Few get any rest whatever, and they may be said to live and die like dogs. No women are allowed among them, and being thus deprived of feminine society, in addition to their other sufferings, many commit suicide, believing that their spirits will wake in their native land.
INCEPTION OF THE COOLIE TRADE.
The history of the coolie trade may be found interesting in this connection.
In the year 1847, a Portuguese vessel, named the Don Pedro, was in the port of Macao, China, waiting for a cargo. The captain found that it would be several months before a new crop of tea would come in, and consequently he would be obliged to wait some time before his ship could be loaded. While loitering about Macao he fell in with a Spaniard who had come over from Peru on business, and the conversation happened to turn on the cheapness of labor in China. It occurred to the Spaniard that it would be a good thing to take a thousand Chinese to Peru, and finally it was decided to attempt to load the Don Pedro with these men. Whether they made any contract with the coolies is not known, and probably will never be ascertained. Three hundred men were engaged ostensibly for Java, and on the 1st of June, 1847, they sailed from Macao, supposing they were going to Java, but really destined for Peru.
The ship was steered across the Pacific, and after a voyage of more than a hundred days, with a great many vicissitudes, on very short allowance of food and water, the coolies were landed in Peru. Owing to some misunderstanding and some difficulty about the contract, this first consignment was not taken to the Chincha Islands, but was placed on a plantation near Callao. They had been secured for five years’ labor, and the Spaniard who brought them from China disposed of his merchandise to such good advantage that he immediately returned for another cargo. Not only did he go for another cargo, but for several cargoes, and the story of his success, and the advantages to be obtained by coolie labor, spread rapidly through South America, Australia, and other parts of the world.
HOW THE TRADE WAS CONDUCTED.
The trade increased with wonderful rapidity. Rumors went about in China that the coolies were taken to the other side of the world, and were murdered as soon as their labor contract was ended. In consequence of this rumor it was difficult to obtain men voluntarily, and the dealers were obliged to buy or steal men. A system very much like the African slave trade, with a few additional horrors, speedily grew up.
The Portuguese and Spanish traders at Macao established slave pens, like those in Africa, and bought men and women just as they might buy cattle. Bands of robbers went into the country, seized the men at work or at their houses, bound and forced them into boats, took them to Macao, and sold them. Robbers infested the mountains, stealing men in preference to anything else. Sometimes fathers and mothers sold their sons, and sometimes an enterprising youth brought his able-bodied father to market, sold him to a trader, and went home with a fortune of ten dollars in his pocket.