Office of the Historian

No. 242.
Mr. Gibbs to Mr. Fish.

Legation of the United States,
Lima, Peru, November 13, 1876. (Received December 14.)
No. 107.]

Sir: * * * * * *

Since the receipt of your dispatch I have devoted some attention to the status of the Chinese in this country, having previously visited some of the large sugar-estates and noticed the manner in which they were treated, and also have gathered information from trustworthy persons who testified to their treatment at various places in the republic. I have come to the conclusion that they were treated as slaves were in former times in the United States, and as I have seen slaves and Chinese used in Cuba during many years of residence there. On some plantations they received every attention due to their position and wants; on others, treatment of the most barbarous kind, worse than brutes.

I think there has been a great change for the better latterly, as I seldom now see articles in the papers of their revolting against the overseers of the plantations, and believe the slaves are treated better in all parts of the country. I account for this in various ways; principally policy on the part of their employers, and partly because the Chinese who have been here such a length of time have acquired a knowledge of their rights and demand them, and sometimes take what they think is law in their own hands by murdering the owner or overseer of the plantation.

Here in Lima, at Callao, and other ports on the coast, there are great numbers of them who have served the time of contract or have in some cases purchased it, and they enjoy all the rights due to any citizen or resident of the republic, and, as far as I can see or judge, are happy and contented. A great many of them are occupied as house-servants, principally as cooks. In all parts of the city are small eating houses or cook-shops kept by Chinese, and they are well patronized by the poor people, where they get more and better food for less money than with the natives.

Streets fronting on the large markets and those leading to them are so much filled by Chinese grocers, tailors, shoemakers, bakers, butchers, and other tradesmen that, walking around seeing the people, their shops and signs, you could easily imagine that you were in a Chinese town.

As the Chinaman is laborious and industrious, being satisfied with small gains and having no luxurious vices or habits, he sells cheaper and gives a better article for less money than shopkeepers of other nationalities.

I suppose that these shops, which were originally started with the idea of catching the trade of their-fellow countrymen as they came to the market, have gradually attracted the natives, who find it to their benefit to supply their wants from the Chinese. I have noticed during the short time I have been here, about sixteen months, that their shops are increasing fast, and also many handsome stores in the principal streets. They intermarry with the lower class of whites, mestizas, and cholus, and by these are looked upon as quite a catch, for they make good husbands, industrious, domestic, and fond of their children, while the cholo (Indian) husband is lazy, indolent, often a drunkard, and brutal to his wife. I often meet children in the streets whose almond-shaped eyes show their Chinese origin. Great numbers have become converts [Page 436] to Catholicism, and they are apparently very fervent in their devotions and attentive to the ceremonies of the church. In the cemetery I have noticed several niches, in the costly part of the ground, with Chinese inscriptions. They have hired the second theater of the city, or leased it, for four years, and I believe it is filled nightly. In all, they seem to assimilate themselves to the habits and customs of the country.

I have gathered the following statistics from trustworthy sources, which show the number of Chinese landed in Peru, in 14 years, as coolie laborers, under the old system, now stopped:

1860 1,446
1861 845
1862 1,460
1863 3,734
1864 6,633
1865 8,068
1866 6,528
1867 5,246
1868 3,078
1869 4,835
1870 11,488 Children 4
1871 10,184 Children 14
1872 13,495 Children 73
1873 7,116 Children 74
1874 2,320 Children 51
86,476 216
Children 216
Total 86,692

Some of these have left, gone up and down the coast, to Chili, Ecuador, and Colombia; some to California. The minister of foreign affairs thinks there are now over 60,000 in Peru. This is his idea from the partly-completed census about to be published.

As a result of the treaty and convention between this country and China, signed at Tientsin, June 26, 1874, and of the law of June 16, 1875, copies of which I inclose, the house of Olyphant & Co., of Hong Kong, China, and New York, have, through one of their firm, who is now here, entered into an arrangement with the Peruvian Government to establish a line of steamers between Callao and ports in Asia.

* * * * * * *

On the 8th instant, in the Chamber of Deputies, questions were put to the government relative to this contract for explanation, and I have learned from parties who are informed that the minister of the treasury has asked for some alterations and modifications; that the company shall receive 160,000 silver soles per annum instead of pounds sterling.

I judge there will be other reasons for opposition to the contract, particularly in the clause 19 binding the government to give cargoes of guano and nitrate at Calloa, as those articles are shipped directly from the ports or places where produced, and would be expensive to ship to Callao and then reship from there. I was informed by one of the deputies that the contract was too partial to the house of Olyphant & Co., as it was binding on one side only—the government.

A line of steamers for immigrants direct from China would make a great improvement in the Chinese status here, as by this treaty he would come freely as an immigrant, and not under the former odious system of a colonist slave, which no doubt admitted great abuses at both ends; [Page 437] in China, by man-stealing, kidnapping, and the emptying of the jails, and here in brutal treatment by the contractor of coolie labor.

* * * * * * *

I am, &c.,

RICHARD GIBBS.