David Bui
01-22-12
Period 5
1.1 The Fujian Trade Diaspora
· There are two Fujianese diasporas; one involves merchants and trading, while the other involves farmers and agriculture.
· Fujian is located on the Southeast coast of China.
· Fujianese people had migrated to places such as China’s interior, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and even California.
· The country, Fujian, had been crowded and was a rocky land.
· So its people focused on boat building, fishing, and maritime trade for more than 1000 years.
· Fujian was the principal trading center of shipping and trading for Southeast Asia.
· Many became tax collectors, harbor masters, and financial advisors in European colonies in the area.
· Merchant firms with great commercial networks could send their sons to places such a California during the Gold Rush with funding and information.
· These firms were mostly based on family.
· Sons that were successful in their foreign endeavors could come back and get a bride chosen by their firm, or young men with no family could be rewarded with being adopted.
· Agricultural migrants also went from Fujian to other areas in China and Southeast Asia.
· Resources from Fujian helped migrants start up in other places, and with them came a traveling of skills as well.
· Fujianese brought sugar or sugar growing techniques to Java, the Philippines, interior China, and Taiwan.
· Fujianese were also recruited for European sugar plantations in Hawaii, Cuba, and Sri Lanka.
· Merchants sometimes migrated with farmers to provide credit, rice, and helped farmers send money back home (remittances).
· Migrants didn’t start colonies or significant settlements in their foreign travels because they couldn’t be abroad more than a year.
· China believed it was not good for people to stay away from the “center of civilization” for long periods.
· China didn’t help migrants b/c there was no need for colonies, as its local economy could satisfy citizens’ demands of goods.
· This allowed Europeans to invest in these under populated lands and use cheap labor of skilled Chinese farmers. (There was little free farming land left in Fujian.)