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- Herausgeber: GRIN Verlag
- Sprache: Englisch
Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2014 in the subject History - Miscellaneous, Lund University (Cultural science), language: English, abstract: This is primarily the story about the Norwegian ship Constantin which was caught up in an international network of trade with migrant Chinese workers known as coolies. Constantin belonged to a partnership of owners (partsrederi), a kind of ownership that was common in Norwegian shipping as far as sailing vessels were concerned. Part-owners in Constantin were Jens Amundsen (father of the famous polar explorer Roald Amundsen)and two of his brothers who each owned 1/6 of the ship, while P. Anker in Fredrikshald had a smaller part, but he was the managing owner (”korresponderende reder”). There were also other part owners. In 1866 Constantin sailed from Macao to Havana in 103 days with 295 Chinese “coolies”. 16 of them died during the passage which the captain considered fortunate because he thought it was a moderate number. Initially Constantin´s captain referred to them as ”passengers” when he sent a letter informing the managing owner about the matter.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
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Acknowledgement.
I wish to express my sincere thanks to the curator James Ronald Archer, Haldens Historiske Samlinger, for introducing me to the unique archives and collections of the museum and for making them available to me.
Contents
From Macao to Havana:
1. Introduction
2. The origin and development of labour migration from China to Cuba
3. Norwegian shippers and the “Treaty Ports”?
4. Constantin in far eastern waters prior to the voyage from Macao to Havana
5. The passage to Havana
6. How profitable was the coolie transport to the shippers?
7. Discussion and Conclusion
8. References (printed sources)
9. Primary sources
10. Electronic sources
11. Illustrations
From Macao to Havana:
”103 days, 16 dead, considered fortunate, all´s well”
”What do you want?” [Asked the captain]
At this Jukes lost his footing and began to flounder. ”I was thinking of our passengers,” he said, in a manner of a man clutching at a straw.
”Passengers?” wondered the captain gravely. What passengers?
”Why, the Chinaman, sir,” explained Jukes, very sick of this conversation.
1. Introduction
This is primarily the story about the Norwegian ship Constantin[1] which was caught up in an international network of trade with migrant Chinese workers known as coolies. Constantin belonged to a partnership of owners (partsrederi), a kind of ownership that was common in Norwegian shipping as far as sailing vessels were concerned. Part-owners in Constantin were Jens Amundsen and two of his brothers who each owned 1/6 of the ship, while P. Anker in Fredrikshald had a smaller part, but he was the managing owner (”korresponderende reder”). There were also other part owners. In 1866 Constantin sailed from Macao to Havana in 103 days with 295 Chinese “coolies”. 16 of them died during the passage which the captain considered fortunate because he thought it was a moderate number. Initially Constantin´s captain referred to them as ”passengers” when he sent a letter informing the managing owner about the matter. In comparison the captain in the short novel Typhon, from which I have quoted, had never heard of “a lot of coolies spoken of as passengers before”. The short novel was conceived some 30-35 years after Constantin made the passage to Cuba. By then the worst abuses of coolie-trade was said to have been alleviated. But it was still not common among sailors to think of coolies as ”passengers”.
Constantinand the mutiny which took place on board the ship in 1866 caught the imagination of those connected to the sea. It gave raise to oral traditions which has found its way into Norwegian maritime literature (See for example J. S. Worm-Müller 1935, Vol. 2:1, 332-338, including notes; O. Ditlev-Simonsen 1945: 57-58; B. Nygård 1958; H. A. Veel 1962: 113-115). The focus of these narratives about Constantin has been on the dramatic and rebellious event which was close to kill the captain and set the ship on fire. It is a question if the story about the mutiny can be verified or if the narrated sequence of dramatic events could be a myth or some sort of itinerant story. This will be discussed further on in due place[2]. However, nothing has been told about the reason why and how Constantin had been chartered for the special trade, nor has there been a serious discussion whether the “Chinamen” were considered to be passengers or people kept in bondage on board the ship. The aim of this study is partly to probe for the motives behind the decision to accept to be involved in coolie trade, partly to see if it is possible to infer from the sources what attitudes the sailors had to the “Chinamen”. The reconstruction of events and attitudes into a coherent narration implies, as often in history, that analogues events and circumstances are relied upon in the reconstruction of the story.
