The Precursors, 1860–1880

Abstract

The second chapter covers the period from the establishment of the Canton Coolie Corps during the Second Opium War to the 1880s. The Canton Coolie Corps was the first unit of the British Army to be composed mainly of ethnic Chinese in Hong Kong. The coolies received some military training and served as porters for the British forces during the last phase of the Second Opium War, when the British forces operated in North China and eventually captured Peking. The performance of the Coolie Corps led to a discussion among the Hong Kong government, the War Office, and the Foreign Office over the feasibility of recruiting Hong Kong Chinese for military service from the 1860s to the 1880s. The discussion illuminates the contemporary British understanding of ‘Chinese’ from physique to mentality and reveals that the so-called ‘Sickman’ rhetoric did not exist among the British decision-makers when they discussed whether Chinese in Hong Kong should be recruited as colonial troops.