(Cuba) (China) (Forced Labor) Eleven Reindeture Contracts.

By the mid-19th century, Spanish colonial authorities and Cuban plantation owners were under international pressure to end the slave trade. They sought a replacement labor source for enslaved Africans and beginning in 1847, they began importing Chinese workers to Cuba under multi-year contracts which typically bound them for eight years in a state of near-enslavement. This group of renewals provides evidence of the exploitative system that maintained these laborers in extended involuntary servitude in colonial Cuba. After serving their initial terms, Chinese workers were subject to an 1860 regulation which compelled them to either sign a renewal contract with an employer or pay for immediate return passage to their homeland. Saving enough money for this trip was an impossibility for the vast majority of these workers and the renewal process effectively continued their bondage.

These contracts formalize the specific terms of indenture across several major Cuban sugar-producing regions. Each records details about the laborers, including their adopted Spanish name, their home region in China, and their age. They specify the names of the new or continuing employers and mandate the duration of the renewed contract, generally lasting between one and three years. 

The contracts outline the obligations of both parties, notably listing the daily working hours required, the quantity of rations to be supplied weekly, and the salary, which, although small, did vary across the colony. Many laborers were illiterate and the contracts often bear a simple mark as a signature or include the signatures of witnesses or interpreters signing on their behalf. This group contains three examples signed in Chinese. 

The tenth and eleventh contracts are unusual manuscript examples. The longer version, (3 pp.) repeats most of the standard language of the printed contract template, but another is quite short  with only basic language about the renewal (Chinese man, named Adue, 47 years of age) and none of the legalese of the standard contracts, suggesting that some contracts were executed outside of the established regulations and without even the meager legal protections that such contracts extended to Chinese workers. 

Various municipalities (Colon, Villa-Clara, Habana, Matanzas, Cardenas): 1865-1879. Nine partially printed broadsides (four printed recto and verso) completed in manuscript in Spanish and Chinese, two entirely manuscript in Spanish. All approx. 30.5 x 21.5 cm, with municipal ink stamps. Previously folded, some wear along folds, scattered foxing, toning, and wormholes.