This is probably ASB, but I thought I'd put the challenge out there.
The coolies were not enslaved OTL, but there contracts varied from awful to hideous.
I could see a group of coolies being enslaved, e.g. in silver mines or something, and it spread. Formally, the transaction in Hong Kong or Shanghai or wherever is a labour contract, but every one knows the guys are outright being sold.
The problem is that by the time coolies were a big thing, slavery was on its way out. Not sure how to get around that problem.
Maybe the Spanish buy slaves that Chinese pirates have captured, and use them in the Philippines first, and then in the mines of the New World?
Spanish blackbirders from Polynesia to Chile and Peru?
That's about the only connection I think of where the labor needs and demographics in the places being enslaved might come together, and even then I sort of doubt it...
Enslaved Maori in altiplano silver mines under the Spanish just seems like a stretch.
Best,
On a related note, I had the idea of indians/south asians taking places of chineses as 'coolies' for the railroads and such hard works in USA and Canada... Not sure if it would have been feasable and economical...
I'm not sure why, though, given that transportation from India would have added at least a few weeks to the voyage (and therefore added to the costs of the employers).
Maybe in a world with UK and USA having closer ties perhaps, but you have indeed points.
Yeah- even if they had really close ties I think 19th C capitalists are going to go for the cheapest possible source
"It will cost us 1/8 of a penny more per head to ship Indian coolies from Madras than Chinese ones from Canton!"
It happened IOTL, to some extent, after independence.
Well, that didn't deter the Dutch in Suriname.I'm not sure why, though, given that transportation from India would have added at least a few weeks to the voyage (and therefore added to the costs of the employers).
To get Indians instead of Chinese perhaps you could afflict the Americans with the same type of thinking that Brits in the mid 20th century had with regards to muslims- they are loyal, hard working people who don't complain...not like those shifty pagans.
I think you'd probaly need a big war to provide the number of slaves needed...16th/17th century and christianity becomes more succesful in Japan leading to more of a straight two sided civil war...which the Portuguese-Spanish of course back the catholic side in. Defeated shinto-buddhists are taken.
But still you get to the big problem that the Europeans have their main base quite obviously in Europe, which is very convenient for Africa and the east of America- less so for Asia and the west of America.
Consider too the profitable goods to be bought in Asia and there isn't really an incentive.
Gold in California gets discovered earlier and is believed to be a lot more significant than it really is?
But still...when there's so much easier to get to stuff further south it seems unlikely
Well, that didn't deter the Dutch in Suriname.