P_donner_Chinese_origin

China Workers - Origin

Source: Sue Fawn Chung, professor emerita at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV)

1.0 Macau

According to Sue Fawn Chung, professor emerita at University of Nevada most Chinese workers leaving Macau were from Zhong Shan.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, Macao became a key distribution center for the export of tea from China. At the time, China was the biggest producer of tea in the world. Ships laden with goods from the rest of the world — including smuggled chests of Bengali opium — would land in Macao and fill up with tea and other Chinese exports to take back to London.

The late 19th century also saw the peak of the ‘Coolie’ trade, which was very active in Macao with a number of brokers based there. The trade involved transporting forced (often abducted) Chinese workers around the world to perform manual labour in the colonies and beyond. Up to half a million Chinese workers were exported in this way before the trade was finally abolished in Macao in 1874.
Most of them were kidnapped from the Guangdong province and were shipped off in packed vessels to Cuba, Peru, or other South American ports to work on plantations or in mines. Many died on the way there due to malnutrition, disease, or other mistreatment.

Barracoons at Macao

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e1-404a-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

2.0 Hong Kong

The living conditions of peasants deteriorated after the Opium War.Rebellions became frequent in the southern provinces of China. Faced with unsettled conditions and increasing poverty, the young generation of Chinese in Guangdong and Fujian were forced to look for opportunities abroad. Thus, when gold was discovered in California (referred to as Golden Mountain or Old Golden Mountain () by the Chinese) in 1849 and subsequently in Australia (referred to as New Golden Mountain) in 1851, a wave of emigrants from Guangdong and Fujian left to work in the gold fields.

2.1 Timeline

According to the statistics, a total of 14,683 Chinese emigrants were shipped from Hong Kong in 1855, and 15,810 in 1858;
E. J. Eitel claimed that a total of 30,000 Chinese laborers were shipped to California in 1852.[1] In the 1860s, the total number of Chinese labourers in California rose to 151,000, the majority of them being Cantonese;
According to another set of statistics, a total of 23,928 Chinese laborers were shipped to Cuba from Hong Kong between 1848 and 1857;
Meanwhile, thousands of Chinese also emigrated to South-East Asia, Central America and South America in the 1850s due to great demands for workers for rubber, tin, cotton, tobacco, sugar cane and coffee plantations. From 1851 to 1872, the total number of coolie laborers shipped to the Americas, Australia and South-East Asia from Hong Kong amounted to 320,349;

[1] E. J. Eitel, Europe in China (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 259.

2.2 The Workers

The Chinese emigrant workers could be divided into two categories, namely free emigrants and contract coolie laborers. The latter constituted the majority and had to bear all kinds of hardships;
Many of the Coolie ships were overloaded, and the mortality rate was high;
The ill-treatment of Chinese emigrants generated concerns in Hong Kong and Britain.

2.3 The Regulations

An Emigration Officer was created in 1854 to deal with the matter;
Ordinances were passed by the colonial government from 1855 onwards with a view to regulating the coolie trade and improving the conditions of laborers on board ship.

2.4 The Traders

Many local and foreign firms, including two major British firms, Jardine Matheson & Co. and Dent & Co., were involved in this infamous yet profitable trade;
The expenses required for an agent to ship a coolie laborer to Peru or the West Indies were on average $117 to $190 silver dollars, but the owner of the plantations would pay $350 to $400 for each laborer. The profit from the shipment of each laborer was therefore around $200;
According to the research findings of a leading Chinese scholar on this subject, between 1851 and 1875, a private firm engaged in coolie trade would make a total profit of $84,000,000, averaging $3.3 million each year.[33]
There was on average an annual increase of 487 vessels totaling 251,350 tons between 1854 and 1859, representing an average increase of 68%.[34]

[33][34] 余繩武、劉存寬十九世紀的香港（香港麒麟書業有限公司1994年頁235。

The picture on is a tolerably fair representation of a manager's house on its brick pillars. To the left, at the bottom of the picture, is a free Coolie driving his cattle. To the right a rural constable is seizing an unhappy pigtail to convey him to the lock-up, being absent, as we see, from the band just above him, with his arms unbound. This indicates that he is trying to avoid the restraints of his indenture, and for this he is liable to punishment. Above him, on the right of the picture, is a group of Chinese, and on the left of the steps a group of Coolies, represented with their arms bound, an emblem of indentureship. They always speak of themselves as bound when under indenture. At the foot of the steps, on either side, is a Chinaman and a Coolie, from whose breasts two drivers are drawing blood with a knife, the life fluid being caught by boys in the swizzle-glasses of the colony. A boy is carrying the glasses up the steps to the attorney and the manager, who sit on the left of the verandah, and who are obviously fattening at the expense of the bound people below them.