2 - Sandwiched in the Workplace

Summary

Abstract

According to Ronald Robinson's ‘theory of collaboration,’ non-European mediating elites helped regulate and maintain imperialism. This chapter argues that not all collaborators were crucial to the rise and decline of colonies. A peek into the circumstances of Macanese employment in Hong Kong shows a more practical aspect of how early colonial establishments were built through the services of migrant workers, who toiled in lower- and middle-ranking administrative positions in the public and private offices. Reassessing existing claims that Macanese workers were victims of racial prejudice, the careers of three Macanese men reveal the normative reasons behind their stagnant careers, as well as an alternative understanding of the terms of collaboration between colonial governments and their subjects from the migrant perspective.

Keywords: colonial collaborators, colonial order, imperialism, migrant workers, Macanese workers, British colonial rule

On a Tuesday in January 1847, a mercantile-oriented local newspaper printed a letter from a resident of the colony using the name ‘An Englishman.’ Part of the letter read:

I observe the name of [Leonardo] ‘D Almada e Castro […] in the last No. of the China Mail as Clerk of Councils in this Colony. I hear also that he has a Brother and a Cousin in the Colonial Secretary's office […] I confess that I do not like to see the families of Englishmen living here upon private subscription whilst this Portuguese family fattens upon English gold.

This resident found it inappropriate that the British government had employed a chief clerk of the Executive and Legislative Councils who was Macanese, an alien, a ‘Roman Catholic’ and, thus, must have been an ‘agent for the Propagandists.’ Continuing the rant, ‘An Englishman’ claimed he had an informant who could reveal D’Almada's incompetence in English. He questioned whether the government's choice was due to a ‘short sighted selfish POLICY [that was] in defiance of law, customs and propriety.’ Supporting this view, the newspaper's editor pointed out that ‘a considerate Ruler, would look upon [D’Almada’s] being an Alien as an insurmountable obstacle to his holding the appointment of Clerk of the Legislative Council.’ Both appeared convinced that he was ‘incapable’ and ‘unfit’ for the position because he was an ‘alien,’ a Macanese, or simply because he was not British.