{"title":"百年纪念论文:活地狱:十九世纪古巴的中国苦力贸易","authors":"Mey-Yen Moriuchi","doi":"10.3828/bhs.2024.47","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Between 1847 and 1874, approximately 150,000 Chinese were brought to Cuba under termed contracts to fulfil a labour shortage on sugar cane plantations. Known as ‘coolies’, they suffered harsh conditions and were treated severely. Coolies were generally viewed as dutiful and submissive and their voices have largely been confined to the margins of literature and history. However, the nineteenth-century testimonies and illustrations of Chinese coolies denounce the savagery and cruelty of the Spanish overseers, while simultaneously revealing that coolies were not passive victims. The coolies demonstrated agency, courage and strategic resistance in the act of migrating, in their words, and rebellions. Coolie labour played a major role in reshaping Cuba’s sugar economy and its existing systems of production. In addition, the amplified presence of the Chinese in Cuba challenged existing paradigms of race and nation. Cuban society was no longer Black and white. The growing Chinese population forced a reconsideration of this traditional binary vision of society and, in the formation of a new Chinese–Cuban identity, complicated notions of what constituted cubanidad.","PeriodicalId":44702,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF HISPANIC STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Centenary Paper: Living Hell: The Chinese Coolie Trade in Nineteenth-Century Cuba\",\"authors\":\"Mey-Yen Moriuchi\",\"doi\":\"10.3828/bhs.2024.47\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"Between 1847 and 1874, approximately 150,000 Chinese were brought to Cuba under termed contracts to fulfil a labour shortage on sugar cane plantations. Known as ‘coolies’, they suffered harsh conditions and were treated severely. Coolies were generally viewed as dutiful and submissive and their voices have largely been confined to the margins of literature and history. However, the nineteenth-century testimonies and illustrations of Chinese coolies denounce the savagery and cruelty of the Spanish overseers, while simultaneously revealing that coolies were not passive victims. The coolies demonstrated agency, courage and strategic resistance in the act of migrating, in their words, and rebellions. Coolie labour played a major role in reshaping Cuba’s sugar economy and its existing systems of production. In addition, the amplified presence of the Chinese in Cuba challenged existing paradigms of race and nation. Cuban society was no longer Black and white. The growing Chinese population forced a reconsideration of this traditional binary vision of society and, in the formation of a new Chinese–Cuban identity, complicated notions of what constituted cubanidad.\",\"PeriodicalId\":44702,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"BULLETIN OF HISPANIC STUDIES\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.1000,\"publicationDate\":\"2024-07-24\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"BULLETIN OF HISPANIC STUDIES\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.3828/bhs.2024.47\",\"RegionNum\":4,\"RegionCategory\":\"文学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"0\",\"JCRName\":\"LITERATURE, ROMANCE\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"BULLETIN OF HISPANIC STUDIES","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3828/bhs.2024.47","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE, ROMANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
Centenary Paper: Living Hell: The Chinese Coolie Trade in Nineteenth-Century Cuba
Between 1847 and 1874, approximately 150,000 Chinese were brought to Cuba under termed contracts to fulfil a labour shortage on sugar cane plantations. Known as ‘coolies’, they suffered harsh conditions and were treated severely. Coolies were generally viewed as dutiful and submissive and their voices have largely been confined to the margins of literature and history. However, the nineteenth-century testimonies and illustrations of Chinese coolies denounce the savagery and cruelty of the Spanish overseers, while simultaneously revealing that coolies were not passive victims. The coolies demonstrated agency, courage and strategic resistance in the act of migrating, in their words, and rebellions. Coolie labour played a major role in reshaping Cuba’s sugar economy and its existing systems of production. In addition, the amplified presence of the Chinese in Cuba challenged existing paradigms of race and nation. Cuban society was no longer Black and white. The growing Chinese population forced a reconsideration of this traditional binary vision of society and, in the formation of a new Chinese–Cuban identity, complicated notions of what constituted cubanidad.
期刊介绍:
Edited in one of the leading British University Departments of Hispanic Studies by an editorial team specializing in a wide range of Hispanic scholarship, and supported by a distinguished international Editorial Committee, the Bulletin of Hispanic Studies is the foremost journal published in Britain devoted to the languages, literatures and civilizations of Spain, Portugal and Latin America. It is recognized across the world as one of the front-ranking journals in the field of Hispanic scholarship.