolies after only 24 days. General Prim left on 6 January 1864 on a 101-day voyage back to Callao where he handed 163 of the coolies to Ugarte y Santiago.
The Rosa y Carmen was also a "blackbirder". She had the distinction of being the only Spanish ship to participate in that trade. On 11 July 1863 she discharged 128 disoriented South Sea islanders in Callao and headed for Macao. She too was handled by de Castro who placed 228 Chinese on her after only 21 days. Captain J. Maristoni took the 368-ton barque away on 31 January 1864 and after an even speedier passage of 96 days delivered 194 of them once more to Ugarte y Santiago.
High mortality
High mortality was a continuing concern in the coolie trades. There were seven sailings from Macao in 1860, three with high mortality rates. The 517-ton Spanish barque Maria Clotilde arrived on 17 October 1860 with 241 Chinese. When Captain J. Luis Basseterre left Macao on 5 June 1860, he had 319 on board, suffering a 24.45% loss on the 134-day voyage. Then the American 549-ton ship Tarolinta lost one third of her complement, landing only 221 of the original 330 whom Captain David Moreley had taken on board on 24 October 1860.
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The third vessel, the 407-ton Peruvian ship Loa, suffered a 37.97% loss on a 89-day voyage, which commenced in Macao on 4 November 1860 with 237 coolies. It was reported that an outbreak of coolies occurred on the 20 November. The cause was indeterminate. The crew fired on the many who jumped overboard, and only a few were re-captured. On arrival, Captain Aureliano Olano was able to deliver only 147 men. The mortality was 37.97%. One further shipment, with a mortality loss of 21.86%, was undertaken by the 495-ton Spanish barque Agustina, which left Macao on 14 January 1861. Captain Juan Echevarria took 247 colonos on board, but only 193 were able to walk off.
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In 1863 the 219-ton Peruvian brig Maria called at Payta, prior to going on to Lima. She had lost 45 men or 34.09% of the 132 packed on board in Macao. The 550-ton ship Perseverancia lost even more, 129 of the 400 boarded not reaching their destination, a loss of 32.25%. She was the last of the American ships to be reflagged in Macao, this one to the flag of Peru.
On 23 March 1864, the 836-ton Dutch barque Onrust left on her first coolie voyage. Captain W.J. Jonquer took 89 days to deliver 390 of the 500 Chinese he had taken on in Macao. The mortality rate of 23.53% was exceeded by Captain Menard of the 536-ton French barque Bacalan which left Macao on 8 June 1864 with 308 coolies. With only 208 men walking ashore, the mortality rate was 32.47%.
The peak years of 1865 and 1866 were disastrous years in terms of high death rates The 834-ton Portuguese ship Juliao sailed on 22 February 1865 with 516 Chinese. With a passenger/ton ratio of 0.62, no less than 43.99% of her complement died on their way to Callao. The Juliao made another voyage the following year with a passenger ratio of 0.57 but still with a loss rate of 32.91%. The 796-ton Italian Don Jose had an even higher passenger/ton ratio of 0.63. She lost 44.36% of the 505 taken onboard on 14 May 1865. A third tragedy was on the 890-ton Italian ship R Pratolongo. Formerly the American Starlight, she took on 503 Chinese on 23 June 1865. With a passenger/ton ratio of 0.57% for that voyage, she lost 49.11% of her complement.
Three vessels had passenger/ton ratios in excess of 0.73 with one even reaching 0.90. The 389-ton French Flore registered this exceedingly high figure when she sailed on 8 July 1865 with 350 coolies. The mortality loss was 25.43%. Captain LaFontaine must have been a very callous man. On his second coolie voyage, to Cuba in 1866, he took on 310 men at a 0.80 ratio. However, the loss rate on that voyage amounted to only 0.32%
Two ships, each with a ratio of 0.73, had different experiences. The 550-ton Peruvian Perseverancia, previously mentioned, had a 32.25% loss, while the 393-ton French
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Marie Laure lost 19.65%. The 487-ton Italian Rosina, with the slightly higher ratio of 0.76 had a 27.57% loss.
The 849-ton Italian ship Liguria sailed from Macao on 30 July 1865, with 513 coolies embarked for Callao. It would appear that she suffered a mutiny and had to call at Tahiti to land some of the men. However, when he eventually arrived at Callao on 3 February 1866, after an 188-day voyage, Captain A. Pezzolo did not explain what had happened. He was able to land only seventy-two of the original 513 embarked at Macao. This remarkable figure-a 85.96% loss can be ameliorated to 75.44%, considering that, as recorded by Mendoza, fifty-four of the passengers were unexpectedly landed in Callao from the 213-ton French ship Tampico, on 11 June 1866. No explanation was given other than that the Tampico had taken 42 days to bring these men on from Tahiti.
The 894-ton Italian ship Dea del Mare arrived at Macao on 27 July 1865 to take coolies to Callao. In the evening of 31 August, while still in port, a fight broke out over gambling debts amongst the 379 coolies then on board. Captain Ansaido Giacomo testified that in the struggle which lasted twelve hours, some 47 of them tried to escape by seizing the long boats, while others simply jumped overboard. During the quelling of the riot, one man was shot and 23 drowned.
The Dea del Mare sailed on 8 September 1865 bound for Callao with 506 men on board. The unrest at Macao continued such that a mutiny occurred, details of which are not clear. It was severe enough to have the ship call at Tahiti before continuing on to Callao. On arrival on 21 January 1866 only 268 emigrants were landed. A mortality rate of 47% was incurred in quelling the mutiny.
The 344-ton Italian barque Amalia did not have a good voyage. Sailing with 241 Chinese on 10 April 1866, Captain Joao B. Bollo needed 138 days to reach Callao where he was able to produce only 149 men. The mortality rate was the highest for 1866 at 38.17%. Her passenger ton ratio was 0.70.
In 1851, the US built 1,334-ton Challenge was the fastest clipper built. The British, not to be outdone, built the Challenger in 1852 to challenge her in the competitive tea
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races from China to Britain. The Americans in turn then built their own Challenger in 1853, but she was to become employed in the San Francisco rather than the China tea trade. In the general exodus of American shipping in 1863, the Challenger was sold to Peruvian interests. She was renamed Camillo Cavour, and became the longest-serving vessel in the coolie trade.
Camillo Cavour arrived at Hong Kong on 21 October 1863, having carried 71 Chinese passengers back from San Francisco. After fitting out, she arrived at Macao to load her first cargo on 15 November. Her first captain was Stefano Caravagno, who left on 7 December 1863 with 700 coolies bound for Callao. The 118 men who lost their lives on this voyage represented a mortality rate of 16.86%. On her subsequent voyage on 11 August 1864 under Captain F. de Landabaso, the rate had improved to 10.95%. Captain de Landabaso completed four sailings averaging 630 Chinese on each voyage, with death rates in the twenties. Captain Antonio Astorquia took over command from 1868 to 1872, undertaking six voyages during that period.
The final two shipments for the 1865-66 season were on the 820-ton Italian ship Asia, on her first coolie voyage, recoding a rate of 20.60% and the 1,283-ton Portuguese ship Dolores Ugarte on her first voyage showing a rate of 25.37%.
In 1867 the 1,078-ton Italian ship Galileo sailed from Macao with 413 colonos for Callao. After a long passage of 143 days, Captain Stepheno Splivalo was able to deliver only 302 of them on 13 December 1867. The mortality rate was 26.88% compared with the 2.30% he had achieved on the Compania Maritima del Peru 2. Another Italian ship in 1867 was the Luisa Canevaro, which suffered a 30.92% loss on her second voyage. The 757-ton French Henri IV was also on her second voyage, having left Macao on 31 July 1868. Captain J. Monillot chose the northern route via Honolulu and in doing so lost 31% of the 458 Chinese he had taken on.
Mutinies
There were eight mutinies on ships to Peru between 1860 and 1869, three of which were successful, in that the ships did
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not reach their destination. Another three-the Loa, Liguria and Dea del Mare-all previously mentioned, also suffered high mortality rates.
The Spanish 567-ton barque Encarnacion commenced her employment in the coolie trade on 4 December 1853 when Captain Gandia took 400 Chinese from Macao to Havana, losing only eight on her 130-day voyage. After a long period of inactivity in Hong Kong, the 567-ton Spanish barque Encarnacion resumed carrying coolies, sailing from Macao on 2 August 1860 with 324 Chinese emigrants for Peru. The official Boletim de Macao reported on 11 August that she returned in the afternoon of the 8th, due to armed insurgency against the thirty crew members. The ship reported 72 dead and 20 seriously wounded. The Government inquiry revealed that, incited by two of the emigrants, more than 80 men had planned to take the ship and seize the large sum of money which they thought to be in the Captain's cabin. More than 200 had been on deck at the time of the uprising and in the consequent struggle, 20 had been injured, five of them seriously.
Captain Ambrogue was severely criticised for not taking sufficient precautions. He gave the false opinion that the reason for the revolt was the water rations. Others thought greed for money was the only cause of the disorder. Complete freedom to roam the ship, including the fact that the cabin area was open and accessible,108 contributed to the mutiny. The uprising took place in the morning of the sixth day. After a bloody fight lasting more than an hour, the crew managed to confine the men in the hold. Of those interviewed, only one said he did not want to emigrate and was taken ashore.
The Encarnacion departed on her second attempt on 1 September 1860. The number of men embarked was not reported, nor were details of the reason for her return 25 days later. No reports of a mutiny were published, and with the long period since her departure, it is presumed that she encountered a storm, and was dismasted. Major repairs at Whampoa from 27 October 1860 kept her there until 14 December. Encarnacion eventually departed for a third time on 14 January 1861 with a new captain, J. Manio, and 308
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1
labourers, this time for Havana. She arrived on 16 May 1861 with 290 landing, suffering a loss of eighteen on the voyage.
One of the famous American clipper ships, noted for their speed, was the White Falcon. Built in 1853 at Pittston, Massachusetts, she was sold in 1864 to Canevaro & Co. of Lima for $28,000. Renamed Napoleon Canevaro, Rafael de Moro was her first captain and she successfully completed two voyages to Callao without incident. On her third voyage, the Napoleon Canevaro sailed from Macao on 8 March 1866, with a crew of 40, and 662 coolie emigrants, again bound to Callao. Part of the cargo consisted of 8,000 boxes of Chinese fire crackers.
A few hours after leaving port, the officers discovered a plot among the coolies to poison them, and that 200 of them had agreed to revolt, and capture the ship. Some of the ringleaders were flogged, while others were placed in irons. At 4 o'clock the next day, the interpreter reported to Chief Mate Alexander Francis Faw, that the coolies intended to revolt at 5 o'clock. At 5.30pm the coolies revolted, and broke up the sleeping benches into which they had driven spikes for weapons. They also had several knives, spades, and two cutlasses, taken from the men on guard.
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The crew fired on them, and after about thirty had been shot, the captain called on them to surrender. They refused, and set fire to some straw in the hold of the vessel. The fire rapidly increased but the coolies again refused to surrender. Two boats were lowered and swamped, but a third was lowered in safety, and several of the crew got into it and put off from the ship's side. The captain, chief mate, and supercargo were saved by swimming to one of the swamped boats, from which they were taken by the crew in the third boat; but the doctor, store-keeper, interpreter, and some of the crew perished. At 10 o'clock on the 9th the vessel blew up, the fire having reached that part of the hold in which 8,000 boxes of Chinese fire crackers were stowed, and all those on board perished.
After they had been 48 hours in the lifeboats, they sighted the Hamburg barque Madeira, bound for Saigon from Hong Kong. Captain Pollock received the survivors on board
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and took them on to Saigon where, on 17 March, they were transferred to the French Admiral's frigate. They remained there until they were placed on the steamer Far East which sailed for Hong Kong on 27 March 1866.
On 23 April 1866 the 1,064-ton Italian ship Theresa dropped anchor in Macao. She had previously been the American Saracen. Captain Sebastian Bollo had arrived to collect 613 Chinese for Peru. It took him 40 days to assemble them and she sailed on 2 June 1866. Captain Sebastian was not as successful as his brother Joao, and after a 122-day voyage he was able to pass only 497 of them to the consignee, Molfino.
Nevertheless, Theresa returned to Macao on 14 October 1867. Sebastian Bollo could muster only 293 Chinese coolies after 141 days. They must have been the very dregs of society and a rebellious collection. On 3 March 1868, she departed on her second voyage for Callao with 293 coolies and a considerable amount of silk, tea, and Chinese goods for Callao. All went well for the first 62 days. On 5 April, off the coast of New Zealand, the coolies rose, while most of the 38- man crew were asleep. After wounding many of the crew and killing 12 of them, the coolies demanded to be taken back to China. The chief mate, the captain's brother, had seventeen wounds and was placed in irons by the mutineers. After eighty days of torture, including having nails driven into his head, he was killed on 6 July, two days before the ship arrived off Cha-fo on the south China coast.
They spared the life of Captain Sebastian Bollo and his wife, and directed the captain to steer for Tin pak some 120 miles to the southwest of Macao. Soon after the mutiny, the Puntis and Hakkas on board had a free fight, lasting over two to three hours, and which saw some fifty of them killed. The heads were removed and placed in boxes in the hold where, after sixty days, they emitted a dreadful stench. The remaining coolies then plundered the ship, taking away most of her precious cargo, before absconding. The ship's name was taken off all her boats.
The Theresa arrived back in Macao on 14 July 1868 with a crew of eight Europeans including the captain's wife.
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Five coolies who refused to join the pirates returned with the ship. It was considered that the mutiny was in fact piracy as many of the men had an understanding of navigation. In the days following the arrival of the Theresa, seven men were caught and brought to trial as pirates in Macao. Three of them had boldly re-entered a barracoon seeking to emigrate. Theresa was eventually put up for auction in Macao on 22 May 1869.
The 660-ton Italian ship Providenza arrived in Callao on 23 December 1868 with 376 of the 382 that had embarked in Macao on 23 July 1868. This was Captain Alberto Nattini's fourth voyage in the coolie trades and no report was made of a mutiny on board. It is probable, however, that there was some unrest on that voyage, as the following account, which mentions the Providenza, suggests.
The 350-ton Peruvian barque Cayalti, owned by John C. Codina, sailed from Callao on 16 January 1869 bound for Pacasmayo, also known as San Pedro, some 315 miles north of Callao. Along with a mixed cargo, the Cayalti took on between 50 and 60 coolies in total from the Italian ships Providenza and Camillo Cavour, both of which had been lying at Callao for some time.
On the second morning, as the steward was preparing breakfast, the Chinese rose, seized him, and bound him to the foremast. They then killed the second mate and attacked the man at the wheel. On hearing the commotion, the captain and mate checked to see what was happening, then jumped overboard, hoping to reach the shore some eighteen miles distant. The enraged coolies lowered a boat and chased them then killed them mercilessly. On return to the ship, they tied the rest of the crew to an anchor and threw them overboard. The Chinese crewman was spared, as it was he who had told the coolies of the bounty on board. Codina was next, but was spared on the intercession of his steward.
They then demanded that Codina take them to China, but he pleaded that he was no navigator and didn't even know where China was. One of the ring-leaders then dismissed him saying he knew the way. Apparently, he had been a pirate on the China coast until the British Navy put a stop to that
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practice. There were three other ex-pirates in the group, together with two fishermen, and between them they took the ship in a north-westerly direction. Later, the steward told Codina that they had originally intended to take the Providenza on her outward passage to Callao. One of the ex- pirates still had scars from the flogging he received after an unsuccessful attack on that voyage.
Without a proper crew, she drifted when she encountered calm. Then she encountered storms so severe that most of her sails were in tatters. After about 77 days, they saw land, and after 118 days made their first landing and were given deer meat by the natives. Three days later, they landed on Crag Island, where Codina was allowed ashore, with his steward. When the boat was returning to the ship Codina refused to go, and was abandoned. His Chinese steward of four years faithfully remained with him. They were eventually picked up by Captain James A. Hamilton of the whaling barque Sea Breeze. Captain Hamilton calculated that their first sighting of land would have been the Kurile Islands at the entrance of the Okhotsk Sea.
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Japanese newspapers' reported that, on 19 August, a foreign-built barque, with a full poop, and of 350 to 400 tons, entered Hakodate from Namba (Osaka). She was an old ship and in a very dilapidated condition, topgallant masts gone, and all rigging in disorder and disrepair. She displayed no name, and had no ship's papers, nor other means of identification. Her name had been torn off, and erased from the two boats remaining. On one of the bells was the name "Bertha 1836", which had possibly been her previous name.
On board were 42 Chinese, common coolies, not sailors. Through a Cantonese interpreter, the men pretended that the vessel was Chinese-owned, that she had left Macao about 70 days previously for Foochow, with a European captain, five officers, and 50 Chinese sailors. They claimed the Europeans had abandoned the ship during a gale, taking with them two boats, the davits for which stood empty. A thorough examination of ship and crew discovered that seventeen of the coolies had contracts written in Spanish, with dates
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ranging from May to July 1867 and made out for the Italian barque Providenza.
There was considerable speculation over the identity of the ship, with surveyors in London and Hakodate confirming that the ship was the Providenza. On 11 September 1868, Barao do Cercal, Italian Consul at Macao, wrote to the Editor of the Overland China Mail confirming the supposition that the ship was the Providenza. Cercal said that the Providenza under Captain Nattini cleared from Macao with twenty-eight European crew members and 382 Chinese coolies for Callao. Barao de Cercal ended by commenting on the practice "of allowing a coolie ship to lay in the roads for two or three months, with those wretches on board, in sight of land but still confined, allowed them doubtless much time to form plans to regain, on the high seas, their lost liberty .
Captain Jos� Peres Saul of the Dolores Ugarte however was adamant that the ship was the Cayalti, citing several characteristics of the ship and providing the previous names of the vessel. He was not, however, able to confirm that, in 1836, she was the Bertha. Then in October, the Italian Consul in Yokohama advised that new information confirmed the ship was the Cayalti and not the Providenza.
After yet another name and flag change, the Pedro I became the 1,552-ton San Salvadorian ship Callao. She arrived at Honolulu on 15 August 1869, with 650 Chinese, 55 days out from Macao. The 21 August 1869 issue of the Pacific Commercial Advertiser criticised the Government's Hawaiian Gazette for quoting Captain Luiz Lavarello as saying only that, "the health of the passengers has been good, with a few exceptions, four deaths having occurred on the voyage". The paper sarcastically wanted to know why the Gazette did not go on to say that, "the ship had been the scene of a slight misunderstanding, and in the endeavour to bring about a correct state of feeling it was necessary to kill one 'emigrant', wound several and place many more in irons, and to prevent the recurrence of any misunderstanding, the backs of several had been excoriated to such an extent as to sicken the beholder and render it disagreeable for the parties to wear clothing." The Callao, which had left Macao on 19 June 1869
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with 653 labourers, then continued on to Peru where 628 were landed at Payta north of Callao.
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Foreign correspondent Curtis J. Lyons said that he had visited the Callao two days after her arrival. He did not meet the captain but wandered about on his own. He saw the heavy iron barricade with two gates manned by armed guards. He spoke to a guard who told him that soon after leaving Macao the coolies attempted to take the ship. The leader was killed and several wounded. There were at least 14 kept in irons. The men were served breakfast when he was there. It looked good, with 60 baskets of clean rice, each accompanied by a dish of meat and potatoes and also greens.
After breakfast, some of the men came on deck. About a dozen chained men were made to scrub the decks while others were set to scouring the metal sheathing on the railings. Several had ugly wounds, with patches of raw flesh showing on their hips. The carpenter explained that they had been flogged a hundred lashes or more. A number of them had been appointed overseers. They walked about with a short double knotted piece of rope. He also saw some of them physically assaulted.
He said the accommodation was apparently ample and neater than he had seen on other ships. Some of the coolies seemed emaciated, but most were in good condition, but with scanty clothing. Overall, he did not think the surroundings and circumstances suggested a voluntary and free emigration, but acknowledged that some people might think otherwise.
In the period between 1869 and 1873, the Callao completed three voyages as a Salvadorian ship under Captain Luiz Lavarello, then another three as a Peruvian national carrier under Captain Antonio de Araucoa. At least eleven children were among the 4,033 Chinese passengers she took on board in the four years, landing 3,901 of them, recording a mortality rate of 3.27%.
After a spell ashore, Antonio de Araucoa resumed his position in the coolie trade, commanding the Callao from 1872 to 1873. With three more voyages to his name, Captain Araucoa can be credited with having undertaken more coolie voyages than any other captain. The number was nine.
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Following the proclamation of the new "Chinese Law" on 14 March 1861, shipments of Chinese labourers to Peru rose slowly from 947 in 1859 to 2,552 in 1860 and 2,240 in 1861.
Stress of weather and leaky vessels were common problems in wooden ships. On 17 July 1861, the 682-ton Peruvian ship Petronila under Captain Felipe Compodonico left Macao with 300 Chinese bound for Callao. Meeting heavy weather in the Bashi Channel north of Formosa (Taiwan), on 5 August she met up with a gale, during which she lost all her sails. She made Honolulu on 10 October where she had repairs done before continuing on her voyage on 29 October 1861. Tenders for cash were advertised in the Polynesian of 12 October in the name of the owner Thomas Conroy in Callao and the charterer Ugarte Santiago of Lima. It was a surprise when the Petronila returned to Honolulu 40 days later, on 8 December, in a leaky condition. She eventually departed once more on 23 January 1862 and arrived in Callao on 18 April 1862 still with 279 Chinese on board.
Chinese people are generally very superstitious, with many believing in ghosts. About midnight on 2 August, the crew of the Petronila were awakened by a fearful uproar and confusion from the coolies below deck. Fearing a mutiny, the crew fired down the hatchway but did not injure anyone. On enquiry, it was determined that the commotion was caused by the Chinese seeing a ghost. It took a long time to convince the Chinese that this was not so.
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coolie-ships-of-the-chinese-diaspora1846-1874 — Page 2

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