Upload
lindsey-rapson
View
83
Download
1
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Rapson 1
Lindsey Rapson
Dr. Zevi Gutfreund
HIST 4197
10 December 2014
Chinese in the Post-Civil War South
"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free…”
Abraham Lincoln Washington, D.C.
January 1, 1863
A proclamation that echoed straight into the heart of southern society. As the most
controversial document in Lincoln's presidency, it declared free all slaves residing in territory in
rebellion against the federal government. The central element of the Southern economy, slavery,
had been abolished. The American Civil War, 1860-1865, left the United States a changed
nation. The war succeeded in restoring the Union, but questions remained as to what kind of
union it would be. These questions would be answered in the aftermath of the war—the period
known as Reconstruction—1865-1877. These conditions brought about new problems and
opportunities brought about by the process of Reconstruction. Looking to rebuild devastated
lands and negotiate new labor arrangements, an inherently unfair system of sharing labor and
land developed as former slaves demanded wages and former masters strived to maintain profits.
It had a profound impact, not only on the daily lives of plantation owners who relied on slave
labor for their livelihood, but also on the lives of freedmen, immigrants, small farmers, and
women. Reconstruction was a difficult time in our history. And not only for the large plantation
owners, but for every group living in the South, including foreign newcomers. These immigrants
dreamed of making a better life for both themselves and their prosperity. (Jung, Chapter 6)
Rapson 2
Fast-forward a few years and it can be seen that Reconstruction has certainly altered
plantation life. One plantation in particular was built in 1857 by U.S. Rep. Edward James Gay
and named for the City of St. Louis, it was known as the St. Louis Plantation. Located not far
from the Mississippi River, it had six large columns and a gallery across the front, complete with
a rooftop belvedere. The home also had a cellar, which was quite rare among plantations.
However, there was a very different group of workers present on which the hot, Southern sun
was beating down on. A new, unexpected group had taken the place of its’ previous workers in a
region once largely characterized by its’ black-white racial division. Far from home, this group
aimed to make new lives for themselves. The aftermath of the war had forever changed a fine,
large Louisiana estate. Winds of change had come.
The South, "a land of cotton where old times are not forgotten", had developed an
economy based on commercial agriculture made possible by intensive manual labor. Chinese
immigrants had become necessary because Emancipation transformed the South’s entire labor
system. Plantation life had created a society with clear class divisions. It was thought of as a land
of aristocratic planters, beautiful southern belles, poor white trash, faithful household slaves, and
superstitious fieldhands. A lucky few were at the top, with land holdings as far as the eyes could
see. But most Southerners did not experience this degree of wealth. The contrast between rich
and poor was great. This plantation economy proved far less dependent on slavery than slavery
was dependent upon it. The plantation economy survived the elimination of slavery, but not
without modifications. It turns out that slavery was not the only means by which white
southerners could retain a labor force essential to the viability of plantation agriculture.
However, the way in which Southerners should go about devising a new system of labor to
replace the shattered world of slavery proved to be a difficult task. Planters found it hard to
Rapson 3
adjust to the end of slavery. After all, the economic lives of planters, former slaves, and
nonslaveholding whites, were transformed after the Civil War. Accustomed to absolute control
over their labor force, many planters sought to restore the old discipline, only to meet determined
opposition from their workers. Out of the conflicts on the plantations, new systems of labor
slowly emerged to take the place of slavery. Sharecropping dominated the cotton and tobacco
South, while wage labor was the rule on sugar plantations. The postwar South remained
overwhelmingly agricultural. The implements of work were the same as before the war, but
relations between planters, laborers, and merchants had changed forever. (Halpern)
As under slavery, most blacks worked on land owned by whites. But they now exercised
more control over their personal lives. They could come and go more than before, and could
determine which members of the family worked in the fields. As a result, landowners
complained of a persistent “labor shortage” throughout Reconstruction, another way of saying
that free labor could not be controlled as strictly as slave labor. The result: some postwar
Southern farmers were urged to rely more on machinery and less on contract laborers. Although
the system afforded workers some degree of independence, it kept most in a state of poverty and
hindered the South’s economic development. An influx of Northern capital allowed sugar
planters to pay their workers in cash, but conflicts between owners and workers arose over wages
and discipline. Planters who managed to resume production believed it would be next to
impossible to prosper using free black labor. It was widely believed that African-Americans
would work only when forced. Charges of “indolence” were directed not against blacks
unwilling to work at all, but at those who preferred to work for themselves rather than signing
contracts with planters. Many landowners wrote into labor contracts detailed provisions requiring
freedpeople to labor in gangs as under slavery, and obey their employers’ every command. But
Rapson 4
contracts could not create a submissive labor force; because of the labor shortage, dissatisfied
freedpeople could always find employment elsewhere.
Southerners complained of the advantage that the North had in attracting immigrants---
although the North with its different kind of economy could absorb the increase of free people
better than could the South. What Southern planters wanted was more slaves. Cotton production
had been growing, from 160 million pounds in 1820 to around one billion in 1850, and to 2.3
billion pounds in 1860--- a growth of 230 percent in the 1850s. In addition, from the Gold Rush
through the 1870s, a large migration of mostly single male laborers came to San Francisco and
the American West due to hardships brought by flooding in China. The stage had been set.
Research Methodology
Postwar immigration to Louisiana was often a story about the relationship between
planters and imported field laborers. As a result, this paper focuses on three central themes that
help understand this relationship between the planter and immigrant worker. This essay tells the
story of Edward Gay’s efforts to recruit and employ Chinese workers. Gay’s records challenge
the idea that planters sought Chinese workers as a more cost-efficient labor
source. It seeks to understand the motivation of Edward Gay and planters like him, and to
understand the consequences of a labor experiment. The first theme focuses on the plantation
owner, Edward J. Gay, and his work with the labor agents tasked with the job to recruit new
workers. The following theme is central around the planter’s views and experiences, in relation
to the workers on his plantation. The last theme chronologically emphasizes how Gay’s
“immigrant experiment” changed over time: from initial optimism to frustration and lawsuits.
Rapson 5
In reality Gay was exploiting the Chinese, but from his point of view it was not
exploitation.
Historiography
In the book, Coolies and Cane, Moon-Ho Jung argued that Asian coolies were integral to
the construction of race and citizenship in the U.S. nation-state that emerged during the age of
emancipation. The British colonization of India and occupation of Chinese port cities after the
Opium War had facilitated the recruitment and shipment of Asian laborers to its Caribbean sugar
plantations after emancipation. This well-regulated indentured labor system provided a model for
Louisiana planters, who now faced similar circumstances. Former slaveholders in the U.S. South
clamored for imported Asian workers. Louisiana planters, who were particularly plagued by
uncontrollable sugar prices and global labor markets, pinned their hopes on coolies from Cuba
after the Civil War. Coolies in Louisiana were officially portrayed as representing a crucial step
toward a free labor system. As they increased their demand for coolies during the postwar and
Reconstruction era, planters "confronted a widening movement for multiracial democracy and
class struggle. Although initially described as a docile, hardworking labor force, they rebelled,
resisted corporal punishment, wandered from plantations, utilized Chinese middlemen, and made
legal claims to protest breaches of contract.
Jung referenced the Edward J. Gay papers in regards to the experiences of both plantation
owner and the laborers recruited for work on the estates. Jung stated, "In a nation struggling to
define slavery and freedom, coolies seemed to fall under neither yet both; they were viewed as a
natural advancement from chattel slavery and a means to maintain slavery's worst features."
Rapson 6
It’s evident throughout Chapter Six that the life Chinese workers faced on Louisiana
sugar plantations was difficult, but they gained an instant reputation as industrious and faithful
workers. As the Chinese became familiar sights on sugar plantations up and down the
Mississippi River and its bayous, conflicts between management and Chinese laborers also
followed. According to Jung, the recruitment of Chinese workers only produced new sets of
struggles that resolved none of the old. This evidence illustrated some of the experiences that
immigrant laborers faced on Louisiana plantations. As historian Moon-ho Jung explained in his
work Coolies and Cane, “Chinese workers in Louisiana, like gangs of migrant laborers in
general, left behind few records, all too often making their work anonymous, if not invisible, in
contemporary and historical accounts.” This lack of archival sources documenting Chinese
workers’ experiences was one of the shortcomings I encountered in my research. While Jung
does touch upon this idea of archival absences limiting our understanding of the day-to-day lives
of Chinese workers and the conditions under which they lived and worked, he has devoted a
section in his book to providing some insight into what the lives of Chinese workers may have
involved.
Gay’s Work with Labor Agents
In the summer of 1870, sugar planter Edward James Gay was at a loss for what was to be
done about the continuous labor shortages on his Iberville Parish, Louisiana plantation. He had
begun to hire workers, mostly ex-slaves, from outside Iberville Parish, and outside of the state.
But still, Gay and his colleagues wished for a more permanent solution to their woes. By
August 1870, the men settled on a potential answer: they would hire Chinese workers from
Rapson 7
San Francisco with the help of his brother, William Gay, and his business contacts. News of this
alternative labor came first in the form of a warning from Samuel Cranwill, who was Gay’s
plantation manager. In the fall of 1870, Samuel Cranwill successfully brought 52 Chinese
workers from San Francisco to work on Gay’s sugar estate. Gay seemed to be aware that it
would cost him more to hire Chinese workers, but he pursued these workers anyways. He had
hoped Chinese workers would prove less “troublesome” than freedmen. Gay received
a note about Chinese workers from his son, Andrew:
“I think it will be very difficult to get any extra labor about here for taking of the crop
and they will demand high wages. I am told people are offering $50, +$60 per month,
plus feeding them. I think it would be cheaper to send for Chinese from San Francisco at
once.”
Gay even enlisted the services of a Dutch labor merchant, Cornelius Koopmanschap, to help
obtain Chinese workers. (Edward J. Gay and Family Papers, Box 64)
In September 1870, one hundred Chinese workers boarded a train in San Francisco.
The men were bound for Arkansas where they were to begin their term as contracted field hands
for a man known only as Mr. Lombard. Each man had been given twenty-six dollars cash and
whatever personal belongings he could carry. The cash was an advance paid to the workers for
furnishings needed before or during their journey. It was also an incentive. “This will give you
an idea of the tricks these people are up to,” was the closing statement that Louisiana planter
William Gay sent in a letter to his brother, Edward James Gay, on October 3, 1870. The letter
that he received from his brother had been sent from San Francisco where William had also gone
to recruit Chinese workers for the St. Louis plantation. (Edward J. Gay and Family Papers, Box
65)
Rapson 8
The efforts of Edward Gay and his associates to secure non-native workers was an
experiment that lasted only a few years, starting in the late-1860s and concluding by the early-
1870s. But it brought several thousand Chinese to the region. Frustration with the wage labor
system that had succeeded the plantation-based slavery had inspired the Chinese labor
experiment. Gay’s documented experiences clearly bring to light the Chinese labor experiment in
Louisiana and show his eagerness to locate a cheaper source of labor.
Planter’s Views
A planter, merchant, politician, and friend to many of Louisiana’s elite, Edward Gay
represented the epitome of a southern sugar baron in many ways. The plantation remained active
throughout the Civil War, and Gay was able to expand his holdings during the post-war
economic collapse. By 1868, he had purchased or invested in seven plantations. And by 1880 he
had acquired 16 more, eventually becoming one of Louisiana’s wealthiest sugar planters. Gay
had decided to enlist Chinese workers under the assumption that they were bound to be less
“troublesome.” On June 20, 1870, Edward Gay wrote his son-in-law from his home at the St.
Louis plantation and stated, “It is disgusting to have any business with negroes.” It seems that he
was fed up. (Edward J. Gay and Family Papers, Box 63)
The St. Louis Plantation had once housed 223 slaves. It was among the largest in
Iberville, and its’ neighboring Plaquemines Parish, and had been worth an estimated $86,000
before the Civil War. However, by 1870, the slave system that had sustained the plantation and
kept it in good fortune, was no longer. The plantation of Edward Gay, and of sugar planters
throughout Louisiana, had been transformed into sites of wage labor. The strict schedule of
production required a steady and disciplined labor force that “worked with clocklike precision.”
Rapson 9
The notes between the men reveal that they were frustrated most by those workers who they
considered unreliable and prone to absenteeism. But a letter written by Edward Gay in July 1870
suggests that his dissatisfaction may have had other sources. In the letter to his son-in-law, Major
L.L. Butler, Gay complained that just a week before, that five men who had been hired to chop
wood on the St. Louis plantation had abandoned the task before it was completed. He explained
that the issue had been over wages. He often complained about the costs associated with hiring
freedmen. It was this sort of “uncertainty” that proved pivotal in the Gays’ efforts to find a new
and more “reliable” work force. The Gays wanted both a reliable and affordable workforce. They
faced the question on how best to secure such a workforce. Upon learning that Edward Gay had
begun to make inquiries about sending for Chinese workers, Cranwill warned him: “…we trust
you will have nothing to do with the “Pigtail” question more than to investigate it. Planters who
have tried Chinese labor have had a surfeit of it, from all we hear.” (Edward J. Gay and Family
Papers, Box 64)
Edward Gay deemed it would be well worth the risk to find out. This testifies to how
troublesome Gay’s relationship with his workers had become. A letter from William Gay, sent
approximately four months after the arrival of the first Chinese workers to Iberville
Parish points to the men’s initial satisfaction. He wrote:
“We find the Chinese well adapted. We are trying them by task work and find they can
do a good days work, about as quick as the negro.”
(Edward J. Gay and Family Papers, Box 64)
So it seems that for a brief period, the brothers were content with their new workers. In
the same letter, William Gay noted that a Sunday school had been built on his Oaks plantation
for his new workers, and he reminded Edward Gay that with the Chinese New Year approaching,
Rapson 10
there would be a need to grant their workers a few days off. (Edward J. Gay and Family Papers,
Box 67)
The Gays were clearly optimistic that the Chinese immigrants would succeed in
Louisiana, as can be seen through their willingness to accommodate the cultural celebration of
their new workers. But much to their disappointment, the friendly relationship with their Chinese
workers soon changed.
Chronology
The evidence of this transformation can be seen in the brothers’ correspondence, as their
talk of “well adapted” laborers turned to irritated debates about the proper solution for repeated
issues with runaway workers. On June 22, 1871– just seven months after the workers had arrived
– Major L.L. Butler, Edward Gay’s son-in-law, wrote with bad news. Butler explained that
“the Chinese all left this morning early.” This short note was the disappointing end of almost a
year-long effort to hire Chinese workers. The news of the Chinese workers’ disappearance came
two months after Edward J. Gay had sued eight of his workers for breach of contract. The suit
was filed for repeated absenteeism and Gay had demanded compensation as a result of their
expenses in regards to their transportation and employment. The correspondence between the
brothers in the months leading up to the final dissolution of the labor arrangement was filled with
complaints about their absenteeism. William Gay wrote in a letter to his brother warning about
the dishonest nature of their new workers:
“If permitted to go off and hire out whenever they are compelled to do right and work
satisfactorily, then they will all soon disappear.”
(Edward J. Gay and Family Papers, Boxes 68 and 69)
Rapson 11
He also instructed his brother to have his absentee workers arrested on the grounds of “obtaining
money under false pretense” and urged him to “come up and straighten these
Celestials.”
But before Edward Gay could “straighten up” any workers, as his brother suggested,
several more workers left the plantation. The news of this breach of contract was located in
another letter from William Gay, where he said that he had found the men loitering at the
plantation’s ferry terminal. He told his brother in the note that the men had agreed to resume
work the next morning. But he explained that “our intention is not to pay again until each man
works 26 days and pays in addition for his board.” He added: “will try to get even with them
somehow.” In the end, the Gays did not end up retaliating too forcefully and were unsure how to
deal with their labor problems. Much to the disappointment of Edward and William Gay,
however, circumstances did not improve. The friction between William Gay’s overseer and his
Chinese workers only became more intense. He was eventually forced to sell off the contracts for
his workers, and the workers on Edward Gay’s plantation left slowly until none remained.
By July 1871, the experiment was over. They had wanted the arrangement to work, but it
had not. Edward Gay and his brother had been familiar with the risks the whole time. They were
given reasons not to hire the Chinese but the men continued in their efforts. But this may be
because many planters at this time thought Chinese workers would be the “cheap, durable, and
easily exploited” labor, and hopefully a replacement for freedmen. (Edward J. Gay and Family
Papers, Box 69)
The failure of the experiment with Chinese workers was one more disappointment in a
series of efforts to maintain an adequate source of labor for the plantations. By the fall of 1871,
Rapson 12
one year after William T. Gay had traveled to San Francisco to recruit Chinese, his nephew
Edward J. Gay, Jr., was sent to Chicago to recruit Scandinavian laborers who were reported to be
available for the next planting season. His uncle, Edward, Jr., also explored various labor sources
to meet the growing demands of the plantations. The system of contract labor used to recruit
Chinese for plantations did not succeed, even with the initial enthusiasm of agents and
entrepreneurs. The resentment expressed by the Chinese toward their southern employers, could
not be fixed by either employer or employees. The contract system of labor was partially blame
for the failure of experiment of using Chinese workers on southern plantations. (Edward J. Gay
and Family Papers, Box 74)
Contracts for service, engaging workers for a designated time period during which they
were to repay costs of transportation and other advances, were not limited to the Chinese. A
labor contract system for freedmen had been established by Louisiana planters under the
authorization of the army of occupation of the Freedmen’s Bureau. In the years 1864-1866,
Negro laborers were given the opportunity to sign up for a year, and contracts included
regulations to ensure maintenance of discipline and control. Freedmen, however, preferred urban
employment than to work on plantations under a contract which regulated hours and wages,
levied fines for disobedience, and stipulated that they could not leave the plantation without the
permission of the employer.
The experiences with the Chinese, in which planters changed or manipulated the contract
at their pleasure, had not yielded positive results either. The social organization of the Chinese
work groups, in which intermediaries were used to defend the workers’ interests, was in basic
conflict with southern ideas about labor. Chinese head men or interpreters, who were experts in
the fine art of bargaining, expected to use their skills in labor negotiations. Southern planters,
Rapson 13
however, had not wished to negotiate on terms of employment. They believed themselves to be
the one authority in setting work agreements with employees.
The most serious problem with labor contracts was enforcement. Edward. J. Gay
unsuccessfully brought suit against the Chinese for failing to fulfill their contracts. The courts
had not chosen to punish Chinese laborers for deserting from service. The efforts of the Chinese
to sue their former employers for violating their contracts or infringing other of their rights was
also unfulfilled. The employers were powerful in their communities to influence judges or the
courts so that judgments were always in their favor. As sharecropping and tenantry replaced the
contract labor experiments in the South, some Chinese became a part of that labor system. Others
established themselves in towns near or in large cities such as New Orleans. No more attempts
were made to import Chinese directly from China. The Chinese increasingly assumed control
over their own lives in the South, as it is shown by descriptions of early settlements in New
Orleans and outlying towns and rural areas. Gay learned that hiring Chinese workers was not
cheaper, but, in fact, more expensive than hiring freedmen. The labor force that was meant to
replace the freedmen proved more troublesome than Gay and his fellow planters imagined. The
initial liking that Gay and his fellow planters felt toward their new workers quickly diminished:
contract disputes and absenteeism led Gay and his colleagues to abandon their experiment.
(Edward J. Gay and Family Papers, Box 68) (Jung, Chapter 6)
Parting Thoughts
After the Civil War, Southern plantation owners--who were worried that freed slaves
would be "unmanageable"--considered substituting Chinese coolie labor for black labor. They
had begun to eye the Chinese as possible substitutes for their former human property. Southern
Rapson 14
plantation owners had visited California with this in mind. And during the 1870s, Chinese
workers were imported to states like Louisiana and Mississippi and pitted against black workers.
Eventually, plantation owners in the South stopped importing Chinese labor as the system of
sharecropping had become established. But Chinese laborers continued to be used in other parts
of the world to replace black slaves. (Jung, Chapter 6)
It should have been an ideal match. After all, according to reports from California,
Chinese laborers were docile and hardworking. It led one to ask: Why should they be less so as
field hands than as gold miners and railroad workers? If the Chinese would be willing to work
according to the terms that had prevailed under slavery, perhaps the emancipated blacks could be
persuaded to return to their former condition as well. (Jung, Chapter 6)
Both the Southern planters and the Chinese laborers quickly became disillusioned. The
plantation owners had become accustomed to exerting absolute control over their workers. They
believed that the way to increase productivity was to have overseers whip men into docility. But
the Chinese considered their relationship to the planters to be a normal business arrangement.
They expected their employers to adhere to the terms of their contracts, and had no intentions of
laboring under oppressive conditions. Unlike the former slaves, the Chinese laborers worked
under contract, and they proved to be sharp negotiators, hiring bilingual interpreters and lawyers
to protect their interests. When employers violated contracts, the Chinese filed lawsuits. Within a
few years, most of the Chinese had walked away from their contracts and moved to cities, where
they accepted real jobs or opened their own businesses. By 1915 there was almost no Chinese
workers on Southern plantations. The Southern planters’ dream of holding Chinese workers in
bondage had turned out to be a nightmare. (Jung, Chapter 6)
Rapson 15
Works Cited
Secondary Sources
Halpern, Rick. “Solving the ‘Labour Problem:’ Race, Work, and the State in the
Sugar Industries of Louisiana and Natal, 1870-1910,” Journal of Southern
African Studies, Vol. 30, no. 1 (2004): 19-40
Jung, Moon-Ho. Coolies and Cane: Race, Labor, and Sugar in the Age of
Emancipation. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. Chapter 6:
Resisting Coolies.
Shanabruch, Charles. The Louisiana Immigration Movement, 1891-1907: An Analysis of
Efforts, Attitudes, and Opportunities. 2nd ed. Vol. 18. Chicago: Louisiana Historical
Association, 1977. 203-226.
Primary Sources
Louisiana State University, Hill Memorial Library, Baton Rouge Special Collection,
Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections (LLMVC)
Edward J. Gay and Family Papers (Mss. #1295)
Box 61: December 14, 1869
Box 63: June 20, 1870
Box 64: September 7, 8, 9, 12, 15, 1870
Box 65: October 3, 15, 1870
Box 67: February 13, 1871
Box 68: April 26, 1871
Box 69: August 11, 1871
Box 73: April 26, 1872
Box 74: July 21, 1872