Coolies Summary. Literature & Language. Term Paper

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Coolies Summary
Between 1838 to 1917, small numbers of Asian immigrants had begun forming communities in the United States, however, more instances of migration of various individuals was occurring between South Asia and China to Latin America (Lee 1). This summary will focus on the slave trade that happened in the eighteenth century and also highlight the inception of the coolie system and how it worked during the early nineteenth century.
At the end of the nineteenth century, several Asian indentured laborers had migrated to various parts of Latin America. The conditions were profoundly different across location and from many plantations over the decades (Lee 2). However, the Chinese, mainly male individuals migrated to Cuba and Peru from 1847 to 1874 which was part of an unsanctioned multinational enterprise that involved transportation of both indentured and non-indentured Chinese in foreign countries.
The Chinese coolie trade did not last for an extended period and was smaller than the British slavery system. It was characterized by a high level of exploitation and abuse. Numerous laborers were recruited through deception, coercion and in several instances, through kidnapping (Lee 3). Epidemics led to high mortality rates due to unhealthy and overcrowded ships which included some that had already been utilized in the African slave trade. The Chinese coollies in Cuba especially stood out for their status as slaves as they struggled to survive with a system that adopted from African slavery.
Stereotypes of Asian workers as coolies were utilized continuously to fuel anti-Asian movements in the U.S that led to several instances of discrimination. The mass movement of Asian Laborers to the United States began in the nineteenth century which is directly associated to the arrival of Asian coolies in Latin America (Lee 4-5). Both of these movements were widely accepted due to the rising number of Europeans and Americans in Asia. Additionally, this was made possible by the search for labor by the West after the end of African slavery in the American continent.
Great Britain eventually abolished slavery in the eighteenth century followed by the United States. However, the cost of African slaves increased and their decreasing numbers in most plantations in these nations created a demand for labor in the Latin Americas at a time when economic expansion was necessary (Lee 7-8). These demands for laborers led to these nations turning to Asia. The initial group of three hundred and ninety-six Asian indentured laborers arrived in Europe in 1838 and was known as the Gladstone coolies. There were numerous reports of abuse of these workers and this experiment ended the following year. However, the system resumed from 1844 to 1917 as over four hundred and twenty south Asians, and over seventeen thousand Chinese went to the British West Indies as indentured laborers (Lee 11).
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, criticism of the indentured labor system was widespread in South Asia and other regions as the abuse endured by the indentured la...