History
The term coolie was applied to workers from Asia, especially those who were sent abroad to most of the Americas, to Oceania and the Pacific Islands, and to Africa (especially South Africa and islands like Mauritius and Réunion). It was also applied in Asian areas under European control such as Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Slavery had been widespread in the British empire, but social and political factors resulted in its being outlawed in 1834; within a few decades other European nations had outlawed slavery. But the intensive colonial labour on sugar cane or cotton plantations, in mines or railways, required cheap manpower.
Experiments were performed with Malagasy, Japanese, Breton, Portuguese, Yemeni and/or Congolese laborers. Ultimately Indians were mainly used, shipped to many Indian Ocean islands, East and South Africa, Fiji, British Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Grenada, Suriname and Panama and other places.
Chinese coolies were also sent to the New World. They worked in guano pits in Peru, in sugar cane fields in Cuba and helped build railways in the United States and British Columbia (Canada).
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