foreign
There have always been many different types of slavery and many people throughout history have
been affected. The Chinese immigrants to the United States were no different. All came for a better
life and they expected to work for a wage and the vast majority did. However the experiences of the
Chinese and other Asians varied greatly depending upon the work they did as well as their gender.
Who were the coolies? What types of slavery were there for the Chinese and other Asians?
How was enslavement still practiced decades after the Civil War emancipated all slaves? Hello I'm
Colin Heaton former soldier Marine Corps scout sniper history professor, historian book author and
we will answer these questions and other issues on this segment of Forgotten History.
The Chinese slaves in the United States much like the Irish has been largely misinterpreted
or deliberately ignored as being a historical fact. According to historian Gordon Chang official
California records indicate that before 1848 there were only 54 Chinese immigrants living
in the state. The California Gold Rush of 1848 changed this demographic creating the first major
wave of Chinese immigration as well as people coming from all over the world into the state.
These immigrants called the mountains of California Gam Saan which means in Mandarin
Gold Mountain. Chinese immigrants usually lived in small groups and were known to work
the claims that other miners had abandoned. White residents were initially accepting of the Chinese
since there were so few of them. however after 1852 immigration rates greatly increased. Wars
famines and disease in China increased immigration from China exponentially. In 1851 2,716 immigrants
arrived in California; within two years that number grew to 20,026 in 1853 making
Chinese immigrants 20 percent of the population in Southern California's mining communities. In
response California instituted a three dollar a month tax on the Chinese and coincided
with increased violence against Chinese immigrants. In 1854 they were barred from giving testimony in
courts thus removed all penalties for crimes against Chinese because even if the Chinese
were victims they could not testify in court. Since Chinese immigrants and especially the labor force
were 90 percent male many worked in mines and the railroads earning the nickname of coolies.
But many operated laundry services provided child care sold food and other professions.
Part of this was the fact that female immigrants were nearly all sold as slaves to the brothels
from three hundred to three thousand dollars a piece. This was the primary Chinese experience of
slavery in the United States. Naturalist and writer Charles Frederick Holder wrote extensively on this
problem in 1897 as it was still a thriving business in Chinese slavery in America. His
research was incredible and he also interviewed many of their participants years after the events.
The Chinese women mostly young girls would be brought over by Chinese men some of them family
members and they would be sold in a negotiated deal .The pimps and the madams who bought them had
them sign what the women believed were legal work contracts although this was in fact sexual slavery.
San Francisco had the largest slave market in the United States and it was all about the sex trade.
One such place was called the Queen's Room on Dupont Street which was basically a public slave
market for Oriental women. Around this time the Chinese numbered around twenty thousand with an
estimated 1,500 being sex slaves and another like number used as enforced domestic servants. Many of
these girls did not arrive voluntarily but were kidnapped in China and brought over to be sold.
They were often forced with threats of death to sign customs and immigration declarations
that they were legally married or had family in America. Many of these girls were promised
to be married to wealthy men once they arrived in America not knowing their true fates. These
women easily passed through customs as mail order brides or in some cases women were told
to explain that they were returning to their husbands after visiting family back home. Some
women were even brokered and sold on installment plans like a home mortgage with interest payments.
Some women who fled sexual slavery were hunted down and killed so that they could not tell their
stories. Chinese laws and customs made this easier for the kidnapper because rarely did the bride
and groom meet before marriage or even know each other before the ceremony as most marriages were
arranged. After the Civil War when all forums of slavery were abolished including enforced
prostitution these pimps and madams resorted to intimidation and sometimes violence and
physical bondage to keep the money coming in. Even in areas where prostitution was illegal
by any means the Chinese and other Asian women were renamed domestic or comfort workers and
brothels became opium dens and massage parlors in name only. Women who learned that slavery was
now illegal and understood that they could not be owned often fled to sanctuaries such
as churches and law enforcement. Some ended up in court cases where their masters claimed they had
service contracts and produced the documents. These actions by religious groups did not go unanswered
and criminal organizations such as the Tong would send teams to recapture these runaway
women often sending hatchet-men to attack and kill the Americans who assisted these women.
Also after the Civil War efforts were made to complete the Transcontinental Railroad connecting
the eastern and western coasts of the United States. The railroad companies needed at least 4
000 men yet they could hardly maintain a workforce above 800 due to the rather low pay and hard and
dangerous labor required. At first the Central Pacific Railroad director only wanted a white
labor force. Leland Stanford the railroad's president had campaigned on keeping Asians
out of California and restated his platform in his 1862 inaugural address as governor of California.
Problems arose when not enough white men signed up and as a result the railroad began hiring Chinese
men but no women for the back-breaking labor. Before companies hired the Chinese the labor force
was primarily Irish immigrants. Needing manpower the railroad companies hired 50 Chinese laborers
on a trial basis believing that their race meant that they were incapable of completing the work.
The work ethic of the 50 Chinese laborers was so impressive they were nicknamed celestials
in reference to the spiritual beliefs of the workers. Railroad companies recognizing how
punctual disciplined reliable and well-behaved the Chinese workers were wanted more of them.
Stanford changed his opinion as he told President Andrew Johnson that the Chinese "...were indispensable
to building the railroad they were quiet peaceful patient industrious and economical."
In a stockholder report Stanford described construction as a "Herculean task" and said
it had been accomplished thanks to the Chinese who made up 90 percent of the Central Pacific
Railroad's labor force at that time. But they still needed more workers. As a recruiting method they
advertised in Chinese language newspapers. Despite their considered value the Chinese monthly wage
averaged between 27 to 30 dollars a month; Irish workers each received about 35 dollars a month.
Over time the Chinese workers were paid 30 to 50 percent less than their white counterparts but
were given the most dangerous work and their death rates were far higher than among white workers.
In June 1867 three thousand Chinese railroad workers went on a strike demanding equal wages
better working conditions and shorter hours. This was the largest labor strike in American history
up to that time. Now the railroad did not fully agree but they raised the Chinese workers pay
minimally but the conditions remained unchanged. Part of this strike was due to the dangers of
building the railroad through the High Sierra Mountains where the Chinese were cast with cutting
through forests and building large retention walls building trestles filling in deep gorges building
wooden spanned bridges and some of it and hostile Native American territory. Then after the severe
Nevada Mountains the Chinese endured the heat of the Nevada and Utah deserts yet exceeded all
expectations. In order to prevent workers from escaping they were sometimes chained together.
As they approached the meeting point with the Union Pacific thousands of workers laid down an
incredible 10 miles of track in less than 24 hours a record that has never been equaled. A
civil war officer who witnessed the drama declared that the Chinese were "...just like an army marching
over the ground and leaving the track behind." However the progress meant that Chinese died in
greater numbers along the Central Pacific route. The company kept no official records of their
deaths but after the line was completed Chinese Civic organizations recovered around 1,200 bodies
and sent them home to China for burial. Despite the great contributions made by the Chinese attitudes
changed mainly through bigotry and the feeling that Chinese workers were taking American jobs
for far lower wages. Anti-Chinese riots swept the country and the Chinese Exclusion Act of
1882 legally barred Chinese laborers from entering the United States and placed heavy restrictions
on those already in residence. After slavery was abolished in the United States Chinese labor went
to the South as cheap labor to replace freed blacks to work on the plantations. Many of the
early Chinese came from sugar plantations in Cuba and after the Transcontinental Road was completed
they also gave up labor. These laborers created their own enclaves in the southeastern United
States where they endured racist policies and were sometimes in conflict with the African-American
Communitiy. Due to the mass exodus of blacks from the labor force or just the fact that they
expected to be paid for their work many southern planters argued that blacks were unreliable and
were leaving so they implemented Black Codes with labor provisions that would limit the ability
of blacks to leave plantations and farms. Starting in 1865 a few southern newspapers ran editorials
and ads asking for Chinese labor mainly from the accounts that Chinese workers enabled expansion of
the Cuban agricultural Imports such as tobacco and sugar. Many Chinese responded but they were
basically treated the same as African-Americans but this migration took some time. In February
1866 the Commissioner of U.S immigration R.S. Chilton argued in his report to Congress
that under the 1862 Act prohibiting coolee trade importation of Chinese labor to the south should
be prohibited and southerners should instead work out contracts with the freed blacks. Chilton had
classified the Chinese as "involuntary immigrants" but the southern states used a loophole to allow
them inside their workforce since they argued that the eight-year contracts in Cuba the Chinese had
worked had expired and they were free to seek employment elsewhere. They needed workers and the
cheaper the better. In some cases these Chinese workers like blacks who were technically free
persons were still kept on a farm or a plantation in a form of slavery for profit through force and
intimidation. Even though federal laws applied some state and local law enforcement officials
turned a blind eye to the practice oftentimes the local Ku Klux Klan assisted in this practice.
This effect was even extended to the children of Chinese immigrants and their grandchildren
as federal immigration law prohibited Chinese citizens from becoming Americans until 1943.
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