Chinese Bondage in Peru

CHINESE BONDAGE IN PERU Stewart UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA LIBRARIES COLLEGE LIBRARV DUKE UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS CHINESE BONDAGE IN PERU Chinese Bondage IN PERU A History of the Chinese Coolie in Peru, 1849-1874 BY WATT STEWART DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1951 Copyright, 195 i, by the Duke University Press PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE SEEMAN PRINTERY, INC., DURHAM, N. C. ij To JORGE BASADRE Historian Scholar Friend Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from LYRASIS IVIembers and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/chinesebondageinOOstew FOREWORD THE CENTURY just passed has witnessed a great movement of the sons of China from their huge country to other portions of the globe. Hundreds of thousands have fanned out southwestward, southward, and southeastward into various parts of the Pacific world. Many thousands have moved eastward to Hawaii and be- yond to the mainland of North and South America. Other thousands have been borne to Panama and to Cuba. The movement was in part forced, or at least semi-forced. This movement was the consequence of, and it likewise entailed, many problems of a social and economic nature, with added political aspects and implications. It was a movement of human beings which, while it has had superficial notice in various works, has not yet been ade- quately investigated. It is important enough to merit a full historical record, particularly as we are now in an era when international understanding is of such extreme mo- ment. The peoples of the world will better understand one another if the antecedents of present conditions are thoroughly and widely known. The present study has particular reference to the trans- ference of Chinese to Peru and to their experiences in that country. As such it can make no claim to being exhaustive of the general subject. However, the author hopes that this work may become a definitive chapter of the greater story. If others co-operate, eventually some scholar will viii Foreword be able to make a synthesis of the whole. It will be an absorbing story when finished, one with many overtones of personal tragedy and with its unadmirable elements of personal greed and inhumanity. The research on which this study is based was done mainly in Peru, to which the author made three visits in the course of the thirteen years which the project has covered. The greater part of the work was done in 6- in course 1 93 1 93 7 the of a sabbatical year most of which was spent in Lima. It was continued in the sum- mer of 1 94 1, thanks to a grant-in-aid provided by the Social Science Research Council, and was completed for that area in the spring of 1947, when another sabbatical provided opportunity for travel and study. Valuable ma- terials for the study were also located in Washington, in the National Archives and in the Library of Congress. My thanks for aid are due to a considerable number of persons and institutions. Foremost among the institutions is the National Social Science Research Council for the grant-in-aid mentioned above. I am deeply in debt to the National Library of Peru. I might use the term "libraries" since I was cordially welcomed in both the lamented library which was almost totally destroyed by fire in the spring of 1 943 and also in the re-created library which is now operating in its splendid new locale thanks to the modern miracle of reconstruction which has been performed under the inspired leadership of its director, Dr. Jorge Basadre. The Archives of the Peruvian Min- istry of Foreign Relations and the Peruvian Library of Congress were freely opened to me, as were the National Archives and the Library of Congress in Washington. Numerous individuals have aided me with advice and criticism. The chief of these was Dr. Basadre. When I first met him thirteen years ago in the role of librarian and Foreword ix professor of the Greater University of San Marcos, he assisted me in making contacts and in organizing my work in Lima. In March and April of 1947, as director of the new National Library, he gave me further invalu- able aid. Though the collections in his care were not at the time open to the general public since the new library edifice was not yet completed, he permitted me to make use of them and gave hours of his own time as well as of a number of his subordinates to assist me. Moreover, Dr. Basadre read the preliminary draft of my manuscript and made valuable criticisms. The Peruvian Minister of Foreign Relations, Dr. Enrique Garcia Sayan, whose grandfather appears prominently in the following pages, and the director of the archives of the Ministry, Dr. Jorge Bailey Lembecke, were also most generous in lending aid. The late Percy Alvin Martin, of Leland Stanford University, and Dr. James Ferguson King, former editor of the Hispanic Ainerican Historical Review, gave me friendly encouragement. Professor J. Fred Rippy, of the University of Chicago, specialist in the held of Latin American history and, in a sense, my intellectual god- father, not only encouraged me but also was so generous as to devote many hours to reading the manuscript in a late form and to criticizing it, thus greatly improving it. Professor Frank D. Reeve, of the University of New Mex- ico and editor of the New Mexico Historical Review— my genial host for six months in Albuquerque during which time the greater part of the initial work of com- position was done—also read and criticized portions of the manuscript. Professor Theodore G. Standing, soci- ologist and colleague at the New York State College for Teachers, Albany, likewise read the manuscript and com- mented helpfully. Miss Helen Fraser, of Albany, loyal and sometimes patient friend, who declares she has been X Foreword waiting for this book ever since her mother talked to her in her childhood of the Chinese whom she has seen work- ing in Peru, gave me much helpful criticism, as did an old friend and former colleague. Dr. Edward F. Willis. For the map of Peru, I am indebted to my friend and colleague, Mr. H. H. Flierl, geographer. To these generous institutions and helpful friends, I am indeed happy to extend my deepest appreciation of their aid. One of the greatest rewards which the scholar gains from such work as this study has entailed is derived from the contacts which he makes with such interested and generous individuals. Watt Stewart. Albany J New Yorky December /, 1950 CONTENTS PAGE Foreword vii Chapter I. Setting—Early Period 3 11. The "Coolie Trade" at Macao 25 III. The Pacific Passage 55 IV. Reception at Callao; Distribution 77 V. The Life of the Chinese "Colonist" in Peru 92 VI. The Chinese a National Problem 113 VII. The Coolie an International Problem for Peru 138 VIII. The Garcia y Garcia Mission— Instructions; Japan 160 IX. The Garcia y Garcia Mission—China 175 X. "New" Chinese Immigration; Peruvian Coolies 206 XI. The Coolie as Peruvian 224 Bibliography 233 Index 239 CHINESE BONDAGE IN PERU I SETTING—EARLY PERIOD ONE WHO has even the most casual interest in mat- ters sociological, if he strolls along the two blocks of Lima's Calle Capon, near the Central Market, will observe many interesting human types. A large propor- tion of them, on close observation, will reveal traits of both the Indian and the Chinese. These people are in most cases of spare build and less than medium height with high cheek bones, slant eyes, and a color that mingles the bronze of the native Indian with the yellow of the Oriental. They are a consequence of the entry into Peru in the third quarter of the nineteenth century of some tens of thousands of Chinese coolies. Few of the social and economic problems that the Peruvian Republic has faced during its century and a quarter of existence have been more serious than that of the Asiatic immigrant. Primarily because of a labor short- age, due in part to a labor system that did not enlist the co-operation of the native laborer, these coolies were brought to Peru. Their presence gave rise, in the course of time, to domestic problems of extreme gravity and, ultimately, was the cause of an international crisis. Their history presents another case of the exploitation of one group of human beings by another, while it is at the same time a chapter of interest and importance in the history of the relations of the Chinese with the Westerner. Peru's need for labor arose from a complex of causes. Chinese Bondage in Peru After the war for independence ended successfully in 1825, economic progress, while interrupted frequently by internal and external wars until the mid-forties, was fairly steady. The numerous fertile river valleys of the coastal strip were occupied by cochineal, sugar, and cotton planta- tions, the demand for the products of which increased with the passage of time. By 1840 the many guano (bird manure) beds of the coastal headlands and offshore islands were being worked profitably, the foreign market was growing steadily, and the fertilizer's value to the nation was increasingly evident. Throughout the three hundred years of the colonial period, mining had been important, and mining activity was continuing and growing. About 1850 Peruvian economists and capitalists began agitating for internal improvements—canals for irrigation, tele- graphs, harbors, and, especially, railroads.^ All of these activities demanded labor and more labor. Eventually it became evident that the population of the country, under existing conditions, could not in itself supply the need." The inhabitants of Peru by a count made in 1862 numbered only 2,487,916.^ The census of 1876 disclosed a population of 2,699,945.^ If the rate of increase in previous years was comparable, the population in 18 50 must have been somewhat more than 2,000,000.

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