TY - JOUR
T1 - Chinese “Coolies”: hidden drivers of nineteenth-century Cuba’s economic transformation
AU - Ng, Rudolph
N1 - Internally peer-reviewed by Karl Bell
Will be Gold OA
PY - 2025/1/24
Y1 - 2025/1/24
N2 - When the Cuban sugar planters saw the abolitionist movement prevailing worldwide, they realised that African slavery was no longer a sustainable source of manpower. They then searched the globe for substitutes, finding success in South China. The Chinese coolie trade to Cuba occurred between 1847 and 1874, during which time over 141,000 lowpaid, low-skilled Chinese workers became indentured labourers. They sustained Cuban sugar production, among other vital economic activities. This paper examines how these Chinese workers contributed to Cuba’s labour transition. It argues that the substantial contributions of los colonos asiaticos, as the workers were known, went beyond their work in the sugar plantations; their minimally remunerated labour in key industries, and usually unpaid work in public services, made critical contributions to transforming the Spanish island’s economy and to meeting the ever-growing global demand for cash crops in the second half of the nineteenth century.
AB - When the Cuban sugar planters saw the abolitionist movement prevailing worldwide, they realised that African slavery was no longer a sustainable source of manpower. They then searched the globe for substitutes, finding success in South China. The Chinese coolie trade to Cuba occurred between 1847 and 1874, during which time over 141,000 lowpaid, low-skilled Chinese workers became indentured labourers. They sustained Cuban sugar production, among other vital economic activities. This paper examines how these Chinese workers contributed to Cuba’s labour transition. It argues that the substantial contributions of los colonos asiaticos, as the workers were known, went beyond their work in the sugar plantations; their minimally remunerated labour in key industries, and usually unpaid work in public services, made critical contributions to transforming the Spanish island’s economy and to meeting the ever-growing global demand for cash crops in the second half of the nineteenth century.
KW - Chinese coolies
KW - Cuba Commission Report
KW - slavery
KW - indentured workers
KW - sugar plantation
UR - https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/itinerario
M3 - Article
SN - 0165-1153
JO - Itinerario: Journal of Imperial and Global Interactions
JF - Itinerario: Journal of Imperial and Global Interactions
ER -