8 - Coolies and Scandals

Summary

With the end of the Paraguayan War, planters again panicked over impending labor scarcity. In response, prominent businessmen at the Court began to organize a new company to jumpstart a “coolie trade” to Brazil. Without a diplomatic entry-point into China, however, their efforts remained scattershot until they pressured the Brazilian government to pursue a commercial treaty with the Qing Empire. Meanwhile, Brazil’s top tycoon, the barão de Mauá, attempted to set up a model sugar central with Indian coolies from Mauritius in an effort to overcome a colossal bankruptcy. As British colonial subjects, these workers received special attention when they complained of poor treatment, which demonstrated the power of diplomatic representation to curtail planters’ disregard for contractual conditions and for workers in general. Both “experiments” were put to the test in the court of public opinion, where Sinophobia masked competing business interests. Whereas the Agricultural Congress of 1878 examined the potential of coolie labor to effect a labor “transition” with lukewarm enthusiasm at best, newspapers engaged in a battle of words with strong racist and eugenic undertones that, at base, had more to do with competition for readership and government contracts than the issue of Chinese colonization itself.