Many decades after the failure of the 1806 project to introduce Chinese hired labour to Trinidad, the ship Australia set sail for the West Indies, arriving in Port-of-Spain on March 4, 1853. Four hundred men in reasonably good health were discharged and assigned to various estates. Many of these immigrants were victims of a bounty system whereby recruiters were paid in China for convincing them with lies to sign up for service. An advance of $10 was paid to each immigrant, with each man being offered the option to buy his way out of the contract for a price of $75. Of this group of immigrants, Daniel Hart wrote in the 1860s:
“Although at first troublesome from misunderstandings on the score of work or wages, which were neither easily avoided nor arranged on account of a total absence of interpreters, yet these people generally turned out well, because they were able-bodied peasants, and landed here early enough in the year to become seasoned during the dry weather to the climate and customs of the country.”
The larger part of the immigrants were from Canton and Guangdong (Hong Kong was the major immigrant port), but later arrivals that year came from the province of Fukien with less satisfactory results as Hart recorded:
“The second ship, the Clarendon, arrived from Canton on the 23rd of April with an equal selected body of men—rather late in the season perhaps, but still early enough for the lot to become somewhat settled before the rains commenced. The last ship of 1853 was the Lady Flora Hastings, from the Province of Fokeen. Her immigrants were inferior to those by the two other ships, and many were confirmed opium-smokers. They were landed during the first week in July, proved a source of continual annoyance to the estates that received them, and, before six months passed, suffered so severely from dysentery and sores, as to form a subject of inquiry by the Local Government.”
Indeed, the importation of labour from China was halted because of the unrest among the new arrivals. In Couva in the 1850s there was a near riot when an overseer on a plantation allegedly beat a Chinese worker, causing his countrymen to rise in reprisal. This incident put a damper on matters, and it was not until nearly a decade had passed that more Chinese arrived on these shores with a welcome addition that had been overlooked on previous occasions:
“After a lapse of nine years, Chinese immigration was renewed, and the ‘Wanata arrived in July 1862, from Hong Kong with 452 souls, of whom 115 were women. The season of the year was against them, and their previous occupations, as reported at the time, unfitted the greater number for the exposure and laborious life of agriculturists. Their women have made a still more unfavourable impression. Of 109 originally distributed on estates, only five are now returned as present. They were shipped as the wives of immigrants whom they have now either left, or by whom they have been altogether repudiated.’”
Such was the harsh reality of life on the estates that many Chinese simply left without paying the necessary bond to cancel their indentures. Most became market gardeners and raised considerable vegetable crops for sale while others became itinerant vendors and launderers of clothing. By dint of hard work, independent industry and perseverance, early evidence of the commercial success of the Chinese was seen in the savings and properties they acquired. One account from 1894 sang the praises of the thrifty and hard‐working Chinese:
“The number of Chinese enumerated in the Census of 1871 was 1,400, but in 1891 that number had declined to 1,006. The Chinese, unlike the East Indians, have intermarried freely with the native women, and their descendants are thus being gradually merged in the general population.
Originally introduced as agricultural labourers, they have, in Trinidad as elsewhere, shown their well-known predilection for trade, and have, with very few exceptions, taken to shopkeeping or “trafficking.” Most of them appear to do well and many have amassed considerable wealth. As a class they are well-behaved, hard‐working and thrifty—but not penurious. Whatever he may be in other lands, John Chinaman in Trinidad is quite as fond of a good dinner or a good supper as any John Bull real or typical.”
The success of the Chinese population, though a minority, was a testimony to their perseverance.
Next week, we will examine the very important role of the Chinese in colonial micro-economic commerce.