The Coolie Speaks: Chinese Indentured Laborers and African Slaves in Cuba

Sources

Sources The primary source for this study comes from the petitions and depositions in the fourteen-volume set of Guba huagong chengci 古巴华工呈词 (Testimonies given by Chinese labor in Cuba) and the four-volume set of Guba huagong kougongce 古巴华工口供册 (Volumes of testimonies given by Chinese labor in Cuba). These volumes are housed in the Library of Ancient Books at the National Library of China in Beijing. In modern times, a set of the testimonies was translated into simplified Chinese, put in standard punctuated form and published in Beijing in 1984. This set, which features a quarter of the depositions, appears as part of one volume in a ten-volume series. The ten-volume series is entitled Huagong chuguo shiliao huibian 华工出国史料汇编 (Collection of historical sources on overseas Chinese labor). This source is out of print, but it can be found in various research libraries worldwide. (A note to researchers: The order in which these testimonies appear does not correlate to the order of the original testimonies in the 1874 set. Thus, researchers might be confused upon comparing the modern set and the original set.) I stumbled upon another collection of testimonies at Columbia University’s C.V. Starr East Asian Library, Guba huagong diaochalu 古巴华工调查录 (Records of investigation on Chinese labor in Cuba). This source provides less than a quarter of the depositions. At my urging, the library digitized the material, which makes this unique source accessible to the public and can be viewed through the library portal. As for the commission report, the English portion was republished in the United States in 1993, with a remarkable introduction by Denise Helly. The original trilingual report (English, French, and one memorandum in Chinese) was republished in Taiwan in 1970. Both of these publications are out of print but are available to view or borrow at numerous libraries worldwide. A handwritten copy of the English portion of the report can be seen at the U.S. National Archives (II) in Maryland, and found there is also intriguing correspondence among the consular officials surrounding this event. As for the text by Antonio Chuffat Latour, Apunte historico de los chinos en Cuba (1927), it is rare. It can be viewed at Biblioteca Nacional José Martí. Other than that, it is available for viewing at only three libraries in the world: the University of California Los Angeles, University of California Berkeley, and Miami University (Florida) libraries. Materials related to Chuffat’s surveillance by the American military can be viewed at the U.S. National Archives (I) in Washington, DC. As for the nineteenth-century travel accounts, memoirs, histories, and period studies of Cuba written in English, Spanish, and French, I have made fairly transparent the numerous sources in the endnotes. As a final note, I follow this study with two volumes that provide both the original and translated versions of the entire body of testimonies (petitions and depositions ) with an index and glossary. Selected Bibliography Abu-Lughod, Janet. Before European Hegemony: The World System AD 1250– 1350. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Accomando, Christina. The Regulations of Robbers: Legal Fictions of Slavery and Resistance. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2001. Alonso Valdés, Corlia. “La immigración china: su presencia en el Ejército Libertador de Cuba.” Catauro: Revista Cubana de Antropología 1.2 (2000). Ancheta, Angelo. Race, Rights, and the Asian American Experience. New Brunswick : Rutgers University Press, 1998. Andrews, William. To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography , 1760–1865. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988. Arensmeyer, Elliot. “British Merchant Enterprise and the Chinese Coolie Labour Trade.” Dissertation, University of Hawaii, 1979. Ballou, Maturin Murray. Due South; or, Cuba Past and Present. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969. Bergad, Laird W. Cuban Rural Society in the Nineteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. Bergad, Laird W., Fe Iglesias Garcia, and Maria del Carmen Barcia. The Cuban Slave Market, 1790–1880. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 162–73. Blackmar, Frank W., ed. Kansas; A Cyclopedia of State History, Embracing Events, Industries, Counties, Cities, Towns, Prominent Persons, etc. Vol. 2. Chicago: Standard Publishing Company, 1912. Blassingame, John W. The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. ———. Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977. ———. “Using the Testimony of Ex-Slaves.” The Slave’s Narrative. Charles T. Davis and Henry Louis Gates, eds. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Bodde, Derk. Law in Imperial China...