Chapter 6 Section 3 The Misadventures of Contracted Chinese Laborers and Credit Simple Workers
Once the Chinese laborers who went to Latin America signed their fingerprints on the mandatory pre-signed "recruitment contract", they were immediately "connected with braids, tied into a string, and led to the prison cell (recruitment hall)" to wait for the "pigs to garrison the boat" " sailing date. "Recruitment halls" are generally dirty water fences, and the conditions are very bad.With the increasing number of workers being recruited, "recruitment centers" can be seen everywhere in the southeastern coastal ports of China. In 1870, there were as many as 300 in Macau alone.
When "pigboys" entered the "recruitment hall", the traffickers were paid per head. At first, each "pigboy" was given three silver dollars, and later it rose to an average of 8-10 yuan, and sometimes as high as 100 yuan.Then the piglets are often stripped naked and have a C (Cuba), P (Peru) or S (San de Verde) stamped or branded on their chest..., give them a little Food to satisfy their hunger, a set of clothes to cover their bodies, and one or two yuan to give to their families.
Once the voyage time is up, the Chinese laborers will be driven to the "piggy boat".Because of the insatiable colonialism, the ships were always overloaded, and the cabins were crowded, with no more than two square feet per person.Hua Gong couldn't lie on his back, so he had to sit with his knees bent, and slept with his legs crossed at night.The ventilation equipment in the cabin was extremely poor, and the food conditions were poor. The Chinese workers vomited and suffered from diseases from time to time.Due to the lack of medical conditions, fatal accidents continue to occur.The dead are like livestock, thrown into the sea at any time.If the Chinese workers resisted, they would be tied up and brutally tortured, or put in handcuffs and shackles.Due to all kinds of inhuman torture and abuse, the death rate of Chinese laborers during the voyage was very high, and some of them were as high as 50%. In 1847, the "Duke of Argyle" carried 400 Chinese laborers and sailed for 123 days. Thirty-five Chinese laborers died on the way; when they arrived in Cuba, 200 of them were already dying. In 1853, three ships of Huaduopu Company set sail from Xiamen. The first two ships carried a total of 803 Chinese laborers, and only 408 remained when they arrived in Havana. The third ship carried 250 Chinese laborers, and 152 died when they arrived in Cuba. The death rate was as high as 60%.Because of this, people call the "piggy boats" carrying indentured Chinese laborers to Latin America "floating hell on the sea".
Yi Qibin, a Poshan literati in the Qing Dynasty, fully revealed the tragic scene of this "floating hell on the sea" and the inner pain of the "pigs" in his famous poem "Pig Slave":
Under the threat of starvation, torture, and death, the Chinese laborers risked their lives in a heroic struggle against the arbitrariness and tyranny of the colonial traffickers. In 1851, the Chinese workers who sailed to Peru on the British ship "Victory" staged an uprising, killed the captain on the spot, and sailed back to China. In 1852, Chinese laborers on the Peruvian ship Rosa Elias, commanded by a British captain, staged a riot on the way to Peru, killed the captain, and sailed to Singapore to disembark. In October 1855, the American ship "Waverly" was fully loaded with Chinese workers and went to Callao or Havana.Shortly after the ship set sail, the captain died of illness.The ship had to sail into Manila, Philippines.The Chinese laborers on the ship asked to go ashore, so they had a quarrel with the ship's crew.One Chinese was shot dead on the spot, and the rest were driven into the large cabin on the ship.The hatch and various vents are tightly sealed.When it was opened the next morning, it was found that 251 Chinese laborers had suffocated to death. In 1857, the American ship "Zorma" carried 428 Chinese laborers from Shantou to Cuba. The next day the Chinese laborers rioted.The Chinese laborers set fire to the ship, and the sailors shot and killed several people, injured more than 30 people, and 209 people jumped into the sea. In 1859, the American ship "Norway" carried more than 1,000 Chinese workers from Macau to Cuba. The ship sailed for five days. The Chinese workers rioted and set fire to the ship. They were suppressed and more than 130 Chinese workers died. In 1870, the French ship "Nauville Pennelope" carried 320 Chinese workers from Macau to the port of Callao in Latin America. On the way, the Chinese workers cleverly seized the ship, killed the captain and 11 crew members, and drove back to the port. China.According to statistics, from 1845 to 1872, there were a total of 48 incidents of coolie ship disasters at sea, of which Chinese labor riots accounted for 38 cases.Here we can quote the judgment of the Hong Kong judge Sima Li on the coolie ship case in March 1873 to illustrate the nature of this coolie trade—essentially a slave trade.He once pointed out: "As far as I am concerned, if the law of cause and effect is still in effect, this shameful trafficking will inevitably lead to serious disasters and terrible consequences for the traffickers themselves. The cases where they were unable to complete the voyage were compiled into a table. In a very short period of time before I compiled the table, seven ships, carrying more than 3,000 coolies, were burned at sea one after another, or sunk in an accident, causing heavy losses. tragedy. Among the dead were several captains and a considerable number of crew."
Due to the riots of contracted Chinese laborers during transportation, the coolie trade on the Pacific waterway continued to fail, which affected the normal trade between Britain and the United States to the East.Coupled with the continuous condemnation of the Macao authorities by Chinese and world public opinion, the coolie trade did more harm than good. In April 1873, the chief judge of Hong Kong announced that "the trade in coolies should be regarded as the slave trade" and that "any action directly or indirectly related to the trade in coolies" should be punished according to law.On September 6 of the same year, Ruilin, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, also ordered that all non-contracted national ships specially designed to carry immigrants going overseas are not allowed to berth in Huangpu.Huangpu and Hong Kong sealed off coolie ships, paralyzing the coolie trade in Macau.Based on this situation, in December 1873, the King of Portugal was forced to issue a decree announcing the ban on coolie trade.The climax of the coolie trade is over, but this does not mean that the coolie trade has completely stopped.
Credit workers who go to California, U.S., generally take various forms of boats or sampans from their hometowns, pass through various rivers in the Pearl River Delta, and go to Hong Kong, where they live in dilapidated small inns prepared for them by brokers, or live in At the home of acquainted relatives, waiting for the ship to sail to the United States.Once the sailing date of the ship bound for the United States is confirmed, the credit workers will board the ship, line up on the deck, and wait for inspection.After the inspection, he obeyed the command of the owner and climbed into the hold.No servants, except the cook, are allowed to come on deck, in order to prevent quarrels and fights with the captain or crew.No matter how the captain racked his brains to prevent the shipwreck from making trouble, but the shipboard ship could not bear the harsh environment and human-made abuse, conflicts of various scales continued to break out on the ship.For example, in March 1852, the American ship "Robert Bowen" loaded 450 immigrants to San Francisco. After sailing for eight days, it had already circled the northern tip of Taiwan. Captain Leslie Blyson ordered the immigrants to be washed with a broom. And forced credit workers to cut off their braids.The credit workers couldn't stand the captain's insult to them, so they killed the captain and crew, seized the ship, and landed on Yaeshan Island, the southernmost point of Ryukyu Island. Most of them stayed in Ryukyu, and a few continued to sail. The ship arrived in Xiamen and returned to his hometown.Due to the poor condition of the bilge, deaths often occurred during transportation.For example, an American ship "Freeman" carried 500 people on credit from Hong Kong to San Francisco, but 100 people died on the way, accounting for 1/5 of the total number of people. The tragedy is evident.The voyage and sailing time from China to San Francisco in the United States vary with the length of the season, the direction of the wind and the direction of the sea, and it usually takes two months to sail.
When Shan Gong arrived in San Francisco, the United States, he went to a certain overseas Chinese association.The person in charge of the guild hall arranged for them to eat and live, and sent them to the countryside or mining areas, forcing them to accept employment at the low wages set by the creditors.They are free people on the surface, but in fact they are a kind of hidden labor slaves.Like the indentured laborers, they cannot escape the fate of being enslaved and oppressed. On March 16, 1910, the "World Journal" in San Francisco, USA, published the full text of the famous "Order of Detention in a Wooden House" on the front page.The author wrote a tragic article based on the suffering he suffered:
"White power, the yellow soul suffers more than a bereaved dog. Forced into a cage, chased into a dolphin. Strictly lock the key, the soul disappears in the snow, it is worse than a dog and a horse. Tears on the ice, hurting birds and birds. But I bowed to the sea, and read the newspapers with pleasure. I talked about the old hometown, divided the beans, and pityed the whole country. The wolves and the tigers devoured, and I hoped for Chen She's disciples. Stop farming the long acres, the guest of the field, sweeping away Qinchuan is Pyongyang. Armed with spears and garrisoned, the country of Wu is deserted. Look at today's domain, it must be the world of the Han family."
In this "Wood House Detention Order", the author deeply exposed the harsh abuse of overseas Chinese by a small number of people in the United States with grief and indignation. With the confidence to win.
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