Coolie

Coolie(also spelledkoelie,kouli,khuli,khulie,kuli,cooli,cooly, orquli) is apejorative termused for low-wagelabourers, typically those ofIndianor Chinese descent.
The wordcooliewas first used in the 16th century by European traders across Asia. In the 18th century, the term more commonly referred to migrantIndian indentured labourers. In the 19th century, during theBritish colonial era, the term was adopted for the transportation and employment of Asian labourers viaemployment contractsonsugar plantationsformerly worked by enslaved Africans.
The word has had a variety of negative implications. In modern-day English; it is usually regarded as offensive.In the 21st century,coolieis generally considered aracial slurfor Asians inOceania, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Americas; particularly in theCaribbean.
The word originated in the 17th-centuryIndian subcontinentand meant "day labourer"; starting in the 20th century, the word was used inBritish Raj Indiato refer toportersat railway stations.The term differs from the word "Dougla", which refers to people of mixed African and Indian ancestry.Coolieis 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 inSouth Africa,Eastern Africancountries,Trinidad and Tobago,Guyana,Suriname,Jamaica, other parts of theCaribbean,Mauritius,Fiji, and theMalay Peninsula.
In modern Indian popular culture, coolies have often been portrayed as working-class heroes or anti-heroes.Indian filmscelebrating coolies includeDeewaar(1975),Coolie(1983), and several films titledCoolie No. 1(released in1991,1995, and2020). A new Tamil movie titledCooliestarringRajinikanthis set to release in 2025.
It is generally understood that the term comes from theHindiandTeluguwordkulī(कुली),(కూలి), meaning "day-labourer", which is probably associated with theUrduwordquli(قلی), meaning "slave".The Urdu word is thought to come from theTamilwordkulī("hire" or "hireling").The wordkūli, meaning "wages", is present throughout theDravidian languagefamily, with the exception of the North Dravidian branch.
It is also thought that the Hindi wordqulīcould have originated from the name of a Gujarati aboriginal tribe or caste.
The Chinese wordkǔlì(苦力) is an instance ofphono-semantic matchingthat literally translates to "bitter strength" but is more commonly understood as "hard labour".
In 1727,Engelbert Kämpferdescribedcooliesas dock labourers who would unload Dutch merchant ships atNagasakiin Japan.
Merriam-Websterclassifies the termcoolieas "usually offensive".Oxford English Dictionarystates it is "dated, offensive".Dictionary.comconsiders it "disparaging and offensive".
The importation of Asian labourers intoEuropean coloniesoccurred as early as the 17th century.However, in the 19th century, a far more robust system of trade involving coolies occurred, in direct response to the gradual abolition of both theAtlantic slave tradeandslaveryitself, which for centuries had served as the preferred mode of labour inEuropean colonies in the Americas.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 theplantationsthere.The "Trinidad experiment" was not a success, with only twenty to thirty labourers remaining in Trinidad by the 1820s.However, such efforts inspiredSir John Gladstone, one of the earliest proponents of coolie labour, to seek out coolies for hissugar plantationsinBritish Guianain the hopes of replacing his Afro-Caribbean labour force after theabolition of slavery there in 1833.
Social and political pressure led to the abolition of slavery throughout theBritish Empirein 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.As a consequence, a large-scale trade of primarily Indian and Chineseindentured labourersbegan 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 theFirst World War.Other European nations, especially colonial powers such as France, Spain, and Portugal, soon followed suit, especially as Britain, through several treaties such asStrangford Treatyand theTreaty of Paris of 1814, also pressured other nations to abolish their involvement in the Atlantic slave trade.In most European colonies, the importation of Asian labourers began in earnest after the abolition of slavery. However, in some colonies, such asCuba, slavery would not end until 1886, about forty years after coolies were introduced.
A number of contemporary and modern historians noted the influence of the old form of colonial slavery on the coolie system.The coolie trade, much like the slave trade, was intended to provide a labour force for colonial plantations in the Americas and the Pacific whosecash cropswere in high demand across theAtlantic World.Coolies frequently worked onslave plantationswhich 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.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 theJournal 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.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.
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.Regulations were put in place as early as 1837 by theBritish authorities in Indiato safeguard these principles of voluntary, contractual work and safe, sanitary transportation. TheChinese governmentalso 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 towardsabolition, to gradually and peacefully replace African slave labour without loss of profit.However, other abolitionist groups and individuals – such as the BritishAnti-Slavery Societyand theBritish and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, along with American abolitionistWilliam Lloyd Garrison– were highly critical of coolie labour.Proslaveryadvocates, particularly in theSouthern United States, condemned coolie labour but used it to argue against the abolition ofAmerican slavery, claiming the latter was more "humane" than the former.
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 ofclan violencewhose captors sold them to coolie merchants, while others sold themselves to pay off gambling debts.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.
Workers from China were mainly transported to work inPeruandCuba. However, many Chinese labourers worked in British colonies such asSingapore,New South Wales,Jamaica,British Guiana(nowGuyana),British Malaya,Trinidad and Tobago,British Honduras(nowBelize), as well as in the Dutch colonies within theDutch East IndiesandSuriname.The first shipment of Chinese labourers was to the British colony ofTrinidadin 1806 "in an attempt to establish a settlement of free peasant cultivators and labourers". On many of the voyages, the labourers were transported on the same vessels that had been used to transport African slaves in previous years.
The coolie slave trade run by American captains and local agents, mainly consisting ofdebt slavery, was called the 'pig trade' as the living conditions were not dissimilar to that of livestock; on some vessels as many as 40 per cent of the coolies died en route.As many as 500 were crammed into a single ship hold, leaving no room to move.The coolies were also stamped on their backs like livestock. Foreign merchants took advantage of theunequal treatiesnegotiated between the Qing government and Western powers after theOpium Wars, as well as the resulting political and economic instability, to broker deals for "contracted" workers. Anglophone capitalists referred to the opium trade and captive Chinese labour as "poison and pigs".
Portuguese Macaowas the center of coolie slavery: it was described as "the only real business" in Macao from 1848 to 1873, generating enormous profits for the Portuguese until it was banned due to pressure from the British government.Between 1851 and 1874 approximately 215,000 Chinese were shipped from Macau overseas, primarily to Cuba and Peru, with some being shipped to Guiana, Suriname, andCosta Rica.These coolies were obtained via a variety of sources, including some who were entrapped by brokers in Macau through loans for gambling, and others who were kidnapped or coerced.
In 1847, two ships from Cuba transported workers toHavanato work in the sugar cane fields from the port ofXiamen, one of the five Chinesetreaty portsopened to the British by theTreaty of Nankingin 1842. The trade soon spread to other ports inGuangdong, and demand became particularly strong in Peru for workers in thesilver minesand theguanocollecting industry.Australia began importing workers in 1848. These workers were deceived about their terms of employment to a much greater extent than their Indian counterparts, and consequently, there was a much higher level of Chinese emigration during this period.
The trade flourished from 1847 to 1854 without incident, until reports began to surface of the mistreatment of the workers in Cuba and Peru. As the British government had political and legal responsibility for many of the ports involved – includingAmoy– such ports were immediately closed. Despite these closures, the trade simply shifted to the more accommodating port within the Portuguese enclave ofMacau.
Many coolies were first deceived or kidnapped, and then kept inbarracoons(detention centres) or loading vessels in the ports of departure, as wereAfrican slaves. Their voyages, which are sometimes called the Pacific Passage, were as inhumane and dangerous as the notoriousMiddle Passageof theAtlantic slave trade.Mortality was very high; it is estimated that from 1847 to 1859, the average mortality rate for coolies aboard ships to Cuba was 15.2%, and losses among ships to Peru were as high as 40% in the 1850s, and 30.4% from 1860 to 1863.
Coolies were sold and taken to work in plantations or mines with very bad living and working conditions. The duration of a contract was typically five to eight years, but many coolies did not live out their term of service due to hard labour and mistreatment. Survivors were often forced to remain in servitude beyond the contracted period. The1860 Reglamento para la introducción de trabajadores chinos a la isla de Cuba(Regulation for the Introduction of Chinese Workers to the Island of Cuba) passed in Cuba. This regulation stipulated that the Coolie workers must recontract with their previous employer or another employer or they must leave Cuba at their own expense within 2 months after the end of their contract. Coolies were usually unable to afford to leave Cuba and were forced to recontract. This regulation blurred the distinction between indentured servitude and slavery. It allowed for the Coolies to serve as a source of semi-captive labour given the intentional difficulty of returning home.
The coolies who worked on the sugar plantations in Cuba and in the guano beds of theChincha Islands('the islands of Hell') of Peru were treated brutally. 75% of the Chinese coolies in Cuba died before fulfilling their contracts. More than two-thirds of the Chinese coolies who arrived in Peru between 1849 and 1874 died within the contract period. In 1860, it was calculated that of the 4,000 coolies brought to the Chinchas since the trade began, not one had survived.
Because of these unbearable conditions, Chinese coolies often revolted against their Ko-Hung bossesand foreign company bosses at ports of departure, on ships, and in foreign lands. The coolies were put in the same neighbourhoods as Africans and, since most were unable to return to their homeland or have their wives come to the New World, many married African women. The coolies' interracial relationships and marriages with Africans, Europeans, andIndigenous peoples, formed some of the modern world'sAfro-AsianandAsian Latin Americanpopulations.
In Spanish, coolies were referred to ascolonos asiáticos('Asian colonists').TheSpanish colony of Cubafearedslave uprisingssuch as those thattook place in Haiti, and used coolies as a transition between slaves and free labour. They were neither free nor slaves. Indentured Chinese servants also laboured in thesugarcanefields of Cuba well after the 1884 abolition of slavery in the country. Two scholars of Chinese labour in Cuba, Juan Pastrana andJuan Pérez de la Riva, substantiated horrific conditions of Chinese coolies in Cubaand stated that coolies were slaves in all but name.Researcher Denise Helly believes that despite their slave-like treatment, the free and legal status of the Asian labourers in Cuba separated them from slaves. According to Rodriguez Pastor and Trazegnies Granda, the coolies could challenge their superiors, run away, petition government officials, and rebel.
By 1870, labour contractors called enganchadores were used to manage and negotiate the contracts for Chinese Coolies in organised labour squads called Cuadrillas. "The enganchador negotiated all terms of work for his squad and handled all aspects of employment for the workers, including obtaining advances from the planters for salaries, distributing tools, arranging housing and food, and assuming responsibility for discipline, control, and supervision." (Hu-DeHart). The enganchador had flexibility in the length of the Coolies' recontract. The Coolie was also able to negotiate their wages and often had the upper hand as the employer had to yield to market forces. "Recontracting terms varied considerably. A batch of recontracts from the period 1863 to 1877 reveals great variation in the terms of the new contracts, diverging not only from the original ones, but from each other. First, most coolies signed up for only one year, at most two years, and some for as few as three and six months – all far short of another eight years. Second, the monthly wages not only varied, but were always greater than the 4 pesos in the original contracts, in some cases significantly greater. Many specified payment in "peso fuerte," that is, hard currency, not vouchers, which was often used during the eight year original indenture." (Hu-DeHart).
Once they had fulfilled their contracts,colonos asiáticosintegrated into the countries of Peru, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. They adopted cultural traditions from the natives and welcomed non-Chinese to experience and participate in their traditions.Before theCuban Revolutionin 1959,Havanahad Latin America's largestChinatown.
Fromc.1902–1910, theChinese Engineering and Mining Companywas instrumental in supplying Chinese coolie labour to South African mines at the request of mine owners, who considered such labour cheaper than native African and white labour.The horrendous conditions suffered by Indian coolie labourers in South Africa led some politicians in theBritish Parliamentto question the coolie system.
In 1866, the British, French and Chinese governments agreed to mitigate the abuse by requiring all traders to pay for the return of all workers after their contract ended. The employers in theBritish West Indiesdeclined these conditions, bringing the trade there to an end. Until the trade was finally abolished in 1875, over 150,000 coolies had been sold to Cuba alone, the majority having been shipped from Macau. These labourers endured conditions far worse than those experienced by their Indian counterparts. Even after the 1866 reforms, the scale of abuse and conditions of near slavery did not get any better – if anything they deteriorated. In the early 1870s, an increased media exposure of the trade led to a public outcry, and the British, as well as the Chinese government, put pressure on the Portuguese colonial authorities in Macau to bring the trade there to an end; this was ultimately achieved in 1874.By that time, a total of up to half a million Chinese workers had been exported.However, by 1890, there were still newspaper reports of coolie labour being used in Madagascar.
The termcooliewas also applied to Chinese workers recruited for contracts oncacao plantationsinGerman Samoa. German planters went to great lengths to secure access to their coolie labour supply from China. In 1908, a Chinese commissioner, Lin Shu Fen, reported on the cruel treatment of coolie workers on German plantations in the western Samoan Islands. The trade began largely after the establishment of colonial German Samoa in 1900 and lasted until the arrival of New Zealand forces in 1914. More than 2,000 Chinese coolies were present in the islands in 1914 and most were eventually repatriated by the New Zealand administration.
Debates over coolie labour and slavery was key in shaping the history of Chinese immigrants in the U.S. In February 1862, "An Act to Prohibit the 'Coolie Trade' by American Citizens in American vessels", also known as theAnti-Coolie Act, was signed into law by Abraham Lincoln, which prohibited any U.S. citizens and residents from trading in Chinese subjects, known as "coolies".In one aspect, the Anti-Coolie Act was the last of the U.S. slave trade laws, as well as the beginning of the end of slavery; in September of that year, Lincoln would also issue theEmancipation Proclamation. In another aspect, it was the beginning of Chinese exclusion in the U.S. and the beginning of federal immigration restriction. Within a decade, significant levels of anti-Chinese sentiment had built up, stoked by populists such asDenis Kearneywith racist slogans – "To an American, death is preferable to life on a par with the Chinese."
In 1868, theBurlingame Treatywould ensure certain protections for Chinese immigrants in the U.S. and emphasise that any Chinese immigration to the U.S. must be free and voluntary, reaffirming that "coolies", being unfree, were unwelcome and prohibited from entering the U.S. In 1875, Congress passed thePage Act, which prohibited the bringing of any Chinese subjects without their consent in order to hold them for a term of service. In 1882, theChinese Exclusion Actbarred the entry of any Chinese labourer to the U.S.
Despite attempts to restrict the influx of cheap labour from China, beginning in the 1870s Chinese workers helped construct a vast network ofleveesin theSacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. These levees made thousands of acres of fertilemarshlandsavailable for agricultural production. AlthoughChinese workerscontributed to the building of thefirst transcontinental railroadin the United States and of theCanadian Pacific Railwayin western Canada, Chinese settlement was discouraged after completion of the construction. State legislation, such as California'sForeign Miners' Tax Actof 1850 and 1852, would target Chinese immigrants in the U.S. The 1879Constitution of Californiadeclared that "Asiatic coolieism is a form of human slavery, and is forever prohibited in this State, and all contracts for coolie labour shall be void."
In 1938, U.S. PresidentFranklin D. Rooseveltused the term in one of hisfireside chats(Number 13, 24 July 1938) while telling a story about "two Chinese coolies" arguing in a crowd.
In South America, Chinese indentured labourers worked in Peru's silver mines and coastal industries (i.e.,guano, sugar, and cotton) from the early 1850s to the mid-1870s; about 100,000 people immigrated asindenturedworkers. They participated in theWar of the Pacific, looting and burning down thehaciendaswhere they worked after thecapture of Limaby the invading Chilean army in January 1880. Some 2,000 coolies even joined the Chilean Army in Peru, taking care of the wounded and burying the dead. Others were sent by Chileans to work in the newly conquerednitrate fields.
By the 1820s, many Indians were voluntarily enlisting to go abroad for work, in the hopes of a better life. European merchants and businessmen quickly took advantage of this and began recruiting them for work as a cheap source of labour.British merchants began transporting Indians to colonies around the world, includingMauritius,Fiji,New South Wales,Natal,Kenya,Tanganyika,Somaliland,Bechuanaland,Seychelles,Uganda,Northern Rhodesia,Southern Rhodesia,Nyasaland,British Guiana,Trinidad and Tobago,Jamaica,Saint Lucia,Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,Grenada,Saint Kitts and Nevis,British Honduras,Barbados, the rest of theBritish West Indies, andBritish Malaya. The Dutch shipped workers to labour on the plantations onSurinam, theNetherlands Antilles, and theDutch East Indies. TheFrenchshipped labourers toGuadeloupe,Martinique,French Guiana, the rest of theFrench West Indies, andRéunion.
A system of agents was used to infiltrate the rural villages of India and recruit labourers. They would often deceive the credulous workers about the great opportunities that awaited them for their own material betterment abroad. The Indians primarily came from theIndo-Gangetic Plain, but also fromTamil Naduand other areas to the south of the country.Indians had faced a great number of social and economic disasters, causing them to be more eager than other groups to leave India. In the last part of the nineteenth century alone, there were 24 famines.
Without permission from theBritish colonial authorities, the French transported Indian workers to their Pacific colony, Réunion, from as early as 1826. By 1830, over 3,000 labourers had been transported. After this trade was discovered, the French successfully negotiated with the British in 1860 for permission to transport over 6,000 workers annually, on condition that the trade would be suspended if abuses were discovered to be taking place.
The British began to transport Indians toMauritiusstarting in 1829. Slavery was abolished there in 1833, with Mauritian planters receiving two million pounds sterling in compensation for the loss of their slaves. The planters turned to bringing in a large number ofindentured labourersfrom India to work in the sugar cane fields. Between 1834 and 1921, around half a million indentured labourers were present on the island. They worked on sugar estates, factories, in transport, and on construction sites.
In 1837, theBritish East India Companyissued a set of regulations for the trade. The rules provided for each labourer to be personally authorised for transportation by an officer designated by the company, limited the length of service to five years subject to voluntary renewal, made the contractor responsible for returning the worker after the contract elapsed, and required the vessels to conform to basichealth standards.
Despite this, conditions on the ships were often extremely crowded, with rampant disease andmalnutrition. Coolies were also not informed about the length of the trip or about the island that they would be going to.The workers were paid a pittance for their labour, and were expected to work in often awful and harsh conditions. Although there were no large-scale scandals involving coolie abuse in British colonies, workers often ended up being forced to work, and manipulated in such a way that they became dependent on the plantation owners so that in practice they remained there long after their contracts expired; possibly as little as 10% of the coolies actually returned to their original country of origin. Colonial legislation was also passed to severely limit their freedoms; in Mauritius, a compulsorypass systemwas instituted to enable their movements to be easily tracked. Conditions were much worse in the French colonies of Réunion, Guadeloupe, and Martinique, where workers were 'systematically overworked' and abnormally highmortality rateswere recorded for those working in the mines.Generally, Indian coolies were noted to have higher mortality rates as a whole, and were less likely to be able to return home.Companies would often promise good food, durable clothing, adequate housing, safe passage, and schools. However, these promises were rarely kept, leading to the higher mortality rate and image of Indian coolies being "dirty".
The voyage itself was often a highly dangerous venture, especially for coolie women. Though some ships had made attempts to prevent assault, rape, and general mistreatment in sailor contracts, these crimes were still common. Even with punishments in place, on ship and land, men who assaulted women and children were rarely punished, leaving women in an even more vulnerable position.
However, there were also attempts by the British authorities to regulate and mitigate the worst abuses. Workers were regularly checked up on byhealth inspectors, and they were vetted before transportation to ensure that they were suitably healthy and fit to be able to endure the rigours of labour. Children under the age of 15 were not allowed to be transported from their parents under any circumstances.
The first campaign in England against the coolie trade likened the system of indentured labour to the slavery of the past. The campaign against coolie emigration was led byJoseph Sturge, with the Society of Friends. Petitions from Sturge, the Society of Friends, various other humanitarian groups, and from citizens of entire cities were routinely sent to the Colonial Offices.In response to this pressure, the labour export was temporarily stopped in 1839 by the authorities when the scale of the abuses became known, but it was soon renewed due to its growing economic importance. A more rigorous regulatory framework was put into place andsevere penaltieswere imposed for infractions in 1842. In that year, almost 35,000 people were shipped to Mauritius.
In 1844, the trade was expanded to the colonies in theWest Indies, including Jamaica, Trinidad, andDemerara, where the Asian population was soon a major component of the island demographic.
Starting in 1879, many Indians were transported to Fiji to work on thesugarcaneplantations. Many of themchose to stayafter their term of indenture elapsed, and today their descendants account for about 40% of the total population. Indian workers were also imported into the Dutch colony of Surinam after the Dutchsigned a treaty with the United Kingdom on the recruitment of contract workersin 1870. In Mauritius, the Indian population is now demographically dominant, with Indian festivals being celebrated asnational holidays.
This system prevailed until the early twentieth century. Increasing focus on the brutalities and abuses of the trade by thesensationalistmedia of the time incited public outrage and led to the official ending of the coolie trade in 1916 by the British government. By that time, tens of thousands of Chinese workers were being used along theWestern Frontby theallied forces(seeChinese Labour Corps).
A major difference between the Chinese and Indian coolie trades was that women and children were brought from India, along with men, while Chinese coolies were 99% male.Although there are reports of ships (so called 'coolie ships')for Asian coolies carrying women and children, the great majority of them carried men. This led to a high rate of Chinese men marrying women of other ethnicities, such as Indian women and mixed-race Creole women.
The contrast in the female-to-male ratio between Indian and Chinese immigrants has been compared by historians.In Sumatra in the Dutch East Indies, just 18,731 Chinese women and 92,985 Chinese men served as coolies on plantations.Chinese women migrated less than Javanese and Indian women as indentured coolies.The number of Chinese women as coolies was "very small" while Chinese men were easily taken into the coolie trade.In Cuba, men made up the vast majority of Chinese indentured servants on sugar plantations; in Peru, non-Chinese women married the mostly male Chinese coolies.Polyandrywas a common practice among Indian coolies.Between 1845 and 1917, twenty-five per cent of all Indians brought to the Caribbean were women. With women as a severe minority, their morality was questioned and the actions of men as a result of having so few women was blamed on the women. Between 1858 and 1859, laws were put into place stating that the ratio of men to women could not exceed 2:1, whereas before it was 3:1. However, there continued to be a severe shortage of women. This gave women a new sense of power when it came to choosing a partner. With a shortage of women, it became the responsibility of the male suitor to provide a hefty dowry to a woman's father, regardless of what caste she came from.Unfortunately, this also put women in a very vulnerable position, especially when alone. Rape was a common occurrence, and there were accounts of women being bound and gagged in their own homes by men. Between 1872 and 1900, it was reported that 87 women were murdered, with 65 of those being married women who were accused of being unfaithful.
The scarcity of Indian women in the Caribbean may not have been completely due to the women's inability to perform the work required of them. Many coolie women saw the chance to leave for the Caribbean as a way to escape abusive husbands, to hide pregnancy, to escape shame, or to simply find a better life. The 1883 Indian Immigration Act aimed to stop women from escaping their abusive husbands, which in turn made it much more difficult for women to emigrate, partially because an agent was usually needed to travel to the woman's village to verify her identity.
Chinese women were scarce in every place where Chinese indentured labourers were brought; the migration was dominated by Chinese men.Up to the 1940s, men made up the vast majority of the Costa Rican Chinese community.Similarly, males made up the majority of the original Chinese community in Mexico, and they often married Mexican women.
One stark difference between Indian and Chinese coolies was the treatment of women, despite both groups having a severe shortage. Crimes against women (including murder) were far more frequent among Indian coolies. This was simply because there were so few Chinese women. However, it became common for people to instead believe that Indians murder their women while Chinese women stay alive because, unlike their Indian counterparts, they are chaste.
In the early 1900s, the Chinese communities in Manila, Singapore, Mauritius, New Zealand, Victoria in Australia, the United States, and Victoria in British Columbia in Canada were all male dominated.Though the lack of women became a problem in later years, initially women were not a high priority during coolie recruitment. Generally, it was believed that women were unwilling to perform the hard outdoor labour. Those willing to perform it were still seen as not as good as men.
Some Chinese coolies managed to avoid racial discrimination laws in Cuba and marry white women. This could be done by being listed as 'white' on their baptism certificates, as the agency that recruited them was meant for settling white people in Cuba.A Chinese coolie in Cuba also mentioned a white female master in a deposition.
In 2000, the parliament ofSouth Africaenacted thePromotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, 2000. Section 10 covers the prohibition ofhate speechterms, such as 'coolie' (koelie). The main objectives of the Act were:
Deewaar(1975) is an Indiancrime dramawritten bySalim–Javedabout a dockyard coolie, Vijay Verma (Amitabh Bachchan), who turns to a life of crime and becomes aBombay underworldsmuggler, inspired by the real-lifeIndian mafiadonHaji Mastan.Coolie(1983) is an IndianBollywoodfilm 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. AdditionalIndian filmsabout coolies includeCoolie No. 1(1991),Coolie(1995),Coolie No. 1(1995),Coolie(2004),Coolie No. 1(2019), andCoolie No. 1(2020).
The 2014chutneysong titled "Coolie Bai Dance" by theIndo-Guyanesesinger Romeo "Mystic" Nermal is about the lifestyle of the traditional "coolie" (Indo-Caribbean) villagers inGuyanaand the rest of theCaribbean.