Evelyn Hu-DeHart

From Slavery to Freedom: Chinese Coolies on the Sugar Plantations of Nineteenth Century Cuba

Labour History · 2017-01-01 · 7 citations

To supplement a dwindling slave labour force on their sugar plantations, Cuban planters turned to south China’s Fujian and especially Guangdong provinces. From 1847 to 1874 they recruited 141,000 male labourers (125,000 of whom arrived in Cuba alive). Slave-like work and living conditions on plantations, with proximity to large numbers of slaves notwithstanding, Chinese coolies were not permanent or lifelong slaves. The main question asked is not whether Chinese coolies were slaves – a well-worn…

Latin America in Asia-Pacific Perspective

Routledge eBooks · 2021 · 5 citations

In 1513, Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa’s “discovery” of the Mar del Sur, the first European name for the Pacific Ocean, set in motion Spain’s “discovery” and exploration of the Pacific coast of South America. By mid-century, Spanish conquistadores had conquered the Inca empire, renaming it the colony of New Castille, or Peru. By the end of the sixteenth century, the Spanish finally figured out how to accomplish what Columbus had failed to achieve—finding a way to the Orient by sailing w…

Chinese Contract Labor in the Wake of the Abolition of Slavery in the Americas: A New Form of Slavery or Transition to Free Labor in the Case of Cuba?

Amerasia Journal · 2019-01-02 · 5 citations

Using Cuban archival material (including many documents acquired by private U.S. collectors), this article examines the lives of Chinese contract laborers in Cuba—“coolies”—in the second half of the nineteenth century after they completed the original eight-year contract and subsequent shorter forced re-contracts. The essay moves the argument beyond Chinese coolies simply replicating or prolonging slavery on Cuban plantations to glimpse the beginning of the transition from slave to free labor.

5. On Coolies and Shopkeepers

Rutgers University Press eBooks · 2019-12-31 · 5 citations

Surviving Globalization: Immigrant Women Workers in Late Capitalist America

Rutgers University Press eBooks · 2019-12-31 · 3 citations