Coolie
Coolie is a term historically used for low-wage labourers, typically those of Indian or Chinese descent. The term was first used in the 16th century by European traders across Asia. In the 18th century, it more commonly referred to migrant Indian indentured labourers. In the 19th century, during the British colonial era, the term was adopted for the transportation and employment of Asian labourers via employment contracts on sugar plantations formerly worked by African slaves.
The word has had a variety of negative connotations. In modern-day English, it is usually regarded as offensive. In the 21st century, coolie is generally considered a racial slur for Asians in Oceania, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Americas.
The word originated in the 17th-century Indian subcontinent and meant "day labourer"; starting in the 20th century, the word was used in British Raj India to refer to porters at railway stations. The term differs from the word "Dougla", which refers to people of mixed African and Indian ancestry. Coolie is instead used to refer to people of fully-blooded Asian descent whose ancestors migrated to the British and Dutch former colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. This is particularly so in South Africa, Eastern African countries, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica, other parts of the Caribbean, Mauritius, Fiji, and the Malay Peninsula.
In modern Indian popular culture, coolies have often been portrayed as working-class heroes or anti-heroes. Indian films celebrating coolies include Deewaar, Coolie, Coolie, Coolie and several films titled Coolie No. 1.
Etymology
The term coolie is widely believed to have originated from the Tamil word kūli, meaning "hire" or "wages". The word appears in classical Tamil literature, including the Thirukkural, where it refers to the wage or reward earned through laborious effort:"தெய்வத்தான் ஆகா தெனினும் முயற்சிதன்
மெய்வருத்தக் கூலி தரும்." The word is still commonly used in Tamil with the same meaning. During British colonial rule, Tamil-speaking laborers were among the first to be sent abroad as indentured workers, and the word spread to English and other Indian languages through colonial usage.
The term also appears in other Indian languages, such as Hindi and Telugu kulī, meaning "day-labourer". It is also associated with the Urdu word qulī, meaning "slave". The slave meaning is derived from Chagatai quli, ultimately from Proto Turkic *kul "servant, slave". However, some scholars believe the Urdu usage may also have been influenced by Tamil.
The Dravidian root word , meaning "wages", is found across most Dravidian languages except the North Dravidian branch.
Another theory suggests that the Hindi word quli could have originated from the name of a tribal or caste group in Gujarat.
In Chinese, the word kǔlì, which literally means "bitter strength", is an example of phono-semantic matching. Although unrelated etymologically, the term came to be used similarly by colonial powers to describe Chinese manual laborers.
The word coolies was recorded in English as early as 1727, when Engelbert Kaempfer described dock workers unloading Dutch merchant ships in Nagasaki, Japan.
History of the coolie trade
Abolition of slavery and rise of the coolie trade
The importation of Asian labourers into European colonies occurred as early as the 17th century. However, in the 19th century, a far more robust system of trade involving coolies occurred, in direct response to the gradual abolition of both the Atlantic slave trade and slavery itself, which for centuries had served as the preferred mode of labour in European colonies in the Americas. The British were the first to experiment with coolie labour when, in 1806, two hundred Chinese labourers were transported to the colony of Trinidad to work on the plantations there. The "Trinidad experiment" was not a success, with only twenty to thirty labourers remaining in Trinidad by the 1820s. However, such efforts inspired Sir John Gladstone, one of the earliest proponents of coolie labour, to seek out coolies for his sugar plantations in British Guiana in the hopes of replacing his Afro-Caribbean labour force after the abolition of slavery there in 1833.Social and political pressure led to the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833, with other European nations eventually following suit. Labour-intensive work in European colonies, such as those involving plantations and mines, were left without a cheap source of manpower. As a consequence, a large-scale trade of primarily Indian and Chinese indentured labourers began in the 1820s to fill this need. In 1838, 396 South Asian workers arrived in British Guiana, and such a stream of migrant labour would continue until the First World War. Other European nations, especially colonial powers such as France, Spain, and Portugal, soon followed suit, especially as Britain, through several treaties such as Strangford Treaty and the Treaty of Paris of 1814, also pressured other nations to abolish their involvement in the Atlantic slave trade. In most European colonies, the importation of Asian labourers began in earnest after the abolition of slavery. However, in some colonies, such as Cuba, slavery would not end until 1886, about forty years after coolies were introduced.
A number of contemporary and modern historians noted the influence of the old form of colonial slavery on the coolie system. The coolie trade, much like the slave trade, was intended to provide a labour force for colonial plantations in the Americas and the Pacific whose cash crops were in high demand across the Atlantic World. Coolies frequently worked on slave plantations which had been previously worked by African slaves, and similarly brutal treatment could be meted out by plantation overseers in response to real or perceived offences. On some Caribbean plantations, the numbers of coolies present could reach up to six hundred. In 1878, historian W. L. Distant wrote an article for the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, detailing his time spent on West Indian plantations observing the work ethic and behaviours of coolies, and noted that many overseers believed that Asian coolies, much like African slaves, held an affinity for intensive outdoor labour work. The views of overseers towards coolies differed based on ethnicity: Chinese and Japanese coolies were perceived to be harder working, more unified as a labour force, and maintained better hygiene habits in comparison to Indian labourers, who were viewed as being lower in status and treated as children who required constant supervision.
Debates over coolie labour
Unlike slavery, coolie labour was under contract, consensual, paid, and temporary, with the coolie able to regain complete freedom after their term of service. Regulations were put in place as early as 1837 by the British authorities in India to safeguard these principles of voluntary, contractual work and safe, sanitary transportation. The Chinese government also made efforts to secure the well-being of their nation's workers, with representatives being sent to relevant governments around the world. Some Western abolitionists saw coolie labour as paving the way towards abolition, to gradually and peacefully replace African slave labour without loss of profit. However, other abolitionist groups and individuals – such as the British Anti-Slavery Society and the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, along with American abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison – were highly critical of coolie labour. Proslavery advocates, particularly in the Southern United States, condemned coolie labour but used it to argue against the abolition of American slavery, claiming the latter was more "humane" than the former.In practice, however, as many opponents of the system argued, abuse and violence in the coolie trade was rampant. Some of these labourers signed employment contracts based on misleading promises, while others were kidnapped and sold into servitude; some were victims of clan violence whose captors sold them to coolie merchants, while others sold themselves to pay off gambling debts. Those who did sign on voluntarily generally had contracts of two to five years. In addition to having their passage paid for, coolies were also paid under twenty cents per day on average. However, in certain regions, roughly a dollar would be taken from coolies every month in order to pay off their debts.
Chinese coolies
In European colonies
Workers from China were mainly transported to work in Peru and Cuba. However, many Chinese labourers worked in British colonies such as Singapore, New South Wales, Jamaica, British Guiana, British Malaya, Trinidad and Tobago, British Honduras, as well as in the Dutch colonies within the Dutch East Indies and Suriname. The first shipment of Chinese labourers was to the British colony of Trinidad in 1806 "in an attempt to establish a settlement of free peasant cultivators and labourers". On many of the voyages, the labourers were transported on the same vessels that had been used to transport African slaves in previous years.The coolie slave trade run by American captains and local agents, mainly consisting of debt slavery, was called the 'pig trade' as the living conditions were not dissimilar to that of livestock; on some vessels as many as 40 per cent of the coolies died en route. As many as 500 were crammed into a single ship hold, leaving no room to move. The coolies were also stamped on their backs like livestock. Foreign merchants took advantage of the unequal treaties negotiated between the Qing government and Western powers after the Opium Wars, as well as the resulting political and economic instability, to broker deals for "contracted" workers. Anglophone capitalists referred to the opium trade and captive Chinese labour as "poison and pigs".
Portuguese Macao was the center of coolie slavery: it was described as "the only real business" in Macao from 1848 to 1873, generating enormous profits for the Portuguese until it was banned due to pressure from the British government. Between 1851 and 1874 approximately 215,000 Chinese were shipped from Macau overseas, primarily to Cuba and Peru, with some being shipped to Guiana, Suriname, and Costa Rica. These coolies were obtained via a variety of sources, including some who were entrapped by brokers in Macau through loans for gambling, and others who were kidnapped or coerced.
In 1847, two ships from Cuba transported workers to Havana to work in the sugar cane fields from the port of Amoy, one of the five Chinese treaty ports opened to the British by the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. The trade soon spread to other ports in Guangdong, and demand became particularly strong in Peru for workers in the silver mines and the guano collecting industry. Australia began importing workers in 1848. These workers were deceived about their terms of employment to a much greater extent than their Indian counterparts, and consequently, there was a much higher level of Chinese emigration during this period.
The trade flourished from 1847 to 1854 without incident, until reports began to surface of the mistreatment of the workers in Cuba and Peru. As the British government had political and legal responsibility for many of the ports involved – including Amoy – such ports were immediately closed. Despite these closures, the trade simply shifted to the more accommodating port within the Portuguese enclave of Macau.
Many coolies were first deceived or kidnapped, and then kept in barracoons or loading vessels in the ports of departure, as were African slaves. Their voyages, which are sometimes called the Pacific Passage, were as inhumane and dangerous as the notorious Middle Passage of the Atlantic slave trade. Mortality was very high; it is estimated that from 1847 to 1859, the average mortality rate for coolies aboard ships to Cuba was 15.2%, and losses among ships to Peru were as high as 40% in the 1850s, and 30.4% from 1860 to 1863.
Coolies were sold and taken to work in plantations or mines with very bad living and working conditions. The duration of a contract was typically five to eight years, but many coolies did not live out their term of service due to hard labour and mistreatment. Survivors were often forced to remain in servitude beyond the contracted period. The 1860 Reglamento para la introducción de trabajadores chinos a la isla de Cuba passed in Cuba. This regulation stipulated that the Coolie workers must recontract with their previous employer or another employer or they must leave Cuba at their own expense within 2 months after the end of their contract. Coolies were usually unable to afford to leave Cuba and were forced to recontract. This regulation blurred the distinction between indentured servitude and slavery. It allowed for the Coolies to serve as a source of semi-captive labour given the intentional difficulty of returning home.
The coolies who worked on the sugar plantations in Cuba and in the guano beds of the Chincha Islands of Peru were treated brutally. 75% of the Chinese coolies in Cuba died before fulfilling their contracts. More than two-thirds of the Chinese coolies who arrived in Peru between 1849 and 1874 died within the contract period. In 1860, it was calculated that of the 4,000 coolies brought to the Chinchas since the trade began, not one had survived.
Because of these unbearable conditions, Chinese coolies often revolted against their Chinese bosses and foreign company bosses at ports of departure, on ships, and in foreign lands. The coolies were put in the same neighbourhoods as Africans and, since most were unable to return to their homeland or have their wives come to the New World, many married African women. The coolies' interracial relationships and marriages with Africans, Europeans, and Indigenous peoples, formed some of the modern world's Afro-Asian and Asian Latin American populations.
In Spanish, coolies were referred to as . The Spanish colony of Cuba feared slave uprisings such as those that took place in Haiti, and used coolies as a transition between slaves and free labour. They were neither free nor slaves. Indentured Chinese servants also laboured in the sugarcane fields of Cuba well after the 1884 abolition of slavery in the country. Two scholars of Chinese labour in Cuba, Juan Pastrana and Juan Pérez de la Riva, substantiated horrific conditions of Chinese coolies in Cuba and stated that coolies were slaves in all but name. Researcher Denise Helly believes that despite their slave-like treatment, the free and legal status of the Asian labourers in Cuba separated them from slaves. According to Rodriguez Pastor and Trazegnies Granda, the coolies could challenge their superiors, run away, petition government officials, and rebel.
By 1870, labour contractors called enganchadores were used to manage and negotiate the contracts for Chinese Coolies in organised labour squads called Cuadrillas. "The enganchador negotiated all terms of work for his squad and handled all aspects of employment for the workers, including obtaining advances from the planters for salaries, distributing tools, arranging housing and food, and assuming responsibility for discipline, control, and supervision.". The enganchador had flexibility in the length of the Coolies' recontract. The Coolie was also able to negotiate their wages and often had the upper hand as the employer had to yield to market forces. "Recontracting terms varied considerably. A batch of recontracts from the period 1863 to 1877 reveals great variation in the terms of the new contracts, diverging not only from the original ones, but from each other. First, most coolies signed up for only one year, at most two years, and some for as few as three and six months – all far short of another eight years. Second, the monthly wages not only varied, but were always greater than the 4 pesos in the original contracts, in some cases significantly greater. Many specified payment in "peso fuerte," that is, hard currency, not vouchers, which was often used during the eight year original indenture.".
Once they had fulfilled their contracts, integrated into the countries of Peru, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. They adopted cultural traditions from the natives and welcomed non-Chinese to experience and participate in their traditions. Before the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Havana had Latin America's largest Chinatown.
File:Real Cédula de Gracia.jpg|thumb|The Royal Decree of Graces of 1815, a legal order approved by the Spanish Crown to encourage foreign settlement of the colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico
From, the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company was instrumental in supplying Chinese coolie labour to South African mines at the request of mine owners, who considered such labour cheaper than native African and white labour. The horrendous conditions suffered by Indian coolie labourers in South Africa led some politicians in the British Parliament to question the coolie system.
In 1866, the British, French and Chinese governments agreed to mitigate the abuse by requiring all traders to pay for the return of all workers after their contract ended. The employers in the British West Indies declined these conditions, bringing the trade there to an end. Until the trade was finally abolished in 1875, over 150,000 coolies had been sold to Cuba alone, the majority having been shipped from Macau. These labourers endured conditions far worse than those experienced by their Indian counterparts. Even after the 1866 reforms, the scale of abuse and conditions of near slavery did not get any better – if anything they deteriorated. In the early 1870s, an increased media exposure of the trade led to a public outcry, and the British, as well as the Chinese government, put pressure on the Portuguese colonial authorities in Macau to bring the trade there to an end; this was ultimately achieved in 1874. By that time, a total of up to half a million Chinese workers had been exported. However, by 1890, there were still newspaper reports of coolie labour being used in Madagascar.
The term coolie was also applied to Chinese workers recruited for contracts on cacao plantations in German Samoa. German planters went to great lengths to secure access to their coolie labour supply from China. In 1908, a Chinese commissioner, Lin Shu Fen, reported on the cruel treatment of coolie workers on German plantations in the western Samoan Islands. The trade began largely after the establishment of colonial German Samoa in 1900 and lasted until the arrival of New Zealand forces in 1914. More than 2,000 Chinese coolies were present in the islands in 1914 and most were eventually repatriated by the New Zealand administration.