Chinese Plantation Workers and Social Conflict in Peru in the late Nineteenth Century

Abstract

As the world capitalist system developed during the nineteenth century non-slave labour became a commodity that circulated around the globe and contributed to capital accumulation in metropolitan centres. The best examples are the emigration of millions of Asian indentured servants and European labourers to areas of European colonisation. Asians replaced emancipated African slaves on plantations in the Caribbean and South America, supplemented a declining slave population in Cuba, built railways in California, worked in mines in South Africa, laboured on sugarcane plantations in Mauritius and Fiji, and served on plantations in southeast Asia. Italian immigrants also replaced African slaves on coffee estates in Brazil, worked with Spaniards in the seasonal wheat harvest in Argentina, and, along with other Europeans, entered the growing labour market in the United States. From the perspective of capital, these workers were a cheap alternative to local wage labour and, as foreigners without the rights of citizens, they could be subjected to harsher methods of social control.1

Progression of recent Mycobacterium tuberculosis exposure to active tuberculosis is a highly heritable complex trait driven by 3q23 in Peruvians

“…During the colonial period, Europeans and Africans (brought in as slaves) arrived in large numbers to Peru. After Peru gained its independence in 1821, there was a flow of immigrants from southern China to all regions of Peru as a replacement for slaves 15,16 . As a result, the genetic background of the current Peruvian population is shaped by different levels of admixture between Native Americans, Europeans, African and Asian immigrants that arrived in waves with specific and dated historical antecedents.…”

In Situ X-Ray Fluorescence Analysis of Rock Art Paintings Along the Coast and Valleys of the Atacama Desert, Northern Chile

“…New data, recently recorded, seem to indicate that CAP-1 cave and Vitor-3A were used late in the 19th century by Chinese slaves working in guano extraction. These operations, common along the South American Pacific the coast 29 , were carried by people brought from all over the Pacific, who replaced African farming slaves, whose condition was abolished throughout that century 30 . CAP-1 cave is one of the main sites on the coast with rock paintings.…”

Marx's Open-Ended Critique

“…The total workforce fluctuated between 200 and 800 Chinese workers-new workers simply replaced those who died, given the extensive coolie labor system. 95 This work was done exclusively by men. It involved grueling physical labor, using picks and shovels to extract the guano from the mountainous deposits, loading wheelbarrows and sacks, and transporting the manure to chutes for loading boats.…”