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4. The Depositions
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4 The Depositions A Chinese glowered like a spark of fire amid gray ashes; his usual expression of sullen insubordination being sharpened by the pressure of physical suffering. One of these sat on the edge of his bed, with a swollen and bandaged limb drawn up beside him—the very incarnation of impotent hate and rage. The mayoral laid a firm, detaining grasp on his shoulder, under which I could see the man wince and shiver, while the official told me how he had run away weeks ago, and hidden in the woods, leading a sort of highwayman’s life, and baffling all pursuit, until he cut his foot badly on a sharp stone, in jumping a stream; which wound festered and gangrened, and so disabled him that he could no longer procure food, nor drag his wasted body from one hiding place to another; when he was found—half-dead, but untamed in spirit—and brought back to prison. Since which time, he had twice attempted suicide. The Chinese meanwhile regarded us with a look that would have stabbed us both to the heart, if looks were available for such a purpose. Plainly, he felt himself at war with the whole tyrannous universe; and especially resented the indignity of being exhibited and commented upon as if he had been a wild beast.1 —Julia Louisa M. Woodruff (pseudonym “W.M.L. Jay”) In 1871 Julia Louisa M. Woodruff published her observations of her time in Cuba. Included was her visit to the Santa Sofía sugar plantation, where she encountered a recaptured coolie. Her description touched upon the power struggle inherent in domination and daily resistance. “Half-dead and untamed in spirit,” the coolie represented a continual challenge to management and its drive to maximize output through captive labor. While coolies appeared in observations of white travelers and journalists of the time, what did the coolies themselves say about these daily struggles? On the whole, the depositions did not usually present the sort of lengthy arguments presented in the petitions. However, they provided detailed accounts of the coolies’ daily trials and conditions, and revealed startling views of how systemic subjugation was designed yet resisted. Some coolie deponents 144 Yun expressed intense resentment and described the planned murder of their overseers. Others relived their humiliation, such as one who described being forced by the manager to bark like a dog and bleat like a sheep. And there was another who numbingly declared, “I just cannot stop crying” (Deposition 938). Those such as Wu Axiang plaintively yearned to return to their families: “I really want to go back to China and see my mother” (Deposition 114). Occasionally, others revealed moments of youthful naïveté. One Californian named Yang Atian, age twenty-six, was rueful about his situation. He had lived in San Francisco since he was fourteen years old. After working on the railroad in California, he took work on a ship, with a misguided sense of adventure. To his dismay, he lost his earnings by gambling at the port of Havana and was forced into bondage. He concluded, “My four brothers and my parents are still alive, but they do not know I am here. I really walked right into the trap myself!” (Deposition 1036) The texture of individual experiences ranged from this naïve youth to the sixty-six year old Yuan Aishan who recounted his escape attempt and his capture by soldiers (Deposition 378). The rawness and spontaneity of the depositions contrast with the deliberate, collective writing of the petitions. Of the 2,841 testifiers, 1,176 gave oral testimonies, and some explicitly named their masters or their plantations, such as the plantations of “San Antonio,” “Recreo,” and “Esperanza” (in Cardenas); “Juniata” and “Candelaria ” (in Cienfuegos); “Espana” and “Flor de Cuba” (in Colon); “Santa Catalina ” and “Las Canas” (in Havana); “Armonia,” “Concepcion,” and “San Cayetano” (in Matanzas); “Santa Ana,” “Capitolis,” and “Santa Isabella” (in Sagua la Grande). Each of the oral testimonies were unique yet bore out shared themes. One common thread concerned the micro view of daily survival , portrayed as tenuous and unpredictable. The acute conditions of deprivation and the nature of resistance within those conditions were described by the coolies in the context of expendability and racialized conflict. How coolies resisted their forced bondage, in the midst of shifting political conditions and uneven relationships to power, can in some ways be compared to forms of resistance that emerged in histories of oppression...