In a critique of enlightened and liberal attitudes, Orwell once commented upon the ambivalence surrounding the subject of the coolie. In metropoles and colonies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, African slave labor and Indian and Chinese coolie labor underwrote the standard of living. It was coolie labor, however, that would effect the world “transition” from slavery to free labor, from premodern to modern production. “Coolie” labor, or Asian indenture, emerged in the midst of contentious debates. British abolitionists decried the inhumanity of indenture; American politicians sought to protect white labor from a coolie invasion; Christian missionaries attempted on-site interventions;...

In 1874 there were 2,841 Chinese coolies who stepped forward to give written and oral testimonies of their experiences in Cuba. Of some quarter million Chinese sent to Cuba and Peru in bondage, this would be one instance of their mass protest via testimony. The perspectives of those such as Ren Shizen, Dai Renjie, and Liang Xingzhao complicate narratives of slavery and freedom and can be placed in comparison to contemporary historiographic interpretations on the subject of Asian migration. Their accounts provide an alternate perspective to the “transitional” narrative, which has facilitated the modern teleology of slave to free, black...

Remarkably, of the 125,000 Chinese who were trafficked to Cuba, there were 2,841 coolies who left behind an astounding body of written and oral testimonies that described their descent into a hellish system of bondage. One group came together to write a lengthy testimony of their experience, which opened with: “We are sinking in a strange place and living in a hell on earth” (Petition 25). Based upon these testimonies, a report was issued in 1876 entitled “Report of the Commission Sent by China to Ascertain the Condition of Chinese Coolies in Cuba.” The report chronicled the abuse of the...

Edward Jenkins, a British barrister, noted that during a commission investigation into indenture in Guyana, he received petitions from Chinese that came in a variety of forms: “Besides the many deputation of Coolies [sic] from the estates, all persons who were in any way connected with the Commission became the suffering recipients of many letters and petitions. Some of these in Chinese I still possess, written on all sorts of paper—brown, straw, candle-box, cartridge, etc., one on a tiny slip of scarlet torn off a wall or cut from a book. The woes contained in such documents were naturally...

In 1871 Julia Louisa M. Woodruff published her observations of her time in Cuba. Included was her visit to the Santa Sofía sugar plantation, where she encountered a recaptured coolie. Her description touched upon the power struggle inherent in domination and daily resistance. “Half-dead and untamed in spirit,” the coolie represented a continual challenge to management and its drive to maximize output through captive labor. While coolies appeared in observations of white travelers and journalists of the time, what did the coolies themselves say about these daily struggles? On the whole, the depositions did not usually present the sort of...

Richard Henry Dana, the prominent lawyer, abolitionist, and writer, posed a most vexing question regarding Chinese labor of the Americas: Would the Chinese mix with other races? After Dana’s trip in 1859, coolies continued to appear in “town and country” and indeed, they did “mix” with other races. One of these descendants would write a densely informative book on the coolies and on the immigrants who arrived after the coolie trade ended. Born in 1860 during the slave and coolie era in Cuba, Antonio Chuffat Latour emerged as a second generation Afro-Chinese who witnessed the rise of Chinese presence in...

In 1900–1901 Joseph Conrad wroteTyphoon, a short piece of fiction inspired partly by Conrad’s own experiences in the South China Sea. Regarded as one of the finest examples of maritime fiction in literary history, this novella has been appreciated with classic themes in mind: man versus nature, man versus the sea, democratic rule versus authoritarian rule, and language and order.² There is, however, a peculiar aspect toTyphoon. As Captain MacWhirr and his crew battle an epic storm, below deck are two hundred human beings with whom they simultaneously do battle. Under the hatches is a “regular little...