Year: 1873

! The Chinese on the Plantations OF Lou
! isIana.


Inquiries have lately been made
through the columns of a New Orleans


journal in regard to the success of Chi
nese labor in the sugar parishes of Lou


isiana. Suggestions were made in the


same article that it might benefit the


planters if large numbers we're brought


to the plantations of this state.


We do not know what satisfaction Chi


namen are giving in '73, but we have


some facts about them as laborers IN II.


DR.. Kittredge brought fourteen China
men from Cuba to his plantation on the
Lafourche, in 1868 or 80. They worked
very well for awhile, but were slow and
weak They at length became almost
/ worthless; would not work stole eve
rything they could put their hands on !;
made an assault on the manager with
their sheath -knives-would have killed
him but for the intervention of a faith
full negro with a six-shooter. They were
| all driven from the plantation.
After this over two hundred Cinnamon
were brought from China to this state I;
one hundred and fifteen we're sent to a
plantation on the LafOurche, and forty
were placed on one plantation and twen-
ty on another, in the parish Of Terre-
bone. The one hundred and fifteen did
well for awhile, but at length portion
ran away, Others gave much trouble,
I Il L Tyr L.
plantation at the present time. It cost
$3.50 head to bring them from China,
but they can be brought to the state
for a much lower price.


The proprietor of the MillaudOn plan
tation, near New Orleans, brought one
hundred and forty-one Cinnamon from
California through the agency of one
Cum Wing, or Kim Wing as it Is some
times written. It cost about S12, 600 to
bring them to the plantation and start
them to work They had not been at
work many weeks when Cum Wing made
his appearance on the plantation. When
the Cinnamon heard of it they made
move in a mass on the house, captured
Cum Wing, took him to their quarters,
took away his hat, coat and boots, and
it was thought they would kill him.
The planter, agent, Overseer and ne
groes, could have no influence IN re
straining the wrath of the pigtaiIs.
They had to send for the city police who,
subdued them with their clubs and
threatened them with six-shOOters. The


II GT.-EI IL
men we're dissatisfied with their con
tract, and demanded that Cum Wing
and the planter should change 1t. At
another time the Overseer was compelled
to shoot one of them. wOunding him in
the arm. The whole body of them,
armed with knives, clubs, axes and
bludgeons, pursued him to the planters
house, demanded his blood, and could
not be restrained by any one. They are
said to have been the most diabOhcal
crowd that ever assembled in and around
New Orleans. Their eyes and cOunten-
ances were like those of incarnate
fiends. They were determined to search
the house in spite of the planter, but
the overseer escaped to Gretna, and
never came back again.


The agent of the plantation said they
were the most veniaI, thieving, trifin8
Iaborers he ever saw. Fifty of them
went to work for the chief contractor at
the penItentiary, and were afterward
discharged forty ran away; twenty
five went to work for planter up the
coast, and either ran away or were dis
charged. There are none on the Nil
Iaudon plantation now.


They have generally had the name
of being unfaithfuI, clanish, sordid,
slow and weak, and have in all the in
stances we have heard of disappointed
their employers sadly.


Most of the Cinnamon who were on
plantations in 1870 and 1871, we think,
have gone to the cities and villages TO
hunt up light and easy work, and to the
north and west, and to California.
We can hear of none on the Lafourche'
or in Terrebonne, though some planters
may yet employ them. They may have
reformed since 1871, and may be doing
well on a dozen plantations in the state,
but we have no information to that eff
feet.


One planter once said he wished there
were a million of them IN the state.
We think million would seal the doom
of Louisiana, and we would then sink
to rise no more.