Fifteen Manuscript and Partially Printed Documents Relating to Runaway, Noncompliant, or Defaulting Chinese Contract Laborers in Cuba.

In many accounts, Chinese indentured labor in Cuba “ended” in 1874 when the Chinese government implemented measures prohibiting further emigration and returning Chinese immigrants to China in response to official reports on their mistreatment. However, Cuba did not abolish indentureship, escape was illegal, and some majority of unexpired contracts were maintained. It wasn’t until the complete abolition of slavery in 1886 that indentured Chinese workers were fully released from the coercive contract renewal system that kept them in bondage. This group of documents provides evidence of the various legal remedies available when indentured laborers refused to work or ran away, both before and after the new 1874 protections. 

Two manuscript letters, from 1862 and 1864, solicit state “corrección” for contracted Chinese plantation workers. In the first, an employer complains that the colono asiatico “Juan”, on an 8 year contract, refuses to work and is disrespectful and even threatening (“falta al respeto y al extremo de amenazarle”). He requests Juan be imprisoned for one month as a “public works” laborer. Marginal notes seem to indicate that he was assigned to street duty the following day. The second reports that that the asiatico “Lino” requires “severe” correction for insubordination against his contractor who requests that he be given two months in penitentiary, shackled. 

Three documents from the Comision Central de Colonizacion, record the response to an invoice from January 1877 for 80 pesos, 75 centavos owed for the “capture” and return to the depot of 19 runaway Asian colonists (4.25 each), who are awaiting collection by their “owners”. The accompanying invoice details the runaways’ names, the date of their capture(?), the names of their owners, etc. [The very word “owner” (dueño) suggests the closeness of the indentureship to slavery in the administration of the system.] The final piece of correspondence in this collection is a lengthy letter, from Doña Rosa A. Scull, requesting help from the governor to recover nine colonos who ran away from sugar mills in December, 1879. 

These letters solicit disciplinary action and describe other legal remedies that could be pursued against Chinese workers before and after 1874. Seven additional registers in the present group are dated after (1880) and record the number of Chinese workers still being held in a variety of these municipal deposits (jails, not much different than slave holds) for related offenses. The registers distinguish between those captured and held as runaways and those who have completed their contracts and are refusing to be recontracted. In some cases, Chinese immigrants who refused to work were held indefinitely in legal limbo within these deposits, some until abolition. 

Comprised of:  

1. 1. Single leaf manuscript letter from D. Juan Casals to the local governor seeking correction for the colono Juan. Matanzas, April 6, 1862. 31.2 x 21.5 cm. Some wormholes, darkening. Creased where folded. 

   2. Single leaf manuscript letter from D. Manuel Presas to the local governor seeking correction for the colono Lino. November 17, 1864. 31. 5 x 21. 5 cm. Some wormholes, not affecting legibility. Blind and ink stamped. Creased where folded. 

   3. Two manuscript letters and an invoice. Letters from Comision Central de Colonizacion to the Governor of Matanzas (February 1877), accompanying a manuscript invoice (January 21, 1877), for the capture and return of 19 Chinese runaways. Letters: two leaves, 21.5x16.5 cm, one written on recto of the paper scrap of a cedula application. Invoice, 30.5 x 21.5 cm. Toned, some worm holes, a few small additions of tape verso.

   4. Three pp. letter to the Governor of Matanzas from Doña Rosa a Scull, describing the escape of 7 Asian laborers from the “Santa Victoria” sugar mill. 1879. Single folio leaf, folded: 31.6 x 21.5. Toned but otherwise in remarkably good condition. With municipal stamps. 

   5. Three pp. manuscript document regarding the report of 10 asian laborer runaways who escaped from their barracks in Sabanilla over the course of several nights(?). November 30 and December 2, 1859.  Two leaves, approx. 30.5 x 20 cm, small worm holes and splitting where previously folded. 

   6. Note concerning the moving of an Asian prisoner at the depot to the charity hospital for illness or wounds. January 24, 1858. 15.5 x 21.5 cm. Toned.

   7. Seven single leaf oblong registers, each near 20 x 30 cm, partially printed and filled in manuscript, listing the addition or subtraction of Chinese workers from various municipal deposits (jails), based on whether they are “cumplidos” or “cimarrones”. Two from Colon, dated June and April of 1880; three from Matanzas, dated June and April of 1880, two attached to one another margin with tiny tapes; and two from Cardenas, April 1880, these accompanied by a manuscript letter, single leaf, from an official in Cardenas to a senior official in Matanzas. All a bit foxed or toned, some wormholes, one leaf from Cardenas with a 2 cm loss.

See: Ginés-Blasi, M. (2024). Indenture Beyond the ‘Coolie’ Trade: Reinitiating Chinese Indentured Migration to Cuba after the Chinese Commission Report (1874–1920). Slavery & Abolition, 45(3), 442–460. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144039X.2024.2344388