Yale University EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale Student Work Council on East Asian Studies 5-27-2021 Imperial Crossings: Chinese Indentured Migration to Sumatra's East Coast, 1865-1911 Gregory Jany Yale University Follow this and additional works at: https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ceas_student_work Part of the Asian History Commons, Asian Studies Commons, Chinese Studies Commons, Cultural History Commons, History of the Pacific Islands Commons, Intellectual History Commons, Political History Commons, and the Social History Commons Recommended Citation Jany, Gregory, "Imperial Crossings: Chinese Indentured Migration to Sumatra's East Coast, 1865-1911" (2021). Student Work. 12. https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ceas_student_work/12 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Council on East Asian Studies at EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. It has been accepted for inclusion in Student Work by an authorized administrator of EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Imperial Crossings: Chinese Indentured Migration to Sumatra’s East Coast, 1865-1911 Gregory Jany Department of History Yale University April 29, 2021 Abstract Tracing the lives of Chinese migrants through multi-lingual archives in Taiwan, Singapore, Netherlands, and Indonesia, Imperial Crossings is a trans-imperial history of Chinese indentured migration to Sumatra in the Netherlands Indies. Between 1881 to 1900, more than 121,000 Chinese migrants left southern China, stopping in the port-cities of Singapore and Penang in the British Straits Settlements before leaving again to labor in the tobacco plantations of Dutch Sumatra.