Coolie
Coolie (also spelled koelie, kuli, khuli, khulie, cooli, cooly, or quli) is a pejorative term used for low-wage labourers, typically those of Indian or Chinese descent.[1][2][3]
For the landform, see Coulee. For other uses, see Coolie (disambiguation).
The word coolie was first used in the 16th century by European traders across Asia. By the 18th century, the term referred to migrant Indian indentured labourers. In the 19th century, during the British colonial era, the term was adopted for the transportation and employment of Asian labourers via employment contracts on sugar plantations formerly worked by enslaved Africans.[4]
The word has had a variety of negative implications. In modern-day English, it is usually regarded as offensive.[1][2][3] In India, its country of origin, it is considered a derogatory slur. In many respects it is similar to the Spanish term peón, although both terms are used in some countries with different implications. In the 21st century, coolie is generally considered a racial slur for Asians in Oceania, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Americas, particularly in the Caribbean.
The word originated in the 17th-century Indian subcontinent and meant "day labourer"; starting in the 20th century, the word was used in British Raj India to refer to porters at railway stations.[5] The term differs from the word "Dougla", which refers to people of mixed African and Indian ancestry. Coolie is instead used to refer to people of fully-blooded Indian descent whose ancestors migrated to the British former colonies in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. This is particularly so in South Africa, Eastern African countries, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica, other parts of the Caribbean, Mauritius, Fiji, and the Malay Peninsula.[6][7]
In modern Indian popular culture, coolies have often been portrayed as working-class heroes or anti-heroes. Indian films celebrating coolies include Deewaar (1975), Coolie (1983), and several films titled Coolie No. 1 (released in 1991, 1995, and 2020). A new Tamil movie titled "Coolie" starring Rajanikanth is set to release soon
History of the coolie trade[edit]
Abolition of slavery and rise of the coolie trade[edit]
The importation of Asian labourers into European colonies occurred as early as the 17th century.[14] However, in the 19th century, a far more robust system of trade involving coolies occurred, in direct response to the gradual abolition of both the Atlantic slave trade and slavery itself, which for centuries had served as the preferred mode of labour in European colonies in the Americas.[15] The British were the first to experiment with coolie labour when, in 1806, two hundred Chinese labourers were transported to the colony of Trinidad to work on the plantations there.[16] The "Trinidad experiment" was not a success, with only twenty to thirty labourers remaining in Trinidad by the 1820s.[14] However, such efforts inspired Sir John Gladstone, one of the earliest proponents of coolie labour, to seek out coolies for his sugar plantations in British Guiana in the hopes of replacing his Afro-Caribbean labour force after the abolition of slavery there in 1833.[17]
Social and political pressure led to the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833, with other European nations eventually following suit. Labour-intensive work in European colonies, such as those involving plantations and mines, were left without a cheap source of manpower.[18] As a consequence, a large-scale trade of primarily Indian and Chinese indentured labourers began in the 1820s to fill this need. In 1838, 396 South Asian workers arrived in British Guiana, and such a stream of migrant labour would continue until the First World War.[17] Other European nations, especially colonial powers such as France, Spain, and Portugal, soon followed suit, especially as Britain, through several treaties such as Strangford Treaty and the Treaty of Paris of 1814, also pressured other nations to abolish their involvement in the Atlantic slave trade.[15] In most European colonies, the importation of Asian labourers began in earnest after the abolition of slavery. However, in some colonies, such as Cuba, slavery would not end until 1886, about forty years after coolies were introduced.[19]
A number of contemporary and modern historians noted the influence of the old form of colonial slavery on the coolie system.[20] The coolie trade, much like the slave trade, was intended to provide a labour force for colonial plantations in the Americas and the Pacific whose cash crops were in high demand across the Atlantic World.[21][22][23] Coolies frequently worked on slave plantations which had been previously worked by enslaved Africans, and similarly brutal treatment could be meted out by plantation overseers in response to real or perceived offences.[20] On some Caribbean plantations, the numbers of coolies present could reach up to six hundred. In 1878, historian W. L. Distant wrote an article for the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, detailing his time spent on West Indian plantations observing the work ethic and behaviours of coolies, and noted that many overseers believed that Asian coolies, much like enslaved Africans, held an affinity for intensive outdoor labour work.[24] The views of overseers towards coolies differed based on ethnicity: Chinese and Japanese coolies were perceived to be harder working, more unified as a labour force, and maintained better hygiene habits in comparison to Indian labourers, who were viewed as being lower in status and treated as children who required constant supervision.[24]
Debates over coolie labour[edit]
Unlike slavery, coolie labour was (in theory) under contract, consensual, paid, and temporary, with the coolie able to regain complete freedom after their term of service.[15] Regulations were put in place as early as 1837 by the British authorities in India to safeguard these principles of voluntary, contractual work and safe, sanitary transportation. The Chinese government also made efforts to secure the well-being of their nation's workers, with representatives being sent to relevant governments around the world. Some Western abolitionists saw coolie labour as paving the way towards abolition, to gradually and peacefully replace African slave labour without loss of profit.[25] However, other abolitionist groups and individuals – such as the British Anti-Slavery Society and the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, along with American abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison – were highly critical of coolie labour. Proslavery advocates, particularly in the Southern United States, condemned coolie labour, but used it to argue against the abolition of American slavery, claiming the latter was more "humane" than the former.[26][27]
In practice, however, as many opponents of the system argued, abuse and violence in the coolie trade was rampant. Some of these labourers signed employment contracts based on misleading promises, while others were kidnapped and sold into servitude; some were victims of clan violence whose captors sold them to coolie merchants, while others sold themselves to pay off gambling debts.[28][29] Those who did sign on voluntarily generally had contracts of two to five years. In addition to having their passage paid for, coolies were also paid under twenty cents per day on average. However, in certain regions, roughly a dollar would be taken from coolies every month in order to pay off their debts.[24]
In art, entertainment, and media[edit]
Films[edit]
In the 1955 film The Left Hand of God, Father Carmody (Humphrey Bogart) reminds Dr. Sigman (E. G. Marshall) in a testy exchange that he is not one of his "coolie" patients.
In the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai, when his officers are ordered to do manual labour on the bridge, British officer Col. Nicholson (Alec Guinness) insists that "I will not have an officer from my battalion working as a coolie."
In the racially controversial 1932 film The Mask of Fu Manchu, Sir Denis Nayland Smith mentions his team's temporarily hired Chinese workers, saying of Dr. Fu Manchu that "... his spies are all around us. I can't even trust our own coolies."
In the 1934 film Mandalay, the character Tanya (Kay Francis) calls Nick, the club owner, "coolie", causing him to slap her across the face.
In the 1941 Disney film "The Reluctant Dragon", humorist Robert Benchley sees an Asian artist drawing an elephant wearing a conical hat and remarks "Oh, a coolie elephant, huh?"
The Oscar-nominated 1966 film The Sand Pebbles depicts coolies working as labourers assisting American sailors aboard an American gun boat in 1926 civil war era China. The story, among many parallel story lines, involves an American Navy engineer (Steve McQueen) befriending a coolie (Mako) working under his command in the engine room.
Deewaar (1975) is an Indian crime drama written by Salim–Javed about a dockyard coolie, Vijay Verma (Amitabh Bachchan), who turns to a life of crime and becomes a Bombay underworld smuggler, inspired by the real-life Indian mafia don Haji Mastan.[108][109] Coolie (1983) is an Indian Bollywood film about a coolie, Iqbal Aslam Khan (Amitabh Bachchan), who works at a railway station; the film is famous for the fact that during filming, Bachchan suffered a near-fatal injury during a fight sequence. Additional Indian films about coolies include Coolie No. 1 (1991), Coolie (1995), Coolie No. 1 (1995), Coolie (2004), Coolie No. 1 (2019), and Coolie No. 1 (2020).
The film Romper Stomper (1992) shows a white power skinhead named Hando (played by Russell Crowe) expressing distress about the idea of being a coolie in his own country. Also, the gang he directs makes frequent attacks at gangs of working-class Vietnamese Australians.
In the 2004 Stephen Chow film Kung Fu Hustle, Landlady (Qiu Yuen) criticises the labourer/retired-in-disguise kung fu master (Xing Yu) for not paying rent, saying that "you'll be a coolie for life." In the credits, his name is given as "Coolie".[110]
The documentary film directed by Yung Chang called Up the Yangtze (2007) follows the life of a family in China that is relocated due to the flooding of the Yangtze River. The daughter is sent directly from finishing middle school to work on a cruise ship for western tourists, to earn money for her family. Her father referred to himself as a "coolie" who used to carry bags on and off boats.[111]
Television[edit]
In Hell on Wheels (e.g., season 3, episode 1 (2013)), frequent references are made to the hardworking, underpaid Chinese coolies who helped build the first transcontinental railroad.
In the 2018 drama Mr. Sunshine, the word "coolie" is used to refer to certain low class Joseon-era labourers.
Books[edit]
In the 1899 novelette Typhoon by Joseph Conrad, the captain is transporting a group of coolies in the South China Sea.
White Coolies by Betty Jeffrey (1954) is a non-fiction account of a group of Australian nurses held captive and used as slave labour by the Japanese in WWII.
In the 1982 fiction novel A Nomad of the Time Streams by Michael Moorcock, the word 'coolie' is used repeatedly about varying kinds of Asian labourers.
In Jules Verne's 1873 novel Around the World in Eighty Days, the word 'coolies' is used when describing different groups of people aboard a steamer ship crossing the Pacific.
In Denton Welch's 1943 novel Maiden Voyage, Li, a young private secretary to Mr. Butler, resents being treated like a "schoolboy coolie" by Canadian Dr. MacEwen.[112] The word 'coolie' is also used by Denton when he observes coolies working.
Music[edit]
The 2014 chutney song titled "Coolie Bai Dance" by the Indo-Guyanese singer Romeo "Mystic" Nermal is about the lifestyle of the traditional "coolie" (Indo-Caribbean) villagers in Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean.