/kloc-Unequal treatment of China people in gold panning in the United States in the 0/9th century.

China people go abroad.

"The river has a bay, and it is cold to worry. When you miss your hometown, you cry a bunch of wet clothes ... "The theme song of the Hong Kong TV series" The Kindness of the Earth "is already familiar to people. This song is about the early China laborers who crossed the ocean to make a living abroad, and their yearning for their hometown. People in China always move to another place, but they generally refuse to leave their homes, let alone cross the ocean to the other side of the world unless absolutely necessary.

Because there are few mountains and many places, and they are located on the coast of the South China Sea, Xiangshan people have long been forced to go abroad to make a living. Dating back to the Song Dynasty more than/kloc-0.000 years ago, Xiangshan people went abroad to make a living along the Maritime Silk Road and lived abroad. According to the Records of Xiangshan County in Guangxu Period of Qing Dynasty, after the famous Yashan Sea War in Song and Yuan Dynasties, many Xiangshan villagers fled overseas in large numbers to escape the war. In the Ming and early Qing dynasties, the imperial court imposed a sea ban, stipulating that coastal residents were not allowed to go out to sea privately, and "sails were not allowed to go into the sea"; Trade with foreign countries is prohibited. "Those who dare to give and receive privately will be severely punished." People in the southeast coast, including Xiangshan people, have cut off their livelihood because of the sea ban, but forced them to venture abroad to make a living, which has gradually become a habit. In the fifth year of Jiaqing in Qing Dynasty, more than ten people, including Cheng Shidi, a resident of Xiangshan, sailed out of Macao by sailboat, "looking at the boundless ocean and fighting with the stormy waves", and sailed for more than a month, and after stormy waves, they came to Penang with only 20 "Ada Houses". On this desolate island, Xiangshan people with long braids live and farm fields and build their own exotic homes.

Before modern times, overseas Chinese mainly concentrated in Southeast Asia. However, these China people who have left their homes to make a living overseas have always been regarded as "China abandoned the people". The "motherland" not only doesn't care about their life and death overseas, but thinks that they deserve to die. During the five years of Qianlong (1740), Dutch colonists slaughtered more than 10,000 China people in Java, which was the famous "Red River (Creek) Massacre" in history. When the news reached China, Gan Long said, "The Chinese dynasty abandoned its people and went abroad for profit. "

The emergence of workers in China

After the Opium War, the great powers opened their doors. With the signing of a series of unequal treaties, the powers also forced the Qing government to open the labor market and allow China people to work abroad. /kloc-in the 0/9th century, due to the development of America and the discovery of gold mines in Australia, a large number of workers were needed. So the great powers recruited workers in China in the form of contract employment, which gave people in the southeast coast of China a legal way to work abroad.

Foreign recruiters in China will certainly talk about the workplace and salary to attract China people. Seeing a piece of information in the book "Xiangshan Archives in Ming and Qing Dynasties", we can probably get a glimpse of the basic contents of the contract at that time. In the 12th year of Tongzhi (1873), Japanese Ambassador to China Ding said in a note to the Qing court: "... China people are the most diligent and sensitive, and farming is very effective, so there are recruitment actions. Just when you go abroad, you must set a deadline for the next year, and make it clear that you can't work more than 9: 30 every day, get four yuan a month, and stop working every Sunday. If workers want to work every day, profits should be kept for their own use. The employer shall pay the workers' food, clothes and travel expenses. If workers get sick outside occasionally, recruiters must postpone medical treatment to show fairness. The above parts should be specified in detail in the contract for proof. ..... "To be fair. The above sections, even today, are more humane than some black-hearted bosses who ignore the labor law. However, to be fair, it is also clearly written in the contract. Can China workers enjoy such treatment when they go abroad?

There are also many people, even if they are extremely poor, who are unwilling to leave their homes and "seek gold" thousands of miles away. There is a word called "selling pigs". How did you get it? In the eleventh year of Tongzhi, that is, 1872, Lou Feidi, the American ambassador plenipotentiary to China, said in a note to Prince Gong Yixin: "... there is something shameful about recruiting people to go abroad. According to my minister, if we don't falsely accuse them of their mistakes, it will probably be caused by your officials. It is increasingly common that foreigners who don't care about each other will recruit overseas. However, it was not because of the help of cunning members of China and unjust villains everywhere that foreigners failed to form their own family. Tracing back to the recruitment of overseas workers, unfortunate workers are always transported from Macau ... As for the workers transported from Macau to foreign countries, most of them are deceived by China people from all over the world or forcibly sent to Macau. ..... so that traffickers can do whatever they want ... "What the US Secretary of State said was not framed. The United States just ended the civil war and announced the liberation of "slaves." It is our own people, some officials, bullies and bandits who collude with some unscrupulous foreigners to deceive or rob them in the name of recruiting people to go abroad and make them innocent. This behavior of "selling piglets" was the most fierce in Macau and Xiamen at that time. For example, Hutchison foreign firm set up by British businessmen in Xiamen often sends people to cover young people with rice bags printed with the word "Hutchison" on some roads and force them to carry them away.

American workers in North China

1In the 1940s, gold mines were discovered in San Francisco, USA, and a large railway across the east and west of the United States was built. Recruit a large number of China workers in the form of contract employment. People along the coast of Guangdong, especially Xiangshan people, who are close to Macao and used to seeing foreigners, came to the American continent with their dreams and bravado. The Chinese workers in Xiangshan, who are good at hard-working and hard-working, surprised Americans, so they recruited many people to mine and build roads. As coolies, a large number of Chinese laborers entered the United States from the middle of the19th century and worked as gold miners and railway laborers. From 65438 to 0865, the number of immigrants in China surged to 50,000, 90% of whom were young men. In the same year, the Central Pacific Railway Company recruited the first batch of 50 workers from China. Seeing that China people can bear hardships, their wages are low, and they are obedient, the company began to recruit a large number of China people, with a total of more than 654.38+10,000 China workers participating in the construction of American railways.

After the completion of the railway, Americans worried that China workers would take their jobs, and the United States began to exclude China. 1882 passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prevented Chinese workers from entering the United States for 20 years and drove Chinese out of the United States. Here, it is necessary to mention Zheng Zaoru, a diplomat of Xiangshan nationality in the late Qing Dynasty. At that time, Zheng Zaoru was sent to the United States, Spain and Peru as three ministers. Zheng protested to the President of the United States, demanding that the Chinese Exclusion Act be rejected. Although it was changed to 10 a few years later, he continued to negotiate. As a result, the US government agreed that China workers who passed the certificate issued by the China Consulate could still return to the United States. The late Chinese-American woman writer Zhang Chunru wrote 150 years ago the hard work, blood and tears of silent compatriots in the United States in her book A History of Chinese Americans. John Woo, a great Hong Kong director, also wants to make a "Tears History of Chinese Workers" to describe the story of China people building railways in the United States.

/kloc-Canada will build an east-west railway by the end of 0/9, mainly relying on manpower. Rojas Canyon, with towering snow-capped mountains on both sides, is a throat project that restricts the east-west railway. When the railway was built here, the project was stagnant, and the cold weather, heavy manual labor and dangerous working conditions made the labor force very scarce. Canadian Railways decided to hire a large number of China workers. The workers are mainly from Taishan, Guangdong. Workers in China work hard, paying not only sweat, but also life. Those blasting jobs are extremely dangerous, and local workers are unwilling to do them. In order to attract workers from China, the company stipulated that anyone who wants to detonate once can apply for family members to join. As a result, a large number of Chinese workers died. However, the contribution of Chinese to railway construction has not been recognized by mainstream society. Rojas Monument only records how explorer Rojas found a gap where the railway passed through the mountain pass, so that the railway could be successfully completed. There is no mention of China workers' contribution to railway completion. After the completion of the railway, the Canadian government abandoned 40 China workers suffering from leprosy on a desert island called Das Island, leaving them to fend for themselves.

American workers in South China.

I have long heard of Chinese workers in North America. Unexpectedly, in the Qing Dynasty, Chinese workers also went to South America in large numbers, especially Peru and Cuba.

/kloc-In the 9th century, Cuba was a colony of Spain, while Peru just became independent from Spain in 182 1. Why do China people go to Peru and Cuba, which are far away from Wan Li and the environment is far worse than that of North America? For European and American colonists, South America, Oceania and Taiping Island were underdeveloped in the19th century, and needed a lot of labor. Hard-working, tame and capable farmers in China can easily adapt to the environment and climate there, which is exactly what they need. As a result, groups of American workers were recruited to South China to grow coffee, cocoa, sugar cane and rubber in Peru and Cuba. Of course, there are also many Chinese workers who "sell piglets" in Macao and other places and went to South America. I believe there are many ancestors in Xiangshan County. If American workers can get reasonable treatment, farming in South China is a way to make a living. But in Peru and Cuba, Chinese workers were brutally persecuted and squeezed, and they became slaves in disguise, and many people died!

Peru has just gained its independence from Spain. Why is it so bad for our Chinese workers? I'm not involved in this matter. As for the tragic experience of Chinese workers in Peru and Cuba, who revealed it? The book "Xiangshan Archives in Ming and Qing Dynasties" happens to be recorded. On the 12th day of the first month of the 4th year of Guangxu (1877), the Prime Minister's yamen summoned an Englishman who wrote in Hong Kong newsprint to be awarded the Second Class Medal. It turned out that Denick, an Englishman, took the lead in "writing many words and articles about the victims of Chinese workers" in Hong Kong newspapers and let the outside world know about it. Guangxu's Zhu Pi is "I see. Respect this. " As for whether the Qing court finally awarded Denik a second-class merit card, it is unknown.

In addition to Denik, Peruvian Chinese workers also turned to the United States for help. In the 1960s, the Premier Yamen of the Qing Dynasty successively received petitions for help from Peruvian Chinese workers, which were handed over by American envoys. The Qing court had to pay attention to this and felt it necessary to rectify the conscription market. In the book Xiangshan Archives of Ming and Qing Dynasties, we can see the historical fact that during the Tongzhi period, the Qing court decided to recruit overseas personnel, and it was forbidden to recruit workers in Macao. In this regard, American ministers, Russian ministers, Portuguese ministers, etc. Everyone expressed their understanding, but the Japanese ambassador to China thought that we should not "believe the lies in newspapers" and "deeply regret" the practices of the Qing government.

1873 10, Peruvian representative Guersier came to China to discuss the trade treaty between the two countries. Li Hongzhang negotiated with Guersier, pointing out that Peru abused Chinese workers and reprimanded Peru for being an "uncultured and impolite" country, and did not change the status quo and signed a treaty with Peru. Gesil began to quibble, but in the end he had to give in. 1874 in may, the two sides signed the "investigation of China workers" and the "China-Peru friendly trade treaty" in Tianjin. Both sides of these two treaties made concessions: Peru's requirement of "integration with western powers" was written into the clause, but at the insistence of China, a series of measures to protect Chinese workers that Peru originally disagreed with were also written into the clause.

It's not over yet. 1in July, 875, Peru sent Alaimo to China to exchange contracts. Because Li Hongzhang sent Chen Lanbin and Yung, who were already in the United States, to Cuba and Peru for secret investigation in advance, he was very angry when he learned that Chinese workers were still brutally persecuted after the signing of the Sino-Peruvian treaty. In his letter to the Prime Minister's yamen, he wrote angrily: "Since Chen and Rong made a detailed investigation, I realized that the country abused Chinese workers more than dogs and horses, and I don't know how many people were abused. Where there is flesh and blood, there are no teeth. " Therefore, he suggested that if the contract is ambiguous, "the Chinese laborers who come here can't make a living, and the later Chinese laborers will die. Those who take chestnuts in the fire for tens of thousands of days have no hope of coming to the Soviet Union." Therefore, he proposed additional conditions for the exchange contract to protect Chinese workers, and then exchanged them with the previously signed treaties. After nearly a month of repeated argumentation, Elmer was finally forced to ensure that Peru effectively protected Chinese workers in the form of notes.

By 1884, there were as many as 200,000 Chinese workers in Peru, and their working and living conditions were still very poor. It was Zheng Zaoru who negotiated with Peruvian officials to improve, set up a general benefit bureau in Lima and a Chinese workers' guild hall in Hawaii to solve the difficulties of Chinese workers.

postscript

The experience of early Chinese workers is very tragic, and this article can't describe it in detail. The life of early overseas Chinese was also very difficult, and countless people died in other places to gain a foothold. As for those who get rich, they have to pay double the hardships and efforts and even pay a heavy price. Yang, a famous scholar in Xiangshan, also started his career as a farmer in Hawaii, and was only called "Yang Baiwan" and "Sweater King" after being in rags for more than ten years. Even Chen Fang, Ma Yingbiao, He Kuan and other business tycoons have experienced the difficult stage of overseas entrepreneurship.

The most admirable thing for overseas Chinese is to love and serve the motherland, because they know that only when the motherland is rich and strong can they gain a foothold in a foreign country and shine brilliantly. In fact, China people living in China should also understand this truth. Only when the motherland is strong, the society is harmonious, the people are rich and civilized and polite can we gain the respect of foreign countries. When we are abroad, we can stand up and proudly announce: "I'm from China!"