(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION CUBA) Digo Yo Chen Chan Natural de H

Sale 2308 - Lot 74

Price Realized: $ 1,080

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500

(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION--CUBA.) "Digo Yo, Chen Chan, Natural de Hoyping" (I Chen Chan state that I am from the province of Hoyping) [Kaiping]. Partially printed document, accomplished by hand. A very detailed contract binding a Chinese citizen to Campbell & Caro Company of Cuba as a laborer for the period of eight years. Large folio (16-1/4 x 10-1/2 inches), printed in Spanish on one side and Chinese on the other; creases where folded; a couple of short closed tears. A small engraving at the top of the page shows a Chinese laborer working side-by-side with a slave. Signed by the Spanish Consul Nicasio de Canete y Moral, A. P. Achenbach, the recruiting agent for Chinese labor, and Chen Chan, on the reverse. Macao, 18 November 1856

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number 87, one of the earliest contracts for "coolie" labor from china, binding Chen Chang to plantation owners Campbell & Caro of Havana, dated November of 1856. On June 3, 1857 the first ship arrived in Cuba carrying about 200 Chinese laborers bound to eight-year contracts. Mr. Chen was very likely to have been among them, having signed this contract in the fall of 1856. Havana is 15,576 miles from Hong Kong, the port where the first ship carrying "coolie" labor would embark on their 175 day journey to what many thought would be a new life in the new world. In many cases, these "coolies" were mistreated just as the African slaves they worked side-by-side were. Within a decade, the situation grew so severe that the imperial Chinese government sent investigators to Cuba to look into allegations of abuse and breach of contract by plantation owners, as well as an alarming number of suicides by Chinese laborers.