European commerce; and their reluctance to leave their
native shores was removed by tempting offers made to them.
Chinese Coolies.—The first public recognition of the traffic was in 1844, when the British colony of Guiana made provision for the encouragement of Chinese emigra tion. About the same time the Peruvian planters, who since their separation from the mother country had restricted slavery within the narrowest limits, also looked to China as being likely to furnish an efficient substitute for the negro bondsman. Agents armed with consular commissions from Peru began to appear in Chinese ports, where they collected and sent away ship-loads of coolies. Each one was bound to serve the Peruvian planter to whom he might be assigned for seven or eight years, at fixed wages, generally about 17s. a month, food, clothes, and lodging being provided. Cuba, profiting by the example of Peru, also engaged in the traffic. In 1847, therefore, two ships went from Amoy to Havana, one with 350, the other with 629 coolies on board. From 1847 to 1856 the trade went on briskly without attracting much notice. Gradually, however, ugly reports as to the treatment the coolies received, both on their voyage to and after their arrival in Peru and Cuba, began to come to Europe and Asia. Still more painful rumours were set afloat regarding the thievish devices used to induce Chinese emigrants to leave their native land. It was said they were kidnapped, or tempted to engage under false pretences. It was declared that the transport ships were badly equipped and overcrowded, and that on their voyages they reproduced all the horrors of the "middle passage " in the old African slave trade. Those who were safely landed in Cuba or Peru were sold by auc tion in the open market to the highest bidders, who thus purchased them, holding them virtually as slaves for seven years instead of for life. Brutal as was the treatment to which these poor wretches were exposed on the planta tions, it was merciful compared with that which fell to the lot of those who, contrary to their agreements, had been sent to labour in the foul guano pits of the Chincha Islands. Here they were forced to toil in gangs, each under an over seer, armed with a cowhide lash 5 feet long and 1
The consequence of this was that the business of ship ping coolies for Peru was transferred to the Portuguese settlement of Macao. There the Peruvian and Cuban " labour-agents " established depots, which they unblush- ingly called " barracoons," the very term used in the West African slave trade. In these places coolies were " received," or in plain words, imprisoned and kept tinder close guard until a sufficient number were collected for export. Some of these were decoyed by fraudulent promises of profitable employment. Others were kidnapped by piratical junks hired to scour the neighbouring coasts. Many were bought from leaders of turbulent native factions, only too glad to sell the prisoners they captured whilst waging their internecine wars. The procurador or registrar-general of Macao went through the form of certifying the contracts ; but his in spection was therefore practically useless. After the war of 1856-57 this masked slave trade pushed its agencies into Wampoa and Canton. In April 1859, however, the whole mercantile community of the latter port rose up in indignation against it, and transmitted such strong re presentations to the British embassy in China, that steps were taken to mitigate the evil. New regulations were from time to time passed by the Portuguese authorities for the purpose of minimizing the horrors of the Macao trade. They seem, however, to have been systematically evaded, and to have been practically inoperative. In 1868 the governor of Macao attempted to put in force humane regu lations, but without success, as was proved by the trial of a Chinaman, Kwok-a-Sing, on the 29th of March 1871 before Chief-Justice Smale of Hong-Kong.. The prisoner had been an emigrant on board the French ship " Nouvelle Penelope," which sailed in October 1871 from Macao with 300 coolies. They mutinied on the voyage, and killed the master and seven of the crew. Kwok-a-Sing was acquitted when tried for being an accessory to this crime. In the course of his trial, however, it was proved that though some of the mutineers were hardened criminals who had shipped as coolies merely for the purpose of raising a mutiny and plundering the ship, upwards of one-third of the emigrants on board had been kidnapped and were feloniously held in bondage. Commenting on this case, the British consul said the benevolent regulations of the Macao Government looked well on paper, but in practice they were capable of being evaded to an extent that made the coolie traffic " simply a slave trade, and a disgrace to any Christian Government that permits its perpetration within its jurisdiction." At Canton and Hong-Kong the coolie trade was put under various regulations, which in the latter port worked well only when the profits of " head-money" were ruined. In March 1866 the representatives of the Governments of France, England, and China drew up a convention for the regula tion of the Canton trade, which had an unfortunate effect. It left head-money, the source of most of the abuses, com paratively untouched. It enacted that every coolie must at the end of a five years engagement have his return passage-money paid to him. The West Indian colonies at once objected to this. They wanted permanent not temporary settlers. They could not afford to burden the coolie s expensive contract with return passage-money, so they declined to accept emigrants on these terms. Thus a legalized coolie trade between the West Indies and China was extinguished.
trade it is scarcely possible to say when it began. Before the end of last century Tamil labourers from Southern India were wont to emigrate to the Straits settlements, and they also flocked to Tenasserim from the other side of the Bay of Bengal after the conquest had produced a demand for labour. Ceylon also obtained workers from Southern India, and the extent of the emigration may be estimated by the fact that, taking a period often years ending 1869,
about 65,000 emigrants, of whom 50,000 were adult males,