Indentured Chinese Labor in South Africa’s Black-White Binary, 1903-1910

CONCLUSION

For the indentured Chinese laborers in South Africa during reconstruction, as Moon-Ho Jung writes of the Chinese coolies on Louisiana’s sugar plantations in the second half of the nineteenth century, “the never-ending search to locate, define, and outlaw coolies, in turn, made them re-appear as fixed, permanent, and natural [foreigners].”¹¹² Accordingly, as “new slaves,” a “yellow peril,” and “criminals,” the exclusion of Chinese laborers in South Africa was justified without affronting the notion of universal equality that was key to white self-identity. In spite of their eventual exclusion, records of the debates over these laborers and of their presence in South Africa reveal that the materialization of a “white man’s country” and a white labor aristocracy in this place did not occur as a result of a bounded community or only from the capitalization and consolidation of the gold mining industry. Rather, both were outcomes of social relations, produced through the ongoing and productive negotiation of multi-temporal and multi-spatial processes that included China and Chinese peoples. In the broadest sense, the introduction of indentured Chinese labor proved pivotal to the reconstruction of racial capitalism in South Africa in the early years of the twentieth century. It is precisely this that the place of Chinese in the South African historiography and that historiography itself must be challenged in the present post-apartheid context.

Therefore, instead of undertaking to apply abstract and general categories like “contract labor” or “unfree labor” to the interpretation of specific socio-historical processes, in this paper I point to the need to adopt theoretical perspectives and methodological procedures that take as their premise the historical unity and specificity of the development of racial capitalism that emerged from Europe’s world-system. Only in this way does it become possible to understand the complexity of indentured labor relations – the ways in which they are both continually formed and reformed within the processes of global racial capitalist system and contain within themselves conditions of modern economy and polity.

1 This association was formed in 1900.

2 National Archives Repository, Pretoria (NAR), Transvaal Archives Depot (TAD), Foreign Labour Department (FLD) 131/20 Report of Mr. H. Ross Skinner Furnished to the Witwatersrand Labour Association the Result of His Visit to the East to Enquire Into the Prospects of Obtaining Asiatic Labourers for the Mines of the Witwatersrand, 22 Sep 1903.

3 Carolyn Brown and Marcel van der Linden point out that there is a fine line between “free” and “unfree” or “bonded” labor, and that that line is still being investigated by scholars following a decade of literature debating whether indentured labor was one or the other form of labor and what it meant to the development of capitalism (“Shifting Boundaries between Free and Unfree Labor: Introduction,” International Labor and Working-Class History 78 (2010): 4-11).

4 D. Tomich, “World Slavery and Caribbean Capitalism: The Cuban Sugar Industry, 1760-1868,” Theory and Society, 20:3, Special Issue on Slavery in the New World (Jun, 1991): 297.

5 Here, by racial capitalism, I do not simply mean a political and economic system of production and exchange, but a social order, culture, and ideology that justified the domination and exploitation of inferior “others” that formed within and expanded beyond European civilization.

6 M. Lake and H. Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality (Cambridge University Press: 2008), p.6.

7 Lake and Reynolds 2008: 6-7.

8 Referred to as “black,” “kaffir,” and “colored” in documents of the day, the indentured Chinese laborers formed part of the black population that was dominated and exploited.

9 Tomich 1991: 298.

10 P. Richardson, Chinese Mine Labour in the Transvaal (London, Macmillan Press Ltd, 1982).

11 B. Bozzoli, “Class, Community and Ideology in the Evolution of South African Society,” in Class, Community and Conflict: South African Perspectives, History Workshop No. 3, Belinda Bozzoli, Editor (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1987), pp.14-15.

12 S. Marks, “The Historiography of South Africa: Recent Developments” in African Historiographies: What History for Which Africa?, Bogumil Jewsiewicki and David Newbury, Editors (Beverly Hills; London; New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1986), p.168.

13 P. Maylam, South Africa’s Racial Past: The History and Historiography of Racism, Segregation, and Apartheid (Aldershot, Burlington [USA], Singapore, and Sydney: Ashgate, 2001), p.115.

14 K. Smith, The Changing Past: Trends in South African Historical Writing (Johannesburg: Southern Book Publishers, 1988), p.167.

15 Maylam 2001: 4.

16 F. A. Johnstone, Class, Race and Gold: A Study of Class Relations and Racial Discrimination in

South Africa (London, Henley, and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976), pp.6-7.

17 R. H. Davies, Capital, State and White Labour in South Africa 1900-1960: An Historical Materialist Analysis of Class Formation and Class Relations (Brighton: The Harvester Press, 1979), p.1.

18 B. S. Kantor and H. F. Kenny, “The Poverty of Neo-Marxism: The Case of South Africa,” Journal of

Southern African Studies 3:1 (Oct., 1976): 31.

19 D. Posel, J. Hyslop, and N. Nieftagodien, “Debating ‘Race’ in South African Scholarship,” Transformation 47 (2001): v.

20 B. Bozzoli, “History, Experience and Culture,” in Town and Countryside in the Transvaal:

Capitalist Penetration and Popular Response, History Workshop No. 2, Belinda Bozzoli, Editor

(Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1983), p.4.

21 B. Bozzoli and P. Delius, “Radical History and South African Society,” Radical History Review

46:7 (1990): 30.

22 Smith 1988: 164-165.

23 P. L. Hausse, “Oral History and South African Historians,” Radical History Review 46:7 (1990): 347; Smith 1988: 165-166; C. V. Onselen, Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand, 1886–1914: 1 New Babylon (London: Longman, 1982), p.xvii.

24 F. Cooper, “Work, Class and Empire: An African Historian’s Retrospective on E. P. Thompson,”

Social History 20:2 (May 1995): 235.

25 Bozzoli and Delius 1990: 33.

26 G. Minkley, “Reexamining Experience: The New South African Historiography,” History of South Africa 13 (1986): 270.

27 B. Bozzoli, “History, Experience and Culture,” in Town and Countryside in the Transvaal: Capitalist Penetration and Popular Response, History Workshop No. 2, Belinda Bozzoli, Editor (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1983), pp.35-36.

28 Smith 1988: 165.

29 This in spite of Bozzoli’s denial of parochialism in place-based or local studies and caution to overly focusing on the local and small-scale community dynamics without considering “the wider processes of class formation, capital accumulation and state strategy” (Bozzoli 1983: 35-36).

30 Robinson 1983: 27.

31 B. Berman, “Ethnography as Politics, Politics as Ethnography: Kenyatta, Malinowski, and the Making of Facing Mount Kenya,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 303 (1996): 313-344.

32 L. Witz, “Contested Histories at the End/s of Apartheid,” in Society, State and Identity in African History, Edited by Bahru Zewde (African Books Collective, 2008): p.422.

33 Using oral testimonies, William Beinart, Helen Bradford, and Jacklyn Cock and Erica Emdon uncovered the different roles of women working in private households and social movements; Eddie Webster delved into the “hidden adobe” of production of foundry workers; Don Pinnock and Jeff Guy and Motlatsi Thabane gained knowledge of the lives of gangsters; and Patrick Harries and Jeff Peires reconstructed the experiences of dispossessed communities. Studies such as these, documenting individuals’ experiences of and contributions to social change in industrializing South Africa, demonstrated the value of oral tradition as a new source material in the writing of regional, national, and local histories.

34 C. Hall, “Edward Said,” History Workshop Journal 57:1 (Spring 2004): 237.

35 Jean Comaroff acknowledges and gives example of the effects of post-apartheid on the discipline of

history, but also presents a positive opportunity for rethinking of South Africa’s past (“The End of History,

Again? Pursuing the Past in the Postcolony,” IDOGA Annual Distinguished Lecture on Africa, Gent

(Belgium), March 29, 2004).

36 This meant a society whereby “race” is not a criterion for any form of discrimination. Using the terms of James C. Scott, Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni points out that non-racialism constituted the “public transcript” that was more acceptable during the transition from apartheid to democracy (“Black Republican Tradition, Nativism and Populist Politics in South Africa,” Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa 68 (2008): 66). On the other hand, “[t]he radical republican Africanist thought with its trappings of nativism was relegated to a ‘hidden transcript’ – a discourse taking place and playing itself out beyond the formal political arena” (Ibid.).

37 A. Cobley, “Does Social History have a Future? The Ending of Apartheid and Recent Trends in South African Historiography,” Journal of Southern African Studies 27:3, Special Issue for Shula Marks (Sep., 2001): 618.

38 John Higginson, “Privileging the Machines: American Engineers, Indentured Chinese and White Workers in South Africa’s Deep-Level Gold Mines, 1902-1907,” International Review of Social History 52

(2007): 5.

39 P. Richardson and J. J. V. Helten, “The Development of the South African Gold-Mining Industry, 1895-1918,” The Economic History Review, New Series 37:3 (Aug., 1984): 328-330.

40 J. Hyslop, “The Imperial Working Class Makes Itself ‘White’: White Labourism in Britain, Australia, and South Africa Before the First World War, Journal of Historical Sociology 12:4 (Dec., 1999): 404.

41 Higginson 2007: 7.

42 V. R. Markham, The New Era in South Africa: With an Examination of the Chinese Labour Question

(London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1904), pp.122-123.

43 The Modus Vivendi that was signed by Lord Milner and the Portuguese colonial authority in December 1901 extended earlier agreements, the Provincial Decree 109 (18 November 1897) and the Provincial Notice No. 229A (23 April 1896), that first allowed labor recruitment in Portuguese East Africa (Teba Collection, University of Johannesburg, Majority Report of the Transvaal Labour Commission to His Excellency the Honourable Sir Arthur Lawley, K. C. M. G., Lieutenant-Governor of the Transvaal (Pretoria: The Government Printing and Stationery Office, 1903)).

44 Sir Clement Kinloch-Cooke, Chinese Labour (in the Transvaal): A Study of Its Moral, Economic, and Imperial Aspects, Introduction by Arthur James Balfour, M. P. (London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1906), p.37; Majority Report of the Transvaal Labour Commission 1903: 6, 19-34; Markham 1904: 106-108.

45 “The South African Labour Problem. Speech by Sir George Farrar, D. S. O., at a meeting held on the East Rand Proprietary Mines, On March 31st, 1903” (London: s. n., 1903); Majority Report of the Transvaal Labour Commission 1903: 42; Markham 1904: 105.

46 Majority Report of the Transvaal Labour Commission 1903: 38.

47 Majority Report of the Transvaal Labour Commission 1903: 35, 37. Also see, Kinloch-Cooke 1906: 40-45.

48 M. A. Johnson, “The Making of Race and Place in Nineteenth-Century British Honduras,”

Environmental History 8:4 (Oct., 2003): 604.

49 K. P. Grant, “‘A Civilised Savagery:’ British Humanitarian Politics and European Imperialism in Africa, 1884-1926” (PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1997), p.130.

50 The concerns were accompanied by anti-Chinese sentiments and agitations that resonated with the anti-Chinese movements in white colonial societies like Australia (1850s), the US (1870s), and British Columbia (1880s), where Chinese was already being represented as a “yellow peril.”

51 Hyslop 1999: 398-421.

52 Grant 1997: 145; Hyslop 1999: 402.

53 Hyslop 1999: 406.

54 Hyslop 1999: 418.

55 Hyslop 1999: 419.

56 Ibid.: 414.

57 Don Africana Library (DAL), Durban, John Burns Library Collection (JBLC), Report of an Address Entitled ‘Our Imperial Responsibilities in the Transvaal’, which was Delivered by Sir Gilbert Parker, M. P. (Chairman of the Imperial South African Association), at the Junior Constitutional Club, Piccadilly, on Wednesday, March 23rd, 1904 (London, s.n., 1904), p.20.

58 DAL, JBLC, ‘The Chinese Labour Question’, No. 61 (Westminster, The Imperial South African Association, n. d.), p.6.

59 Ibid.

60 Representations of this group of whites included foreign; inferior, rough, cheap, or low-class; the “scum,” “dead beats,” or “riff-raff” of Europe; and “Peruvian Jews.” These features were used to characterize Germans, Swedes, Italians, Austrians, Scandinavian, Hungarians, Lithuanians, and Russian Poles in South Africa.

61 By “proper men” they meant married men, as the presence of family (signaling “proper” relations in the household, such as submission, obedience, and respect, and reproduction among whites) was viewed as being vital to settlement and linked to the creation of a healthy civic culture.

62 Markham 1904: 126-27.

63 DAL, JBLC, Abe Bailey, Speeches on the Chinese Question by Mr. Abe Bailey, M.L.A, Delivered in

the House of Assembly [] Town, On March 8th and [] and Reprinted from the [] (Cape Town: Cape Times

Limited, 1904), p. 14.

64 Parker 1904: 17. Also see, Farrar 1903: 14-15.

65 DAL, JBLC, “The Chinese Labour Question. Speeches by the Right Hon. Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, G. C. B., M. P., and the Right Hon. H. H. Asquith, K. C., M. P., in the House of Commons, on March 21st 1904, In Support of the Vote of Censure” (London: The Liberal Publication Department (in connection with the National Liberal Federation and the Liberal Central Association), 1904), p.10.

66 Hyslop 1999: 418.

67 C. J. Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (Chapel Hill & London, The University of North Carolina Press, 2000), p.124.

68 National Archives Repository, Pretoria (NAR), Transvaal Archives Depot (TAD), T105, Foreign Labor Department (FLD) 132/21/2/I Letter of C. W. Campbell, Acting Consul General, Canton, 12 Jul 1904.

69 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 134/22/7 Correspondence of Milner, Governor, Johannesburg to Alfred Lyttelton, K. C., M. P., Colonial Office, London, 23 Jan 1905.

70 During the period of British occupation (1898-1930), it was also sometimes referred to as Port Edward. Along with Hong Kong, this was a major port for the British Royal Navy in the Far East.

71 The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: Years of Adventure 1874-1920 (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1951), p.37.

72 Because the Chinese imperial government shifted its position to defend the Boxers and the imperial army participated in the attacks on foreign embassies and missionary compounds, upon its defeat, China was forced to pay an indemnity and to accept many other concessions stipulated in the Boxer Protocol. This document was signed on 7 September 1901 between the Qing emperor and the Eight-Nation Alliance (Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Britain, the USA) as well as Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands. It included the illegalization of membership in anti-foreign societies; allowance of foreign countries to base their troops within Peking; acceptance of the Legation Quarters (or embassies) of these foreign powers as special areas reserved for their exclusive use; and provision for the powers to occupy Huangtsun, Langfang, Yangtsun, Tientsin, Chunliangcheng (Junliangcheng), Tangku (Tanggu), Lutai, Tangshan (Tangshan), Lanchou (Luanzhou), Changli, Chinwangtao (Qinhuangdao), and Shanhaikuan (Shanhaiguan, situated in Qinhuangdao), which were all in close proximity of Peking.

73 NAR, TAB, T105, FLD 131/20 Emigration Matters in China, General Policy, Correspondence of E. D.

C. Wolfe, The Transvaal Emigration Agent, Chefoo to The Superintendent, Foreign Labour Department,

Johannesburg, 8 Dec. 1905, pp.14-15.

74 Ibid.: 10.

75 University of Johannesburg (UJ), Teba Collection (Teba), Transvaal Annual Report of the Foreign Labour Department, Johannesburg, 1905-6 (London, Darling & Son, Ltd, 1907), p. 3.

76 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 122/16/7 Report on the Arrival of S. S. ‘Lothian’. Oct 1904.

77 Transvaal Annual Report 1905-6:11. Also, see NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 196/45 Minute of Secretary to D. W. Rossiter, Esq., Intelligence Department, The Consolidated Gold Fields of S. Africa, Ltd., Johannesburg, 7 Oct 1905.

78 Gary Kynoch, “Controlling the Coolies: Chinese Mineworkers and the Struggle for Labor in South Africa, 1904-1910,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 36: 2 (2003): 329.

79 Chhan explained: “I am not used to manual work. I was told in Hong Kong by the “Protector,” that I would [be] given skilled work (“Sau Tsok”) to do. I have since heard, from a returning Chinese Interpreter with whom I had been in conversation…that all coolies are compelled to go underground on hammer and drill work and that nothing in the shape of any skilled work is ever given to Chinamen!... I was disappointed and so I decided to run away….” (NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 113/15/51 Statement of Chhan Cheung Feng Given Before W. F. Zehnder, 21 Jan 1905).

80 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 236 Complaints & Riots, Minute No. L. G. 147//36/3 Disturbances and Riots, Geduld Mine, Aurora West, and Glen Deep, Telegram of Secretary of State, London to Governor, Johannesburg, 19 Oct 1904.

81 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 236 Complaints & Riots, Minute No. L. G. 147//36/3 Disturbances and Riots, Geduld Mine, Aurora West, and Glen Deep, Telegram of Governor, Johannesburg to Secretary of State, London, 22 Oct 1904.

82 P. Richardson, ‘Coolies and Randlords: The North Randfontein Chinese Miners’ “Strike” of 1905’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 2, 2 (Apr 1976), pp. 151-77.

83 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 236 Minute No. L. G. 147/36/3 Disturbances and Riots, Geduld Mine, Aurora West, and Glen Deep, Chief Inspector’s Report of the Disturbance at the Geduld Proprietary Mines Limited, 17th October 1904 to the FLD, Johannesburg, 18 Oct 1904, p. 1.

84 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 236 Minute No. L. G. 147/36/3 Disturbances and Riots, Geduld Mine, Aurora West, and Glen Deep, Correspondence of C. J. Hanretté, Assistant Secretary to Law Department, Attorney-General’s Office, Pretoria to the Private Secretary to Her Excellency the Acting Lieutenant-Governor, Pretoria, 5 Dec 1904; NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 236 Minute No. L. G. 147/36/3 Disturbances and Riots, Geduld Mine, Aurora West, and Glen Deep, Correspondence of Private Secretary to Her Excellency the Acting Lieutenant-Governor, Pretoria to the Private Secretary to Her Excellency the Governor, Johannesburg, 5 Dec 1904; NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 236 Minute No. L. G. 147/36/3 Disturbances and Riots, Geduld Mine, Aurora West, and Glen Deep, Telegram of Governor, Johannesburg to Secretary of State, London, 5 Dec 1904.

85 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 224/62 (Secret) Telegram of Secretary of State to Governor, Johannesburg, 2 Oct 1905.

86 Grant, ‘“A Civilised Savagery”‘, pp. 154-55.

87 Grant, ‘“A Civilised Savagery”’, p. 151.

88 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 236 Minute No. L. G. 147//36/3 Disturbances and Riots, Geduld Mine, Aurora West, and Glen Deep, Telegram of Governor, Johannesburg to Secretary of State, London, 22 Oct 1904.

89 According to Ordinance 17, the responsibility of enacting this Ordinance rest with the Lieutenant Governor, who had the power to appoint a Superintendent of labourers and any other officers necessary to administer the Ordinance.

90 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 236 Minute No. L. G. 147//36/2 Disturbances and Riots, Government Notice No. 57, Correspondence of George Wolfe Murray, Secretary to the FLD, Johannesburg to the Private Secretary to H. E. the Acting Lieutenant-Governor, Pretoria, 20 Dec 1904; NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 236 Minute No. L. G. 147/36/2 Disturbances and Riots, Government Notice No. 57, Announcement of K. H. L. Gorges, Acting Assistant Colonial Secretary, Colonial Secretary’s Office, Pretoria, 24 Jan 1905.

91 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 200/45/20 Correspondence of the Secretary of the Rand Mines, Limited to the Acting Superintendent of the FLD, 17 May 1905.

92 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 218/58/11 Correspondence of the Superintendent to the Assistant Resident Magistrate, Germiston, 3 Feb 1905, Original emphasis. His desire was to detain these Chinese labourers until he could ask the Lieutenant Governor to exercise his power of repatriation based on Section 26 of Ordinance 17.

93 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 218/58/10 Correspondence of Smith, French Rand Gold Mining Company, Limited, Luipaard’s Vlei to the FLD, 3 Feb 1905.

94 J. A. Millward, Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang (New York, Columbia University Press, 2007), pp. 164-165.

95 J. M. Hargett, Stairway to Heaven: A Journey to the Summit of Mount Emei (Albany, SUNY Press, 2006), p. 181.

96 Ibid.

97 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 218/58/10 Correspondence of Smith, French Rand Gold Mining Company, Limited, Luipaard’s Vlei to the FLD, 3 Feb 1905.

98 UJ, Teba, Transvaal Annual Report, pp. 10-11. It is unclear if the figure for convictions of desertions was disaggregated for desertion, temporary absence, and refusal to work.

99 Grant, ‘“A Civilised Savagery”‘, p. 152.

100 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 119/15/57 Correspondence of D. Malcolm, Private Secretary, High Commissioner’s Office, Johannesburg to the Superintendent, FLD, Johannesburg, 12 Sep 1905; NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 119/15/57 Correspondence of Superintendent, FLD, Johannesburg to the Private Secretary High Commissioner’s Office, Johannesburg, 14 Sep 1905.

101 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 104/15/1 Correspondence of The Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa, Limited, Johannesburg to J. W. Jamieson, Esq., Superintendent, FLD, Johannesburg, 19 Aug 1905.

102 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 104/15/1 Correspondence of E. M. Showers, Commissioner of Police, Office of the Commissioner of Police, Johannesburg to the Secretary to the Law Department, Pretoria, 22 Aug 1905.

103 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 196/45 Correspondence of D. W. Rossikt, The Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa, Limited. Intelligence Department, Johannesburg, Transvaal to Capt. G. Wolfe Murray, FLD, Johannesburg, 6 Oct 1905.

104 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 196/45 Minute of Secretary to D. W. Rossiter, 7 Oct 1905; UJ, Teba, Transvaal Annual Report, p. 36.

105 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 104/15/II Notes of Discussion, The Chamber of Mines Importation Agency, Limited, Meeting Between the Agency and Members of the Mine Managers Association, 26 Aug 1905.

106 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 104/15/1 Attachment of Extract of “Control of Chinese” from Transvaal Leader, 10 Nov 1904.

107 NAR, TAD, T105, FLD 104/15/II Urgent Telegram of Governor Transvaal to Secretary of State, 18 Sep 1905.

108 David E. Torrance, The Strange Death of the Liberal Empire: Lord Selborne in South Africa (Montreal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996), p.60.

109 Torrance, Strange Death, p. 60.

110 L. J. W. van der Walt, ‘Anarchism and Syndicalism in South Africa, 1904-1921: Rethinking the History of Labour and the Left’ (PhD thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 2007), p. 207.

111 Ibid., p. 158.

112 M. Jung, Coolies and Cane: Race, Labor, and Sugar in the Age of Emancipation (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), p. 224.