Today, the total number of overseas Chinese has reached more than 60 million, spread across the five continents of the world, but we know very little about these compatriots who have left their homeland and taken root in foreign lands. Hawaii is one of the first destinations for Chinese to settle abroad, and the history of the Chinese community here is crucial for us to understand the Chinese diaspora.
The Chinese ancestors who came here not only took the initiative to go to sea to seek a new life, but also were passively coerced here, and they opened up the fields of sugar industry and rice cultivation in Hawaii, but also encountered the injustice of the "Chinese Exclusion Act".
The Chinese community in Hawaii also gave birth to Sun Yat-sen, a revolutionary forerunner who was deeply involved in the political and social changes in modern China. As a historian who grew up in the Chinese community in Hawaii, the author of this book uses many original documents to show the difficult picture of overseas Chinese landing, taking root, and developing.
Although relatively isolated in the Polynesian archipelago, Hawaii has had a much deeper influence on it than it does on China. Throughout the 19th century, the spread of Christianity, foreign trade, commercial agricultural production, and labor immigration influenced all aspects of traditional Hawaiian society. The greatest impact was on the sugar crop, the archipelago's first truly valuable cash crop.
When Europeans discovered Hawaii, sugar cane was growing luxuriantly on the island. It originated in India and then spread to the islands of the South Pacific. Subsequent Polynesian immigrants took it to distant Hawaii. But the commercial importance of sugar cane was not developed until the arrival of Europeans and Chinese with their entrepreneurial skills.
According to the 1850 Hawaiian Census, there were about 71 of the 1,962 foreign nationals at that time. Several of these people are already running small sugar factories on their own. They came to Hawaii on their own initiative. Between the discovery of Hawaii (1778) and the arrival of the first Chinese indentured laborers (1852), these people arrived and settled in Hawaii on expedition and trade ships.
In 1802, it is said that on a merchant ship buying and selling sandalwood, a Chinese brought a stone wheel and several boiling pots. His name is said to be Wong Tze-chun, but it is not confirmed in Chinese or other records. It is said that he laid out his tools on Lanai, ground a small amount of crop, and made sugar. But the business did not meet his expectations, and the following year, he returned home with his tools.
In 1828, a sugar mill was established by Hungtai Co. in Wailuku, Maui. The companies are Chen Heng (Ahung) and Atai (surname unknown). - Translator) was co-founded by the two of them.
In 1835, William French brought many Chinese from China, as well as stone wheels and sugar tools. He took them to Waimea, Kauai, where he made a contract with Governor Kaikioewa to process the sugar cane supplied by the Governor.
The 1851 report on the acreage of sugar cane in Hilo also shows the involvement of Chinese in the development of the sugar industry: the Ahsing plantation on Makahana Road, 400 acres, was mentioned; the Ah Kina plantation in Prius, 90 acres; and the Amoi Plantation in Punohawaii, 55 acres.
As a result, the Chinese were pioneers in Hawaii's commercial sugar production and played an important role in the process. As one observer put it, "whaling ships and other ships that arrived on the islands, scattered with a few Chinese remained." Then it soon became clear that, on the whole, these people were not only better laborers than the natives, but also more advantageous and reliable in industrial production, so they were well suited to being hired as plantation laborers. ”
The early history of the sugar industry can be found in an early edition of Selam's Hawaii Almanac, an important reference guide to Hawaiian history.
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Captain John Cass, who brought the first indentured laborers from China on January 3, 1852, was described as a "kind-hearted and reasonable" man. His British three-masted schooner, the Thetis, carrying about 200 men, set off from Xiamen, a port in southern Fujian, on a long journey to Hawaii. In the space of 55 days, they lost only four or five people. Later that year, Captain Cass made a second voyage, bringing the total number of Chinese immigrants that year to 293.
The contract for these Chinese laborers was: "for five years, $3 per month, plus travel expenses, food, clothing, and lodging." In China, $6 per person has been prepaid, which is deducted from their salary in installments after their arrival. In addition to indentured labor, there were more than 20 places on the ship, which were given to some boys who were willing to be hired as domestic servants and other servants for five years at $2 per month, and their boat fare was paid in advance by their employers. The report also states that Thetis brought 195 men on January 3, 1852, and 98 men on August 2, 1852.
Captain Cass also brought new plant varieties with him on his trip - pomelo (edible citrus fruit, larger than grapefruit), yellow peel (small fleshy fruit with flattened green seeds and edible skin); Longan (sweet, cherry-sized fruit with thin, hard, and smooth skin; Similar to lychee), tangerine, kumquat, lychee, and bergamot, which the Chinese call bergamot.
"The History of the Ancestors of Chinese in Honolulu" (Peking University Regional and Country Studies Series), edited by Xie Tingyu; Li Yun, Liu Meng, Cui Zhe and others translated a history of the development of overseas Chinese, and a history of the development of lonely sons who traveled far away
From the 19th century to the 20th century, the Chinese emigrated overseas in various ways, and they took root overseas, and now they have spread across five continents. From the Xinhai Revolution to the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, we can see the active participation and assistance of overseas Chinese. This book focuses on the politics, economy, culture, and family of early Chinese immigrants in Hawaii, starting from the exchanges between Hawaii and China during the Kingdom period, and describes in detail a series of important contents such as the development of sugar and rice cultivation between the Chinese and Hawaii, the internal social structure and cultural life of the Chinese, and the identity consciousness and rights struggle of the Chinese community. It can be said that the history of the growth of the Chinese community in Hawaii is the history of the Chinese nation's survival and hard work.
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