Unequal treatment of Chinese people in gold panning in the United States in the 19th century.

Chinese workers shed blood and tears

Chinese people go abroad

"The river is full of bays, and when I miss my hometown, I cry a bunch of wet clothes ..." This theme song of the Hong Kong TV series "The Kindness of the Earth" is already familiar to people. This song is about the early Chinese laborers who crossed the ocean to make a living in foreign countries, and their yearning for their hometown. People in China have always moved to another place, but they generally refuse to leave their homes unless they have to, let alone travel across oceans to the other side of the globe.

Because there are few mountains and lots of land, and they are located on the coast of the South China Sea, Xiangshan people have been forced to go abroad to make a living for a long time. Dating back to the Song Dynasty more than 1 years ago, Xiangshan people went abroad to make a living and live abroad along the "Maritime Silk Road". According to the records of Xiangshan County in Guangxu period of Qing Dynasty, after the famous Yashan naval battle between Song and Yuan Dynasties, many Xiangshan villagers fled overseas in large numbers to escape the war. In the Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty, the imperial court imposed a sea ban, stipulating that coastal residents were not allowed to go out to sea privately, and "sails were not allowed to go into the sea"; It is forbidden to trade with foreign countries. "Those who dare to have private exchanges will be severely punished." People in the southeast coast, including Xiangshan people, cut off their livelihood because of the sea ban, but forced them to venture abroad to make a living and gradually became a habit. In the fifth year of Jiaqing in Qing Dynasty, more than ten people, including Cheng Shidi, a resident of Xiangshan, sailed out of Macao by sailboat, "looking at the boundless ocean and struggling with the rough waves", and sailed for more than a month, and went through rough waves and came to Penang, where there were only 2 "Ada Houses". On this desolate island, Xiangshan people with long braids lived and cultivated fields and built their own foreign homes.

Before modern times, overseas Chinese were mainly concentrated in Southeast Asia. However, these Chinese who have left their hometown to make a living overseas have always been regarded as "China abandoned the people". The "motherland" not only does not care about their life and death overseas, but thinks that they deserve it when they die. In the fifth year of Qianlong (174), Dutch colonists slaughtered more than 1, Chinese in Java, which was the famous "Red River (Creek) Massacre" in history. The news spread to China, and Qianlong said: "The Chinese government abandoned the people and did not hesitate to carry their ancestors' tombs and go abroad for profit."

The appearance of Chinese workers

After the Opium War, the country was opened by foreign powers. With the signing of a series of unequal treaties, the powers also forced the Qing government to open the labor market and allow Chinese to work abroad. In the 19th century, due to the development of America and the discovery of gold mines in Australia, a large number of workers were needed. Therefore, the powers recruited workers in China in the form of contract employment, so that the people in the southeast coast of China had a legal way to work abroad.

Foreign recruiters in China will certainly talk about the place of work and salary to attract Chinese. I saw a piece of information in the book Xiangshan Archives of Ming and Qing Dynasties, and I can probably get a glimpse of the basic contents of the contract at that time. In the 12th year of Tongzhi reign, in 1873, Japanese Minister in China Ding Meixia said in a note to the Qing court: "... Chinese people are the most diligent and sensitive workers, and they are very effective in farming, so there are recruitment actions. Only when you go abroad, you must set a deadline for next year, and make it clear that you should not work more than 9: 3 every day, and you should receive four yuan a month and stop working every Sunday. If the worker wants to work every day, the profits should be kept for his own use. To the workers, food, clothing and travel expenses shall be paid by the recruiter. If workers occasionally get sick outside, the recruiter must postpone medical treatment to show fairness. The above sections shall be specified in detail in the contract for evidence. ..... "To be fair. The above sections, even today, are more human than some black-hearted bosses who ignore the Labor Law. However, it's fair to say, and it's clearly written in the contract. Can Chinese workers enjoy such treatment when they arrive in a foreign country?

There are also many people who, even if they are extremely poor, do not want to leave their homes and "seek gold" thousands of miles away. There is a word called "selling piglets". How did you get it? In the 11th year of Tongzhi reign, in 1872, U.S. Minister Plenipotentiary in China Lou Feidi said in a note to Prince Gong Yixin: "... there are some shameful things in the section of recruiting people to go abroad. According to my minister, if we don't falsely accuse them of mistakes, they are probably caused by your officials. It is increasingly common that foreigners who are not caring for each other will recruit overseas. However, it is not for the help of China's cunning members and unjust villains everywhere, and the foreigner has failed to become a self-contained. Tracing back to the recruitment of overseas workers, the unfortunate workers have always been shipped from Macau to (foreign countries) ... As for the workers shipped from Macau to foreign countries, they were mostly deceived by China people in various places with false words, or forcibly sent to Macau. ..... so that people who traffic in human beings can do it at will ... "What the American secretary said was not framed. The United States just ended the Civil War and announced the liberation of" slaves ".It was our own people, some officials, bullies and bandits who colluded with some unscrupulous foreigners, and in the name of recruiting people to go abroad, they deceived or robbed them, making them innocent. This kind of behavior of "selling piglets" was the fiercest in Macau and Xiamen at that time. For example, Hutchison Foreign Firm, which was set up by British businessmen in Xiamen, often sent people to cover young people on some roads with a rice bag with the word "Hutchison" printed on it, and forced them to ship away.

South China University of Technology in North America

In the 184s, gold mines were discovered in San Francisco, the United States, and a large railway across the east and west of the United States was built. Recruit a large number of Chinese workers in the form of contract employment. People along the coast of Guangdong, especially those from Xiangshan, which is close to Macao and used to foreigners, came to the American continent with dreams and without fear of waves. The Chinese workers in Xiangshan, who are good at hard-working and hard-working, surprised the Americans, so they recruited from many sides and opened mines to build roads. As coolies, a large number of Chinese laborers entered the United States from the mid-19th century, working as gold miners and railway laborers. In 1865, the number of Chinese immigrants surged to 5,, of which 9% were young men. In the same year, the Central Pacific Railway Company recruited the first batch of 5 workers from China. Seeing that China people can bear hardships, have low wage requirements and are very obedient, the company began to recruit a large number of Chinese, and more than 1, Chinese workers participated in the construction of American railways.

After the railway was completed, Americans were worried that China workers would rob them of their jobs, and the United States began to exclude China. In 1882, the Chinese exclusion act was passed to stop Chinese workers from entering the United States for 2 years, driving Chinese out of the United States. Here, it is very important to mention Zheng Zaoru, a diplomat of Xiangshan nationality in the late Qing Dynasty. At that time, Zheng Zaoru was sent to the United States, Spain and Peru as a minister with three titles. Zheng protested to the President of the United States, demanding that the Chinese Exclusion Act be rejected. After that, it was changed to 1 years, but he continued to negotiate. As a result, the U.S. government agreed that Chinese workers with certificates issued by the China Consulate could still return to the United States. Zhang Chunru, a late Chinese American woman writer, wrote about the hard work, blood and tears of the silent compatriots in the United States 15 years ago in her book A History of Chinese Americans. John Woo, a great Hong Kong director, also wants to make a "History of Chinese Workers' Tears" to describe the story of China people building railways in the United States.

At the end of 19th century, Canada needed manpower to build an east-west railway. The Rojas Canyon, with towering snow-capped mountains on both sides, was a throat project that restricted the east-west railway. When the railway was built here, the project was stagnant, and the cold weather, heavy manual labor and dangerous working conditions made the labor very scarce. Canadian Railways decided to hire a large number of Chinese workers. The workers are mainly from Taishan, Guangdong. China workers work hard, paying not only sweat, but also life. Those blasting jobs are extremely dangerous, and local workers are unwilling to do them. In order to attract Chinese workers, the company specially stipulates that whoever wants to detonate once can apply for family members to join. As a result, a large number of Chinese workers died. However, the contribution of Chinese to railway construction has not been recognized by the mainstream society. The Rojas Monument only records how the explorer Rojas found the breach where the railway passed through the mountain pass, so that the railway could be successfully completed. There is no mention of China workers' contribution to the completion of the railway. After the completion of the railway, the Canadian government also abandoned 4 Chinese workers suffering from leprosy on a desert island called Das Island, leaving them to fend for themselves.

Chinese workers in South America

I have heard about Chinese workers in North America for a long time. Unexpectedly, in the Qing Dynasty, Chinese workers also went to South America in large numbers, especially Peru and Cuba.

in the 19th century, Cuba was a colony of Spain, and Peru just became independent from Spain in 1821. Why do China people go to Peru and Cuba, which are far away from Wan Li and the environment is far less than that of North America? For the colonialists in Europe and America, in the 19th century, South China, Oceania and Taiping Islands were all undeveloped, and they needed a lot of labor. The industrious, tame and capable farmers were easy to adapt to the environment and climate there, which was exactly what they needed. As a result, groups of Chinese workers were recruited to South America, and coffee, cocoa, sugar cane and rubber were planted in Peru and Cuba. Of course, among them, many Chinese workers were "selling piglets" in Macao and other places and went to South America. I believe there are also many ancestors in Xiangshan County. If Chinese workers can get reasonable treatment, it is a way to make a living by going to South America for cultivation. However, in Peru and Cuba, Chinese workers were brutally persecuted and squeezed and became slaves in disguise, and many people died!

Peru has just gained independence from Spain, so why did it treat our Chinese workers so badly? I haven't got into this matter. As for the tragic experience of Chinese workers in Peru and Cuba, who revealed it? The book Xiangshan Archives of Ming and Qing Dynasties happened to be recorded. On the 12th day of the first month of the 4th year of Guangxu (1877), the Prime Minister's yamen called for the award of the second-class medal of Denike, an Englishman who wrote in Hong Kong newsprint. It turned out that Denike, an Englishman, was the first to "write many words and articles about the victims of Chinese workers" in Hong Kong newspapers, so that the outside world knew about it. Guangxu's Zhu Pi is "got it. Respect this. " As for whether the Qing court finally awarded Denike a second-class merit card, it is not known.

Besides Denike, Peruvian Chinese workers also turned to the United States for help. In the 196s, the Prime Minister's yamen of the Qing Dynasty successively received a petition for help from Peruvian Chinese workers, which was transferred by the American envoy. The Qing court had to pay attention to this and felt that it was necessary to rectify the recruitment market. In the book "Xiangshan Archives of Ming and Qing Dynasties", we can see this historical fact: during the Tongzhi period, the Qing court decided to recruit 22 articles of association for going abroad, and it was not allowed to recruit workers in Macao. In this regard, the American minister, the Russian minister, the Portuguese minister, etc. all expressed their understanding, but the Japanese minister in China thought that we should not "believe the false words of the newspaper" and "be deeply sorry" for the Qing government's practice.

in October, 1873, the representative of Peru, Gersier, came to China to discuss the trade treaty between the two countries. Li Hongzhang negotiated with Gersier, proposing that Peru abused China's industry, and reprimanded Peru as a country with "no education and no manners", and would not change the status quo and make a treaty with Peru. Gersier began to quibble, but finally he had to give in. In May 1874, the two sides signed the Special Article on Investigating Chinese Workers between China and Peru and the Treaty of Friendship and Trade between China and Peru in Tianjin. Both sides of these two treaties made concessions: Peru's demand for "integration with western powers" was written into the clause, but at the insistence of the Chinese side, a series of measures to protect Chinese workers that Peru originally disagreed with were also written into the clause.

it's not over yet. In July 1875, Peru sent special envoy Alemo to China to exchange contracts. Because Li Hongzhang sent Chen Lanbin and Yung Yung, who were already in the United States, to Cuba and Peru for secret investigation beforehand, he was very angry when he learned that Chinese workers were still brutally persecuted after the signing of the Sino-Peruvian treaty. In his letter to the Prime Minister's yamen, he wrote angrily: "Since Chen and Rong went through detailed investigations, I realized that the country abused Chinese workers more than dogs and horses, and those who were abused did not know how many. Where there is blood and flesh, there is no tooth. " Therefore, he suggested that if the contract was changed vaguely, "the former Chinese laborers could not make a living, and the Chinese laborers who returned later would die, and those who were in fire and water for tens of thousands of days had no hope of coming to the Soviet Union." Therefore, he proposed additional conditions for the exchange of contracts to protect Chinese workers, and then exchanged them with the previously signed treaties. After nearly a month of repeated arguments, Elmer was finally forced to ensure that Peru effectively protected Chinese workers in the form of a note.

By 1884, there were as many as 2, Chinese workers in Peru, and their working and living conditions were still very bad. It is Zheng Zaoru who negotiates with Peruvian officials for improvement, and establishes Tonghui Bureau in Lima and Chinese Guild Hall in Hawaii to solve various difficulties of Chinese workers.

Postscript

The early experience of South China University of Technology was very tragic, and this article failed to describe it in detail. The life of early overseas Chinese was also very difficult, and countless people died in other places before they got a foothold. As for those who make a fortune, they have to pay double the hardships and efforts, and even pay a heavy price. Xiangshan celebrities Yang Zhukun and Sun Mei also started from farming in Hawaii, and they have been in rags for more than ten years before they became known as "Yang Baiwan" and "Maoyi King"; Even Chen Fang, Ma Yingbiao, He Kuan and other business tycoons have experienced a difficult stage of starting a business abroad.

The most admirable thing for overseas Chinese is that they love and serve the motherland, because they know that only when the motherland is rich and strong can they stand firmly and gloriously in a foreign country. In fact, China people living in China should also understand this truth. Only when the motherland is strong, the society is harmonious, the people are rich, and they are civilized and courteous can they gain the respect of foreign countries. When we go abroad, we can stand up and proudly declare: "I'm from China!"