The Chinese in the West Indies, 1806-1995: A Documentary History

373 Pages·1998·17.77 MB·english

by  Walton Look Lai

T HE
CHINESE
IN T HE
WEST
INDIES
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THE
CHINESE
IN T HE
W E ST
I N D I ES
1 8 0 6 - 1 9 95
A D O C U M E N T A RY
H I S T O RY
WALTON LOOK LAI
THE PRESS University of the West Indies
Barbados • Jamaica • Trinidad and Tobago
The Press University of the West Indies
1A Aqueduct Flats Mona
Kingston 7 Jamaica WI
© 1998 by Walton Look Lai
All rights reserved. Published 1998
07 54
CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Look Lai, Walton
The Chinese in the West Indies : a documentary
history, 1806-1995 / Walton Look Lai.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 976-640-021-0
1. Chinese -West Indies. 2. Immigrants -
West Indies. 3. Indentured servants -
West Indies. 4. Alien labour, Chinese -
West Indies I. Title.
F1629.C5L661998 972.9'951
Set in Atlantix 10.5/15x27
Cover and book design by Robert Harris
Permission is acknowledged from M.L. de Verteuil (translator)
to reproduce excerpts from The Diaries of Abbe Armand Masse
1878-1883 ... (Port of Spain 1988).
PRINTED BY PHOENIX PRINTERY LTD.
For my parents
and the multiracial youth
of the West Indies
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Contents
List of Illustrations I ix
Foreword by Bridget Brereton I x
Guest Foreword by Lu Shulin I xv
Preface I xviii
List of documentary sources I xxvii
I INTRODUCTION
1 The Chinese in the Caribbean region / 1
II POSSIBILITIES AND PROSPECTS OF ORGANISED
EMIGRATION
2 Early efforts at importing Chinese labour into
the West Indies (1802-1806): the Fortitude
experiment in Trinidad / 22
3 Events leading up to organised emigration from
China to the British West Indies (1811-1852) / 47
4 General picture of emigration from China in the 1850s / 69
III EMIGRATION AND ADIUSTMENT TO WEST
INDIAN PLANTATIONS
5 Beginning of the emigration process (1852-1854) / 98
6 The emigration years (1859-1866) / 126
7 Social adjustment to plantation life and society I 165
IV THE KUNG CONVENTION AND ITS AFTERMATH
8 The diplomatic impasse over the 1866 Convention, and
the last years of the West Indian migration (1866-1884) / 192
viii CONTENTS
V THE EMERGENCE OF THE MODERN CHINESE
COMMUNITY
9 Life after indenture: indentured servants to traders
(1870-1918) / 210
10 Life in the inter-war period and after: social mobility,
assimilation and the new migration (1918-1950) / 234
Appendix I. Tables of statistics I 277
Appendix II. Biographies of Chinese families
(to the 1990s) / 259
Bibliography / 333
List of Illustrations
Maps
District origins of Chinese migrants / xxii
The West Indies and Central America / xxiii
Trinidad and Tobago / xxiv
Guyana / xxv
Detail of Guyana's coastal region / xxvi
Photographs
Foreign ships at anchor off Canton Coast / 73
Chinamen in Cuba (1920) / 149
Cutting and crushing sugar cane / 161
Indentured labourer's view of plantation life / 172
Chinese man and woman (1889) / 214
Chinese at the races (1889) / 216
Eugene Chen of Trinidad & Tobago (1878-1944) / 239
Chinese travel documents / 242
A village shop / 252
Sylvia (Silan) Chen (1920s) / 259
Mr and Mrs George Fung On with the Presidents of Zambia and Guyana (1995) / 290
Wilfred Phang Hing and family members (1980s) / 292
Randolph Choo Shee Nam and family members (1990s) / 294
Cecil Yeung Yuen Kim and Children (1967) / 296
Leslie Chin and family in Canada (1984) / 29S
John Lee Lum (1842-1921) / 300
Edwin Lee Lum and family / 301
Lai Jiune, father of Joseph Lai Fook(c.l880) / 303
Joseph Lai Fook and family / 304
James and Celia Chow and family / 308
Ed Fung and friend at the Great Wall of China (1975) / 310
Carlton Mack and family (1981) / 312
Committee members, Trinidad & Tobago China Society (1990) / 313
Lincoln and Nancy Willaims / 315
Lee family (1995) / 322
Easton Lee's ancestral village Cher Hah (1993) / 324
AfoengChiu Hung (1989) / 326
AfoengChiu Hung and family (1995) / 327
Dai Ailan and Gwen Hobson, New Orleans, USA (1993) / 330
Look Lai family (1955) / 331