FREE COLUMN - Human trafficking of "coolie labor" in 19th Century China for the overseas market -"Selling Piglets."
And more on Dog Eating in China
Greetings, Welcome to my new readers eople and welcome back to all the rest of you. Thank you for joining me for your weekly Asian Studies Fix. First, a quick housekeeping / introduction / update to the column. I began this column about a year and a half ago and since then have been offering a column on some aspect or issue in Asian, Chinese, or Chinese American history at least once a week. That was my goal, I have kept it, and I plan to continue with it.
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Overseas Chinese laborers, were they free agents or enslaved “coolie” labor? — A Controversy with Chinese American and Overseas Chinese History.
Within history, there are many controversies and issues that are debated. With the Chinese in American in the 19th Century, one issue of controversy is how many were enslaved people bought and sold by other Chinese to be shipped overseas away from China and forced to work in faraway places doing jobs they did not wish to do?
Undoubtedly, globally, many of the Chinese laborers who left China were indeed enslaved people sold by other Chinese to work abroad against their will. I have written about this before. For instance, see Chinese in the US Civil War. Part Two. "John Fouenty." Confederate soldier and Survivor of the horrible Cuban Coolie trafficking. And the 19th Century Coolie Trade to Cuba Peter Huston Jun 22, 2025 and here Chinese laborers in the Old West - Coolie labor or Heroic pioneers? The first large contingent of Chinese laborers came to California to mine gold in 1849 having been contracted by an Englishman in Shanghai. Peter Huston Apr 06, 2025 with some here UPDATE -Factoids about "California Gold, Chinese Migration, and the Making of Hong Kong," lessons from "Pacific Crossing," by Elizabeth Sinn. Peter Huston Apr 13, 2025
Quick overview, as most of the Chinese who went abroad to work or seek their fortune were men, I will focus on the male Chinese who went abroad to the USA and elsewhere here. I have written about Chinese women in America, many of whom were also enslaved and sold by other Chinese, in this column several times. A quick check of the archive using the search tool and key words should find several examples.
Briefly, the Chinese men who came to America or went elsewhere around the globe at this time to work or seek their fortune basically fall into two broad categories. The first would be merchants and other people who had some wealth and education and skills that they felt would put them in demand in California or who thought they could make money buying and selling things abroad, sometimes using the connections they had with people back home in China. The second would be laborers who came here with the plan being that they would work hard and perform services primarily using their muscles and physical abilities.
Of this second category, these could probably be classified into three broad sub-categories.
Men who decided on their own initiative using their own ability and connection to go to the USA or another country and then seek their fortune making their own choices about how to do so. These would be people who had either bought their own passage or perhaps borrowed from friends, family, or others they knew personally to go abroad and seek their fortune perhaps either seeking gold or later building the railroads or opening laundries and restaurants and what have you.
Men who had voluntarily made the decision to enter into a contract where they would be expected to perform services overseas for a period of time in return for a salary or other types of compensation. For purposes of this definition, it may be assumed that the terms of the contract were mostly followed and they were not tricked or lied to very much while performing their contracted duties.
Men who had been kidnapped or tricked and then taken prisoner and sold to an organization that sold them into overseas slavery. My understanding is such organizations often worked out of Macao or sometimes Fujian and only rarely through Hong Kong. It is indisputable that there were large scale, on-going enterprises based on the Chinese coast staffed mostly be Chinese people that took other Chinese people and sold them into slavery to foreign business interests.
Although many find the term offensive today, historically these enslaved people were often called “coolies.” According to one source:
What is a “coolie”?
The term coolie was used to describe laborers deemed to be low class by Eastern countries (Holden, 1864). The Chinese coolie trade (sometimes called la trata amarilla [the yellow trade]) was a system in which Chinese men were indentured (contracted) through questionable means, and shipped overseas to countries requiring low-cost labor (Hu-Dehart, 1993). The coolies were forced or coerced into signing labor contracts, which were then sold to plantation owners in places like Peru and Cuba for somewhere between $300 and $1,000 American dollars (Holden, 1864; Farley, 1968). The plantation owner who bought a coolie’s contract became their defacto master.
As for how many of these enslaved people were shipped to the USA as opposed to other countries, personally I don’t think it was terribly many, but I admit I am still researching the matter and reliable sources with actual, reliable numbers seem to be few and far between.
However, the issue does need to be discussed in the context of Chinese-American history as many of the non-Chinese Euroamericans who felt the Chinese were taking their jobs charged that the Chinese in California were largely enslaved “coolie” laborers and thus being forced against their will to perform services with little or no pay and thus undercutting them when seeking jobs and offering services. While this may not have been the case for most of the Chinese in California, it was the case for many of the Chinese laborers in Cuba or Peru, so it cannot be dismissed completely out of hand as racist paranoia, although there undoubtedly was some racist paranoia involved.
American “anti-coolie” sentiment, also caused Abraham Lincoln to sign a bill in 1862 that prohibted American owned ships from transporting coolies. 1
Additionally in Australia prior to the Australian Gold Rush of 1851, most of the Chinese who came to Australia came as contract agricultural labor and many of these people were enslaved and had not chosen to come to Australia and some of them were shipped there with no plan for their return home, a subject I hope to look at more closely in the future.
Archives in Australia
In Australia today, many people, some of Chinese descent, some not, have been looking into the history of Chinese in Australia and collecting archival materials relating to the subject as well as networking with others who have done so elsewhere.
If the materials are written in Chinese or another language, this is often then followed by an effort to translate those materials into English.
One place to begin finding such materials is a website called “Chinese Australian History In 88 Objects.” You can find the website and links to many archival materials that have been put online here.
Translating such materials is definitely not easy. As the website says:
Unsurprisingly much of Chinese Australian history is in Chinese. The need for good translations is apparent and below are some opportunities for would be translators.
Warning for newbies
Cantonese and other dialects/languages – it is not Mandarin
Traditional characters of course
Classical Chinese even – often mixed with vernacular
See: https://chinozhistory.org/index.php/translations/
However, the results are interesting. For instance, today I am sharing an insightful yet disturbing confession from that source. It is the confession of someone who kidnapped strangers and sold them into slavery knowing they would be shipped abroad to work in faraway countries.
https://chinozhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Coolie-Trade-Lily-Lee.pdf
The document was translated by “Dr Lily Lee” who I assume is the Dr Lily Lee who is a Honorary Associate in University of Sydney and studies Chinese literary works, 2 although there are other “Dr Lily Lee'“s out there, including a plastic surgeon in California, but I am betting this is the college professor with training in reading classical Chinese.
A few thoughts aimed at clarifying the document. It says that Liang Lihong was 36 years old in 1855 when he made this confession and had been arrested in 1836 for robbery and exiled as punishment until 1839. If we assume he was born in 1819, then all the dates line up. As for his work “washing sand.” although I don’t know for sure, my guess, and it is only a guess, is that this may be part of the process of preparing sand for use in things like making concrete and in other construction uses where one would need sand that had been cleaned and made free from impurities. The original Chinese language documents can be viewed on the PDF by following the link if one wishes.
I’ve made no attempt to determine the actual dates mention in the Western calendar as it can be a surprisingly complex matter to do so.
The confession of Liang Lihong delivered by Huang Xianbiao, qianzong (commander of 1,000 men) of guangxie (some office of Guangdong Province) on the 20th day of the 11th month. Aged thirty-six, Liang Lihong was a native of Bai? Village, Jiangpu si, Nanhai County. Both of his parents were dead, and he had no siblings. His wife lived on silver mining by washing the sand at the river at Shanian in Guangzhou. He was found guilty of robbery and exiled to Lufeng County in the 2nd month of Daoguang 16 (1836). His period of exile ended in Daoguang 19 (1839) and he returned to the livelihood of washing sand.
【The following was Liang Lihong’s confession:】 On the 12th day of the 2nd month of Xianfeng 5 (1855), a man called Toothless Luo Jin came to visit Liang Ajin at the end of the Thirteen Hongs. I was also there having a chat with Liang Ajin, so I met Toothless Luo Jin. Luo said he was staying at the Yiyi shop at Xinzhou, Huangpu. He had connections with the “selling piglets” ( i.e. illegal trafficking of cheap labour) people. I then got the idea that I could abduct someone and sell them for money. Thereby I went to a drug store and bought naoyanghua 3 to make drugs and hid it on me. On the 15th day of the 8th month, when I was walking on Qingyuan Street, I saw a man of about thirty with worn clothes, so I knew he was unemployed and in reply to my enquiry, he said his name was Zhang; he had no contacts anywhere. So I lied to him that I would take him to Huangpu to work for a foreign hong. The wage was four dollars per month. He agreed so I took him to Thirteen Hongs. Another man in his thirties was talking with Zhang. His clothes were also worn-out, so I intended to abduct and sell him together with Zhang. He said his name was Huang. I also said that I would take him to work for a foreign hong. After Huang also agreed, I took them both to Xinzhou, Huangpu. Toothless Luo Jin and I took them to a French ship and sold them. There were some Chinese: Agen, Agou, Big Guy and Beiya or Biya. I did not know their surnames, all four of them were employers of the foreign ship. We handed over Zhang and Huang to them. Each one was sold for eight dollars, together we received sixteen dollars. Toothless Luo Jin and I each got eight dollars. This was one incident.
On the 14th day of the 9th month, I was walking down Lianxing Street when I met two old acquaintances Chen Ayou of about thirty-two and Huang Acheng of thirty-six. I lied to them that I would recommend them to work for a foreign hong. They agreed, so I took them to Xinzhou, Huangpu, again with Toothless Luo Jin, I took them to the French ship and handed them over to Agen and others. Each was sold for eight silver dollars, yielding sixteen dollars in total. Toothless Luo Jin and I each got eight dollars. This was another incident.
Again, on the first day of the 9th month, I saw a teenager at the ferry at Xinji. I talked to him and learned that his name was Luo Afu. He ran away from a job at a residence in Lower Jiufu. I had the idea of abducting him to have tea at a tea house, then I put the drug in his tea. After he drank it, he followed me to Xinzhou, Huangpu. Again with Toothless Luo Jin, I took him to the French ship and sold him as a personal servant to a foreigner. We handed him to Agen and others. We received 10 dollars and shared it between ourselves. This was also another incident.
On the 18th day of the 11th month this year, while I was walking near the Cypress Wood Market, I was unexpectedly arrested by the officers. The informer asked me to help track down the traitors. If I could lead them to a few traitors, I may be able to be a follower of the deputy. Because of that, I told them about Agen and the others, four in total. In truth, I have only abducted Chinese to sell. All together I did it three times. I have never been a traitor. I am willing to be an informer and lead to the arrest of Agen and others. This is the true confession.
Toothless Luo Jin is about 45 years of age and a native of Luogewei of Nanhai County. He is in the coolie trade at Macau.
And what about dog eating?
A while back, I wrote several pieces (seven in total) on whether or not Chinese actually ate dogs or do so in the USA.
Why so many? Simple, this was the week that I experimented with writing a daily column for a week or so. It was interesting, it was kind of fun, but I also left too many things undone that week including essentials like laundry and cleaning the apartment, and instead of readership growing two people actually unsubscribed. Oh well. But it was kind of fun, and there’s a lot of good stuff in the columns.
See:
Part 1 -- Do Chinese restaurants in the USA serve Dog and Cat meat to unsuspecting customers??
Part 3 - A 19th C. Chinese American response to weird anti-Chinese food slander Wong Chin Foo
New! Shorter! Part 4 -- A 19th Century Australian Racist Poet Writes About Chinese Chefs
New! Shorter! A Brief Introduction to the History of the Eating of Dogs and Cats in China, Part 6
Young Asian Men, alcohol, and dog eating, and the time I ate dog meat. Part 7 and last in a series.