AHC/WI: Transpacific Slave Trade

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...
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Spanish blackbirders from Polynesia to Chile and Peru?

This is probably ASB, but I thought I'd put the challenge out there.

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,
 
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?
 
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?

Yes, I know, there is various degrees in not-so willing and nice status, albeit wikipedia tend to group them all status in a large topic, so yeah, comment of mine. A tengency...

(I should make another thread one day..)

There was historically also piracy in the Indian ocean, albeit this was I believe an ocean better... policed by the later colonial powers as India probably, due to it's somewhat closer distances and importance. I did heard about british navy fighting pirates around Oman or such by the 18th century though.. or something.
 
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,

It happened IOTL, to some extent, after independence.
 
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 :D

"It will cost us 1/8 of a penny more per head to ship Indian coolies from Madras than Chinese ones from Canton!"
 
Yeah- even if they had really close ties I think 19th C capitalists are going to go for the cheapest possible source :D

"It will cost us 1/8 of a penny more per head to ship Indian coolies from Madras than Chinese ones from Canton!"

A world with the colonial powers having an hand in China, of course...
 

Morty Vicar

Banned
Maybe a more fragmented, unstable China provides a colony for some European power to set up camp, and ship slaves from other Chinese nations to the west coast of the Americas. Or perhaps Japan sells Okinawans or Ainu people into slavery (although this limits the number of slaves). Alternatively perhaps the British enslave Tamils from Ceylon.
 
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
 

Morty Vicar

Banned
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

For the gold, maybe you could get the legends of Aztec gold further north? Maybe some European power could operate a slave trading outpost from east asia somewhere, transporting slaves to America via the Pacific?
 
Well, that didn't deter the Dutch in Suriname.

How does that alter the issue? China isn't closer to everywhere. I was responding specifically to Ubergeek's point about Indian labour being used on the West Coast of N. America.

Suriname is on the Atlantic coast of South America. From there the shipping distance to India and the East Indies is probably about the same (or less) as that to China. But if you're talking about shipping labour to the Pacific coast of North America (as Ubbergeek was) China is clearly your closest source of large scale coolie labour.
 
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