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

2. The Coolie Testimonies

2 The Coolie Testimonies Remarkably, of the 125,000 Chinese who were trafficked to Cuba, there were 2,841 coolies who left behind an astounding body of written and oral testimonies that described their descent into a hellish system of bondage. One group came together to write a lengthy testimony of their experience, which opened with: “We are sinking in a strange place and living in a hell on earth” (Petition 25). Based upon these testimonies, a report was issued in 1876 entitled “Report of the Commission Sent by China to Ascertain the Condition of Chinese Coolies in Cuba.” The report chronicled the abuse of the Chinese and ultimately led to abolition of the coolie trade to Cuba. A treaty was ratified in December 1878 to that effect.1 This dismantling of the coolie trade to Cuba was concomitant with the erosion of the slavery system in Cuba. In 1870 the Moret Law had been enacted, granting freedom to children born after 1868 and to slaves over age sixty (though one travel writer dryly observed: “In the first place, few hard worked slaves survive to sixty; and in the second place, the children have no one to look after or to enforce their rights.”2 In 1880 the patronage system was implemented, and in 1886, an end to the slavery system was officially proclaimed. The nineteenth century in Cuba saw four decades of temporal overlapping of the slave and coolie bondage systems. Therefore, The Coolie Testimonies 37 the perspectives and narratives of bondage that arose from this period necessarily arose from the crucible of bondage in several forms and colors. The perspectives as presented by coolies in their testimonies provide a rare glimpse into the overlap of slavery and indenture. At times, testimonies have played a crucial role in liberatory politics. In this regard, the Chinese coolie testimonies shared historical parallels with another body of testimonial literature, that being African slave narratives. Though discrete in their forms and historical particularities, both the Chinese coolie testimonies and the slave narratives would be used to overthrow the respective systems of their bondage. Today, however, little is known of the Chinese testimonies. This section offers a reading of the testimonies, which ultimately reveal radical visions of “freedom” and the “contract” institution . There are two main bodies of narrative that stem from this historical episode of bondage, one being the testimonies by the coolies and the other being the commission report, which excerpted the testimonies and provided official reportage and recommendations. An engagement with the testimonies and the commission investigation raises questions regarding testimony procurement and production. What were the politics and histories (including abolitionism and nation-state interests) that framed the gathering of such testimonies ? How was the commission formed? How was the commission’s report constructed, and how did it make use of the testimonies? What of the testimonies behind the report—what materials are extant from this investigation ? How were these testimonies actually obtained? What did the Chinese say and how? How do we account for the politics of translation and language? The report offers a point of reference for examining how the testimonies were produced and taken up, and for examining the historical and political context of their production. The testimonies offer a basis for examining perspectives of bondage, albeit produced within these constraints of the inquiry. For this study, the latter (a close, critical reading of the testimonies themselves ) is prioritized. This task, though, is prefaced here by at least identifying key aspects of the commission investigation that inform such a reading. The Commission Investigation: “They forbade me to speak up.” While a treaty was ratified in 1878 for the abolition of the coolie trade, coolies already in bondage would remain so, along with black slaves, until 38 Yun the 1880s when Cuba entered its final dissolution of slavery.3 Nevertheless , the commission and its report played the pivotal role in marking the beginning of the end of coolie trafficking to Cuba. The formation of the commission took place in a distinctly diplomatic context involving the direct participation of four nations and the indirect though significant involvement of additional nations.4 Beyond a bi-national dispute, the investigation into Cuba involved interests of sovereignty and the entwined economies of slavery, abolition, and contract labor. The inspection by the commission at the site of contention and the uniquely multinational nature of...