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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2010
The ethnic composition of the contemporary world has become very confusing. Recently, the thirty years' anniversary of the Cuban revolution was commemorated and some journalists remembered that in 1959 it was not yet clear as to whether Castro headed a nationalist or a communist insurrection against the then ruling dictator of Cuba, Batista. In fact, at the time a commentator of the New York Times made much of a photograph showing a triumphant Castro with a Chinese face among his entourage. Was that not a sure sign of the influence of Communist China on the future direction of Cuba's revolutionary movement? Fortunately, a reader's letter pointed out that more than 100,000 Chinese had moved to Cuba when the island was a Spanish colony and when many governments with sugar colonies had concluded treaties obtaining the right to recruit migrant Chinese labourers. Thus, the Chinese face on the picture did not necessarily belong to a newly arrived Chinese, it might also have belonged to someone from the Cuban Chinese community established more than a hundred years ago.
1 There exists an extensive body of literature on international migration, but no general survey comparing the European, African and Asian migrations since 1500. The usual piecemeal approach is best illustrated by two collective volumes on international migration which have appeared recently: McNeill, William and Adams, Ruth S. ed., Human Migration; Patterns and Policies (Bloomington and London 1978)Google Scholar and Glazier, Ira and Rosa, Luigi de ed., Migration across Time and Nations (New York and London 1986).Google Scholar As far as the European participation in intercontinental migration is concerned I consulted chapter 2 of Woodruff, William, Impact of Western Man; A Study of Europe's Role in the World Economy, 1759–1960 (New York 1967).Google Scholar The various factors which have influenced the demographic development of both the colonies of European settlement as well as that of the plantation colonies in North America and the Caribbean: McCusker, John J. and Menard, Russell M., The Economy of British America, 1607–1789 (Chapel Hill and London 1985, 211–235.Google Scholar For Latin America Mörner, Magnus, Adventurers and Proletarians; The Story of Migrants in Latin America (Pittsburgh 1985).Google Scholar The volume and direction of the African slave-trade are summarised in: Curtin, Philip D., The Atlantic Slave Trade; A Census (Madison 1969)Google Scholar and Eltis, David, Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New York and Oxford 1987).Google Scholar The effects of the Atlantic slave trade on West Africa are discussed in the contributions collected by Inikori, J.E. ed., Forced Migration; The Impact of the Export Slave Trade on African Societies (London 1982).Google Scholar The consequences of the slave-trade and of slavery on the New World are surveyed by Klein, Herbert S., African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean (New York and Oxford 1986).Google Scholar The only survey of the migration of Indian indentured labour: Tinker, Hugh, A New System of Slavery; The Export of Indian Labour Overseas, 1830–1920 (London 1974).Google Scholar The Chinese indentured labourers, who migrated to Latin America have been studied by Meagher, Arnold Joseph, The Introduction of Chinese Laborers to Latin America: the ‘Coolie Trade’, 1847–1874 (Ann Arbor University Micro-films 1985).Google Scholar On the immigration of Chinese labour into South Africa see: Richardson, Peter, ‘Coolies, Peasants and Proletarians: The Origins of Chinese Indentured Labour in South Africa, 1904–1907’, in: Marks, Shula and Richardson, Peter ed., Indentured Labour Migration; Historical Perspectives (London 1984), 167–185Google Scholar.
2 Unfortunately, no surveys of the post-Second World War migration have been composed to date. My impression of its volume is based on: Walvin, James, Passage to Britain; Immigration in British History and Politics (Harmondsworth 1984)Google Scholar.
3 Davies, K. G., The North Atlantic World in the Seventeenth Century (Minneapolis and London 1974) 79Google Scholar.
4 The demographic performance of the slave populations in the United States' South and in the Caribbean/Brazil was totally different. See: Gutman, Herbert G., The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750–1925(Oxford 1976)Google Scholar and Higman, B.W., Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807–1834 (Baltimore and London 1984)Google Scholar.
5 Emmer, P.C., ‘The Great Escape: the Migration of Female Indentured Servants from British India to Surinam, 1873–1916’, in: Richardson, David ed., Abolition and its After-math; the Historical Context, 1790–1916 (London 1985), 245–268.Google Scholar The demography of the British Indians in Guiana was different from that in Surinam: Mangre, Basdeo, Benevolent Neutrality; Indian Government Policy and Labour Migration to British Guiana, 1854–1884 (London 1987)Google Scholar.
6 Much new research has been done into the pattern of European investment overseas during the era of ‘Modern Imperialism’. See chapter 4 of Woodruff, Impact of Western Man, and also: Davis, Lance E. and Huttenback, Robert A., Mammon and the Pursuit of empire; The Political Economy of British Imperialism, 1860–1912 (Cambridge 1986)Google Scholar.
7 A general discussion of this issue in: Ross, Robert ed., Racism and Colonialism; Essays on Ideology and Social Structure (The Hague 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 Surinamers en Antillianen in Amsterdam; verslag van een in 1977 gehouden enquite, I (Amsterdam 1979) 39Google Scholar.
9 A recent survey regarding a possible connection between the rise of plantation slavery and the Atlantic economy at large (including the Industrial Revolution in the U.K.): Solow, Barbara L. and Engerman, Stanley L. ed., British Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery; The Legacy of Eric Williams (Cambridge 1987)Google Scholar.