Item #3000 [Extensive Collection of Printed Forms and Manuscript Documents Regarding the Administration of Chinese Indentured Servants in Cuba]. Cuba, Chinese Labor.
[Extensive Collection of Printed Forms and Manuscript Documents Regarding the Administration of Chinese Indentured Servants in Cuba]
[Extensive Collection of Printed Forms and Manuscript Documents Regarding the Administration of Chinese Indentured Servants in Cuba]

[Extensive Collection of Printed Forms and Manuscript Documents Regarding the Administration of Chinese Indentured Servants in Cuba]

[Various places in Cuba, including Havana, Matanzas, Coral Nuevo, Pinar del Rio, and others: ca. 1860-1881]. Ninety-one documents, varying sizes, totaling about [150]pp. Some chipping and wear at edges. Moderate tanning and foxing. Occasional worming, not seriously affecting text. About very good. Item #3000

A large group of over ninety printed and manuscript items that document the bureaucracy and administration of Chinese indentured servitude in Cuba during the mid- to late-19th century. As Spain began the long process of phasing out slavery on the island, the colonial government began to remediate their shortage of labor by contracting Chinese immigrants as indentured servants beginning in the 1840s. By the end of the 19th century, well over 100,000 Chinese, the overwhelming preponderance men, had been imported to Cuba with lengthy indentures (usually eight years) to work alongside other enslaved people on the island's sugar plantations and in the production of other commercial crops. The extensive documents in this collection date from approximately 1860 to 1881, and include a diverse group of documents that represent many facets of this practice that became a critical piece of agriculture and trade in Cuba during the late Spanish colonial period.

The most substantial portion of the present documents is comprised of forty-one certificates of nationality completed by the Chinese Consulate in Havana for incoming laborers. Each form is completed with the given Hispanic name of the recipient, his age, place of origin, occupation, and place of residence. The present examples were completed for laborers going to various areas around Havana, Matanzas, Cardenas, Güines, and several other towns. The men vary in age from twenty-five to fifty-two, with most in their thirties and early forties; all hail either from Canton or Fukin Provinces. The printed text states that, "El Cónsul General de China en la Habana, certifica que [blank] ha hecho constar en este Consulado General ser súbdito de S.M. el Emperador de la China, y como tal se halla inscrito en el Registro de dicho Consulado General, segun número y filiacion anotados al márgen." Each certificate is dated during September 1880, and is stamped with the "Red Dragon" seal of the consulate and with the rubberstamped signature of the Consul General Lin Liang Yuan. The forms are also all bear two ink signatures in Chinese in the left margin. Together they provide an excellent cross-section of people who signed themselves into servitude and their destinations in Cuba.

A second substantial group of about fifteen manuscript documents, mostly from the late 1870s, regard "colonos Asiaticos" (the official term for Chinese indentured servants) who were seeking to sign new indenture contracts after the expiration of their initial terms. These papers from regional officials that oversaw such processes shed light on a practice that was actually quite widespread among Chinese laborers, who often did not have any money or recourse to return home or to enter another form of work and were essentially forced to indenture themselves again. Also present is an original 1862 contract for a twenty-nine-year-old Chinese man, named as "José Chuonloo," who agrees to indenture himself to the planter Manuel Bornio for a period of six years. The contract, printed entirely in Spanish and signed in Chinese characters by Chuonloo, sets out the terms of his service, including work hours, food, clothing, shelter, and pay.

Other small subgroups present include three cedulas dated 1863, which served as identification papers for Chinese laborers, two manuscript legal proceedings against colonos who stood accused of theft, one from his plantation owner and the other while aboard transport to Cuba, and several manuscript files regarding missing or runaway indentured servants. Striking single documents include a Havana Slave Depository log sheet from the early 1860s that contains names and descriptions of escaped Chinese laborers who had been recaptured, a 1869 ship's manifest for a vessel owned by La Alianza y Compania, a firm involved in the large-scale exportation and insurance of labor from Macao, a four-page manuscript sanctionaling the official completion of an eight-year indenture, two death certificates for "colonos Asiaticos," and much more.

In all, the collection delivers extensive manuscript evidence of many aspects of Chinese indentured servitude and its operation in Cuba across two decades of the 19th century, and can greatly inform future research in the subject area. A detailed list of contents is available upon request.

Price: $47,500.00