Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers

by Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew; Katharine C. Bushnell

Second: The proclamation of Sir Charles Elliott, of tolerance of native customs was "pending Her Majesty's pleasure," and no longer.

Third: Her Majesty's pleasure was declared at Hong Kong: (a) By the Proclamation of 1845; (b) "By Ordinance 6 of 1845, 2 of 1846, and 12 of 1873, by the combined operation of which the law of England, common and statute, as it existed on the 5th day of April, 1843, became the law of Hong Kong."

Says Mr. Francis of Ordinance 6 of 1845, "The relations of husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward, master and servant, whatever they may have been when Hong Kong was Chinese, became from the date of that Ordinance what English law made them, and nothing more or less."

"But in addition to the declarations of the Common Law," declares Mr. Francis, the following are in full force at Hong Kong: "The Act of the 5th George IV. c. 113, the Act of the 3rd and 4th William IV. c. 73, and the Act 6th and 7th Victoria c. 98, which have in the widest terms abolished slavery throughout the British dominions." "These Acts declare it unlawful for anyone owing allegiance to the British Crown, whether within or without the dominions of the Crown, to hold or in any way deal in slaves, or to participate in any way in such dealing, or to do any act which would contribute in any way to enable others to hold or deal in slaves. This simple declaration, if it stood alone, would make every act of slave-holding a misdemeanour, but the Acts themselves make it piracy, felony, or misdemeanour, as the case may be, to do any of the acts declared to be unlawful. These Acts further declare that persons holden in servitude as pledges or pawns for debt shall, for the purpose of the Slave Trade Acts, be deemed and construed to be slaves, or persons intended to be dealt with as slaves. Hundreds of persons are held in such servitude as pledged or pawned in Hong Kong, and not one of the parties to such transactions has ever been proceeded against under these Acts."

"In addition to the above-mentioned Acts of George, William and Victoria, there is also the Imperial Act, entitled The Slave Trade Act, 1873, which consolidates the laws for the suppression of the Slave Trade, and which is in force in Hong Kong by its own authority. We have also the provisions of the Local Ordinance 4 of 1865, sections 50 and 51, and 2 of 1875."

"Offenses against the provisions of these Ordinances, so far as they relate to women or children, are still very common, and are growing more numerous every day, and until the system of prostitution which prevails in this Colony, and the system of breeding up young girls from their infancy to supply the brothels of Hong Kong, Singapore, and San Francisco, is declared to be slavery, and is treated and punished as such in Hong Kong, no stop will ever be put to the kidnaping of women and the buying and selling of female children in Hong Kong. This buying and selling is only an effect of which the existing system of Chinese prostitution is the cause. Get rid of that, and there is an end of kidnaping."

Again the nail had been struck on the head. Licensed brothel slavery, as it exists at Hong Kong, was put forward by the Chinese merchants as something to be dealt with before British officials could consistently lay violent hands on the more trivial offenses of domestic slavery and so-called "adoption." Brothel slavery, says Mr. Francis, must be dealt with as slavery before the practice of kidnaping can be put under control. This lesson was learned long ago. What did all the laws against man-stealing and slave-trading ever accomplish so long as the slave owner was allowed to keep his slave? As soon as slave-holding was declared impossible in the United States, there was no more trouble with slave-traders. Traders go to a market where they can dispose of their goods, not to a place where their kind of goods are a drug on the market.

Says Mr. Francis bluntly: "The Chinese custom of adoption, whether of boys for continuing the family and worship of ancestors, or of girls for the ordinary purposes of domestic service, is not the foundation of all this buying and selling of women and girls; it is only the pretext and excuse." Mr. Francis states that the buying and selling of boys is rare as compared with the buying and selling of girls. That there are few Chinese families in Hong Kong.

"The better class Chinese leave their wives in China. The transaction of purchase of these boys takes place at the home of the fathers of them in China. Seldom is it necessary to buy a son, as the usual custom when a wife has no son is to take another wife, not to buy a boy for a son,—hence such buying of boys is for servitude and for ransom, at Hong Kong." "Girls are not bought and sold in Hong Kong for domestic servitude under Chinese custom. They are bought and sold for the purpose of prostitution, here and elsewhere, and instead of being apprenticed to the domesticities, and of being brought up to be good wives and mothers, they are bought and sold,—brought up and trained for a life of prostitution, a life of the most abject and degrading slavery…. By the last census [this was written in 1880], there were in Hong Kong 24,387 Chinese women to 81,025 men. Of these 24,387 women the late Mr. May [Superintendent of Police] was of opinion that 20,000, or five-sixths, come under the denomination of prostitutes … A Chinese doctor of large experience fixed the number of quasi-respectable women at one-fourth the whole number, or say 6,000, leaving 18,000 prostitutes. These opinions were taken and adopted by the Commission of 1877-1879 … Who and what are these prostitutes who form by far the greater bulk of the Chinese female population of Hong Kong? The Report of the Commission answers the question: 'The great majority of them are owned by professional brothel-keepers or traders in women in Canton or Macao; they have been brought up for the profession, and trained in various accomplishments suited to their life … They frequently know neither father nor mother, except what they call a pocket-mother,—that is, the woman who bought them from others … They are owned in Macao and Canton. They are bought as infants. They come to Hong Kong at 13 or 14, and are deflowered at a special price which goes to the owners. The owner gets the whole of their earnings, and even gets presents given to the girls, who are allowed three or four dollars a month pocket-money. When some of the girls are sent away on account of age, new ones are got from Canton. If these girls are not slaves in every sense of the word, there is no such thing as slavery in existence. If this buying and selling for the purpose of training female children up for this life is not slave-dealing, then never was such a thing as slave-dealing in this world. There are 18,000 to 20,000 prostitutes in Hong Kong to 4,000 or 5,000 respectable Chinese women…. Once in five years the stock has to be renewed. It is for this purpose, and not for the legitimate or quasi-legitimate purposes of Chinese adoption and Chinese family life, that children and women are kidnaped and bought and sold … Until this slave-holding and slave-dealing are entirely suppressed, the grosser abuses arising out of it and incidental to it (kidnaping of women and children) can never be put an end to."

It was on May 20th, 1880, that the Secretary of State asked for the first statement of Sir John Smale's views as to kidnaping and domestic slavery. His reply is dated August 26th, and in it he refers to reasons for his delay in replying, of which the Governor is "well aware." His supplementary letter enclosing the Memorandum of slavery by Mr. Francis, was dated Nov. 24th, 1880. On April 2nd, 1881, he wrote a third time to the Colonial Secretary, from which we gather that even up to that time his explanations had not been forwarded to Lord Kimberley, Secretary of State. Said he: