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Acknowledgements
This article would not have come to its fruition without the help of Dr. Maria Dores Cruz, who recommended readings, read numerous drafts, and set aside time to discuss various ideas that went into this article. Thanks must also be extended to Ms. Keorapetse Mosimane, who pointed me to the Museum Africa in South Africa, originally to look for pictures of Chinese people, and Ms. Kathy Brookes, Curator of the Image Collection at the Museum Africa.
Notes
1 Callinicos, People's History of South Africa; Davies, “Mining Capital, the State and Unskilled White Workers”; Van Onselen, Studies in the Social and Economic History; Richardson, “Chinese Coolies and Randlords”; Richardson, “The Recruiting of Chinese Indentured Labour”; and Richardson, Chinese Mine Labour in the Transvaal.
2 Guterl, “After Slavery,” 217.
3 Halpérin, Lord Milner and the Empire; Iwan-Müller, Lord Milner and South Africa; and Worsfold, Reconstruction of the New Colonies, Vol I & II.
4 Maxwell, Colonial Photography & Exhibitions, 1.
5 Beer, “Lord Milner and British Imperialism”; and Phillips, Transvaal Problems.
6 Tanner, Sociology of Art, 36.
7 Stoler, “Rethinking Colonial Categories,” 137.
8 Tanner, Sociology of Art, 67.
9 Murphy, “‘Prelude to Imperialism’,” 466.
10 Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues, 81; Lee, “Chinese Exclusion Example”; and Ngai, “Architecture of Race.” Jacobson further demonstrates how leaders of the eugenics movement were instrumental in establishing the racial inferiority of the Chinese by linking the question of genetics and civic virtue or self-government, proving that the Chinese lacked the latter, which provided justification for Chinese exclusion from citizenship and immigration.
11 Murphy, “‘Prelude to Imperialism’,” 459.
12 Ibid., 460, italics added.
13 On one hand, such representations noticeably juxtaposed the Irish's precarious whiteness and the unequivocal non-white status of the Chinese. On the other hand, representations of fear or paternalistic benevolence in the context of Chinese immigration were worked out in such a way that formed the “model minority” stereotype, which was used to discipline colonized subjects, especially in the Philippines where there was a settled Chinese population.
14 Maxwell, Colonial Photography & Exhibitions, 7.
15 Geary and Webb, “Introduction,” 4.
16 Landes, Visualizing the Nation, 27.
17 The postcards of indentured Chinese laborers on the Rand have not yet been properly studied, which means that they still need to be carefully examined and analyzed.
18 Landau, “Empires of the Visual.”
19 Sontag, On Photography.
20 Tagg, “Evidence, Truth and Order.”
21 Also see Hight and Sampson, Colonialist Photography.
22 Tagg, “Evidence, Truth and Order,” 246.
23 Landau, “Empires of the Visual,”145; also see Edwards, “Photographic ‘Types’”; Knowles, “Seeing Race Through the Lens”; Maxwell, Colonial Photography & Exhibitions, 11–12; and Poole, “An Image of ‘Our Indian’.”
24 For an in depth discussion of “type” photography, see Edwards, “Photographic ‘Types’.”
25 Geary, “Different Visions?,” 157; and Webb, “Transformed images,” 116, 119–20, and 137. Webb explains that extreme manipulation occurred through the rewriting of captions, adding coloring to an image, cropping a photograph to fit the postcard format, and changing composition of the image. Manipulation was oftentimes done to increase the postcards’ commercial appeal.
26 Albers, “Symbols, Souvenirs, and Sentiments.”
27 Edwards, “Photographic ‘Types’,” 247.
28 Geary, “Different Visions?,” 174. Geary further emphasizes the fact that the majority of the postcards, portraying European overseas conquests and the civilizing effect of colonialism, offered women in the form of female nudes or semi-nudes as objects for the male gaze. The justification for such images “is a pretended scientific interest in anthropometry and the classification of races, dress, and adornments” (Ibid., 157–9), thus eluding the “erotic” dimension. However, by drawing on and appealing to the Western (male) imagination of both the exotic and the erotic, postcards, as photography, contributed to the reification and perpetuation of stereotyped images of the subjugated, racialized, and gendered Other.
29 The clothing is one indication of the different types of work the “Black” and “Yellow” laborers participated in.
30 Iwan-Müller, Lord Milner and South Africa, 126; and Phillips, Transvaal Problems, 59. In the Anglo–Boer War of 1899–1902, Britain occupied the Boer republics of Transvaal and Orange Free State and annexed them after the war. Prior to this, the Cape Colony had become a British colony in 1815 and Natal in 1843. In 1868 Basutoland, and in 1871 Griqualand West, were annexed to the British Empire.
31 Worsfold, Reconstruction of the New Colonies, Vol I, 107; Richardson, “The Recruiting of Chinese Indentured Labour,” 87; and Halpérin, Lord Milner and the Empire, 138.
32 Davies, “Mining Capital, The State and Unskilled White Workers,” 44; Richardson, “The Recruiting of Chinese Indentured Labour,” 88; and Van-Helten, “Empire and High Finance.”
33 Davies, “Mining Capital, The State and Unskilled White Workers,” 41; and Phillips, Transvaal Problems, 41 and 43.
34 Phillips, Transvaal Problems, 43.
35 Richardson, “The Recruiting of Chinese Indentured Labour,” 87.
36 Higginson, “Privileging the Machines.”
37 As the prosperity of the gold mines was viewed as being crucial to imperial aim of forming a unified white South Africa, colonial administrators in South Africa and members of Parliament in Britain debated behind closed doors for days.
38 MLA = Member of the Legislative Assembly
39 Bailey, Speeches on the Chinese Question, 2.
40 Ibid., 21–2.
41 Ibid., 17.
42 Phillips, Transvaal Problems, 59; also see Imperial South African Association, “Real Facts about Chinese Labour.”
43 Bailey, Speeches on the Chinese Question, 20.
44 Halpérin, Lord Milner and the Empire, 139; also see Worsfold, Reconstruction of the New Colonies, Vol 2, 387.
45 For an extensive survey of the British and non-British colonies and settler societies that imported indentured labor from India and China, see Northrup, Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism.
46 In China, he specifically visited Hong Kong, Canton, Swatow, Amoy, Foochow, Shanghai, Chefoo, Tientsing, and Tongshan.
47 Report of Mr. H. Ross Skinner to the Witwatersrand Labour Association, National Archives Repository, Pretoria (NAR), Transvaal Archives Depot (TAD), Foreign Labour Department (FLD) 131/20 Emigration Matters in China, General Policy, 22 Sept. 1903. Also see Sacks, South Africa, 34; and Worsfold, Reconstruction of the New Colonies, Vol I, 300–1.
48 That is, (1) the deployment of people from China through a system of indentureship was not a new global phenomenon in 1903 and (2) South African mine owners and the association representing them were in tune with the broader world and borrowed strategies from beyond.
49 The commissioning of Skinner's investigation was preceded by the convening of a special Labour Commission by Lord Alfred Milner, who was appointed high commissioner to South Africa prior to the Anglo–Boer War and, later, governor of the Transvaal. Beginning on 3 July 1903, this committee sat for thirty-two days in Johannesburg to address growing grievances related to a shortage of unskilled labor in the aftermath of the war. Its objective was “to take expert evidence and inquire into the amount of labour necessary for the requirements of the agricultural, mining and other interests in the Transvaal, and, so far as possible, to obtain an adequate supply of labour from Central and South Africa” (Imperial South African Association, “The Chinese Labour Question,” 3).
50 Bailey, Speeches on the Chinese Question, 3; Halpérin, Lord Milner and the Empire, 140–2; Imperial South African Association, “The Chinese Labour Question,” 3–4; New Reform Club, “British Workmen or Chinese Slaves,” 13–4; Phillips, Transvaal Problems, 43–4; and Worsfold, Reconstruction of the New Colonies, Vol I, 271–2.
51 Bailey, Speeches on the Chinese Question, 3; Davies, “Mining Capital, The State and Unskilled White Workers in South Africa,” 47; New Reform Club, “British Workmen or Chinese Slaves,” 14–6; Phillips, Transvaal Problems, 44; and Worsfold, Reconstruction of the New Colonies, Vol I, 272–3. Between the two reports, Worsfold informs us that “the Inter-Colonial Commission, consisting of members representative of all the British colonies and basing its estimate upon a field of evidence so wide that it included in addition to missionaries, traders, and native officials, practically all persons whose opinions on native affairs were entitled to consideration, after nearly two years of patient research completely confirmed the findings of the Majority Report of the Transvaal Labour Commission as to the great numerical deficiency of African labour and its complete inability to meet the needs of South Africa at the time” (Worsfold, Reconstruction of the New Colonies, Vol I, 272–3).
52 Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin.
53 Rose, Uncle Tom's Cabin Up-to-Date, 7.
54 Dr. Clifford has noted:
-
And yet these foreigners who sell men for gold are declaring that this system must remain “undisturbed.” Never! It must go. It is building the Empire on the blood of souls. It is not a “necessity.” It is a wanton iniquity. It is not “freedom”; and it is shuffling of the meanest kind to say that it is not “slavery.” Let Britisher realize their responsibility and bring to a speedy and final end this return to barbarism! (English Eye Witness, John Chinaman on the Rand, viii.)
55 Rose, Uncle Tom's Cabin Up-to-Date, 2.
56 Liberal Publication Department, “Spirit of Slavery,” 4.
57 New Reform Club, “Resolution. Chinese Slavery,” 3l.
58 Ibid., 4.
59 The ministers consisted of Amos Burnet (Wesleyan chairman of the district and vice-president curch cuncil), John C. Harris (congregational minister and secretary church council), and N.A. Ross (Presbyterian minister and member of the executive of church council). Imperial South African Association, “Free Church Approval”.
60 Imperial South African Association, “Chinese Labour. Dignified Rebuke”; also see Grant, Civilised Savagery, 93–4.
61 Imperial South African Association, “Chinese Labour. Dignified Rebuke,” 1–2.
62 Also see Liberal Publication Department, Chinese Labour Question, 8.
63 GCB = Knight Grand Cross (British order of chivalry). MP = Member of Parliament. In addition, Sir Henry became the prime minister of Britain when the Liberal Party won the election in 1906.
64 Liberal Publication Department, Chinese Labour Question, 11.
65 Ibid.
66 Grant, Civilised Savagery, 82–4.
67 Liberal Publications Department, “Chinese Slavery in a British Colony.”; and Rose, Uncle Tom's Cabin Up-to-Date, 15-6.
68 Liberal Publication Department, Chinese Labour Question, 8.
69 Ibid., 9. One of the reasons given in a pamphlet for supporting the Government's position to import Chinese labor reads: “4. Because there will be 150 more places open to British skilled labourers for every 1,000 Chinaman who go to the Transvaal” (Imperial South African Association, “Chinese Labour. Five Reasons”).
70 For more views on the opportunities that the Chinese would create, see Imperial South African Association, “The Colonial Secretary at Stratford,” 4; Imperial South African Association, “The Chinese Labour Question,” 7; and Worsfold, Reconstruction of the New Colonies, Vol I, 275–6.
71 Liberal Publication Department, Chinese Labour Question, 9.
72 New Reform Club, “British Workmen or Chinese Slaves,” 10.
73 Rose, Uncle Tom's Cabin Up-to-Date, 8; and New Reform Club, “Resolution. Chinese Slavery,” 7.
74 For details regarding Cresswell's trial with white labor, see Bailey, Speeches on the Chinese Question, 8–10; and Imperial South African Association, “The Chinese Labour Question,” 5–6. Other evaluations of his trial by a committee of experts and the majority of the Labour Commission, presenting the impracticability of employing white/European laborers on the mines, are available in Worsfold, Reconstruction of the New Colonies, Vol. I, 284–5 and 286–8.
75 Tarbutt (1904) cited in New Reform Club, “British Workmen or Chinese Slaves,” 11; Liberal Publication Department, Chinese Labour Question, 9; Liberal Publication Department, “Chinese Slavery in a British Colony,” 1–2; and Rose, Uncle Tom's Cabin Up-to-Date, 7.
76 New Reform Club, “British Workmen or Chinese Slaves,” 10; also see Liberal Publication Department, Chinese Labour Question,18.
77 Iwan-Müller, Lord Milner and South Africa, 714–9.
78 Halpérin, Lord Milner and the Empire, 126; and Worsfold, Reconstruction of the New Colonies, Vol 1, 2–9.
79 Liberal Publication Department, Chinese Labour Question. Speeches by the Right Hon. Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, 9.
80 Worsfold, Reconstruction of the New Colonies, Vol I, 276–7.
81 We should note that captions on the postcards hint at the fact that even the seemingly innocuous activities was interpreted as evidence of cunning and peculiar ways, intimating how Chinese stereotypes served to unite disparate views of the Chinese labor question.
82 Imperial South African Association, “The Chinese Labour Question,” 4–5; also see Bailey, Speeches on the Chinese Question, 13; Phillips, Transvaal Problems, 62–3.
83 According to the Draft Ordinance amended and submitted for the third reading in the Legislative Council of the Transvaal, “ ‘unskilled labour’ means such labour as is usually performed in mines in the Witwatersrand District by persons belonging to the aboriginal races or tribes of Africa south of the Equator” (New Reform Club, “Chinese Labour Ordinance,” 2).
84 Worsfold, Reconstruction of the New Colonies, Vol I, 281.
85 Imperial South African Association, “The Colonial Secretary at Stratford,” 4.
86 For instance, the ISAA, believing that the British working man had a choice in the matter, proclaims that “no British working man would do the work at the rate of pay and under the conditions which are all that the mine-owners can afford to pay, and the climate and condition of the country render possible” (Imperial South African Association, “The Chinese Labour Question,” 4).
87 Worsfold, Reconstruction of the New Colonies, Vol I, 281; also see Bailey, Speeches on the Chinese Question, 12; and Phillips, Transvaal Problems, 64–6.
88 Worsfold, Reconstruction of the New Colonies, Vol I, 281.
89 Imperial South African Association, “The Chinese Labour Question,” 5; also see Phillips, Transvaal Problems, 63–4.
90 Stoler, “Making Empire Respectable.”
91 Such circumstance implores the question: “Was, then, the white man, simply because he was a white man, to be paid three times as much as the black man for doing the same amount of work” (Worsfold, Reconstruction of the New Colonies, Vol I, 281) to which we must add, especially if he could not work alongside the black man or engage in the same kind of work to exploit the mines where labor was in demand? Worsfold replies that this would be “demoralising alike to the black and white labourer” (Worsfold, Reconstruction of the New Colonies, Vol I, 281–2), especially for the white laborer because, when placed in competition with blacks, would soon realize that he could be outperformed (becoming the inferior laborer). On the other hand, under no circumstance should white men be employed at the same level as Africans because they would expose unaware Africans to their aspirations for the high positions of mine overseer or manager by “pull[ing] down their superiors” (Phillips, Transvaal Problems, 66–7). Inherent in this view is the belief that whites and non-whites possess discrete qualities: whites being naturally inclined to improve their conditions and non-whites’ to accept manual labor.
92 Imperial South African Association, “The Chinese Labour Question,” 6.
93 Ibid.
94 Ibid.
95 Ibid.; also see Van Onselen, Fox and the Flies.
96 Bailey, Speeches on the Chinese Question, 11 and 13.
97 Imperial South African Association, “The Chinese Labour Question,” 6.
98 Bailey, Speeches on the Chinese Question, 11.
99 Imperial South African Association, “The Chinese Labour Question,” 7.
100 Among a long list of crimes, the Chinese laborers were sentenced for absenteeism, housebreaking, and housebreaking with intent to harm.
101 Sontag, “The Image World,” 93.
102 Coysh, Dictionary of Picture Postcards in Britain, 9; and Woody, “International Postcards,” 13.
103 As previously mentioned in the paper, these included Swedes, Lithuanians, and Russian Poles, who were Jews (Van Onselen, Fox and the Flies, 150), but also Hungarians and Italians (Sacks, South Africa, 53).