The Three Times An Anti-Chinese Riot Took Place In Jamaica (Transcript)

We should note: academic scholarship on the 1918 anti Chinese riots are limited and as such, a bulk of the research of this singular event, came from Howard Johnson, academic paper, “The Anti-Chinese Riots of 1918 in Jamaica”, published in the Caribbean Quarterly in 1982.  

The Arrival of the Chinese

The Chinese arrived in the Caribbean through the indentureship which took place after full emancipation of enslaved Africans occurred in the British West Indies in 1838. Indentureship was a means for to meet the white planters demand for cheap labour, now that slavery had been abolished. The Chinese became one of these indentured population. Specifically to Jamaica, they arrived on the island in 1854. In that year, on July 30th, 224 Chinese out of 267 travelers arrived in Jamaica by way of the ‘Epsom’ from Hong Kong. Fifty-seven of the remaining persons were hospitalized. On November 1 of that same year, a second group consisted of 197 Chinese arrived in Kingston, via a ship called ‘Vampire’. They were apart of 1,042 contracted for work on the Panama Railroad. A decade later a third group of 200 arrived in the island from British Guiana, Trinidad and Panama. In 1884, the last group of 694 Chinese labourers, from Hong Kong via San Francisco and Panama, arrived on the ship called ‘Printz Alexander’. 

However, when the Chinese realized that their labour contracts were been violated, they protested which led to the state deploying law enforcements leading to the death of a worker. As such, soon after, many Chinese left the plantations for commercial endeavors. With the expansion of the banana export business, persons in the industry, especially small rural farmers, had more purchasing powers. Thus, many Chinese went into the grocery retail business. 

However unlike small black grocery retail business that failed due to insufficient capital and lack of business experience, the Jamaican Chinese population thrived. By 1908, records showed that of the almost 6303 Chinese on the island, 834 were in in the retail business. A 1918 article published in the Daily Gleaner, the island’s local newspaper, stated that, the Chinese shopkeepers created “a bridge between the people and the and the wholesale dealer.”

The Chinese main selling products included salted dried fish, fresh fish, beef, pork, cornmeal, flour and rice. Their shops had a unique system at the time where they establish a chain of shops which they left to be operated by other Chinese assistants or persons from the rural community. 

Still, despite the Chinese business success, there were complains, especially from their competitors. In the Gleaner, letters written that referred to the Chinese as “yellow plague, “yellow peril” and locust invasion” were written. One of the letters stated: 

“Let us, in heaven’s name, wake up and do something, for these people are coming, coming, always coming. Can anything be done to stem this Chinese invasion? Are these people to be allowed to overwhelm us?”

 In October of 1917, the Parochial Board of St. Ann ushered a resolution which in their opinion was to protect other competitors from the Chinese shopkeepers. They went on to state that continuous Chinese business success would lead to dire consequences. In their words, they said: 

"Directly or indirectly they are the causes of many bankruptcies vagrants, paupers; and a very large percentage  of our best citizens who have left the Island for foreign parts have lost their business or jobs on this account." 

Then, A.B.Lowe, a member of the St. James Board, was quoted in a January 7, 1918 Daily Gleaner article by saying the following in regards to Chinese shopkeepers:

“His success is due to the fact that he sells to people who cannot detect, it is not because he has sharp business intellect, but that is sharpened by the fact that he knows no bound - the sin in China being not to steal but being caught. He has forced some of our best people out of shopkeeping, besides he is very immoral and on this account alone, ought to be kept out”. 

This sense of Chinese been immoral was echoed in other parts of society as the population was blamed for what many persons believe to be the decay of society’s morals. With the introduction of Chinese Peaka Pow and Drop Pan, the upper class became vocal of Chinese gambling practices. The Chinese were also blamed for what is believe to be an increase in alcohol consumption in society; and many Chinese were accused of been involved in Opium. 

This anti-Chinese sentiment among sections of the Jamaican population would boil over come July 1918, when a Chinese shopkeeper found out that his black woman lover was apparently engaging in infidelity. This incident laid the groundwork for first anti-Chinese riots of Jamaica.

The 1918 Riots 

On July 7, 1918, Fong Sue, a Chinese retail businessman left his shop in the car of his black lover, Caroline Lindo. However, unbeknownst to Caroline, Fong return the same night, around 11 pm, and upon his return was in for a surprise. He saw Caroline in an intimate position with Acting Corporal McDonald, who was in charge of the Ewarton Police Station. Then Fong Sue and some of his Chinese friends beat McDonald who afterwards escaped in nearby bushes. Instead of returning to the station, however, McDnonald remained hidden for two days and would re-appear at Ewarton Police Station, two days later on Tuesday, July 9. 

However in McDonald’s absence, the power of community gossip took center stage and chaos broke out. 

While McDonald was hiding, a rumor developed all over the community that he was murdered by Fong Sue. The tale that circulated through the town was that McDonald told to Fong Sue that he was in violation of the law that prohibits him from selling on Sundays and thus, Fong Sue murdered him. The story continue saying that when MdcDonald co-workers went out looking for him, they found his bed covered in blood.  There was another apparent rumor that the officer was killed, picked and sold as salt pork.Upon hearing the rumors, police officers went searching for McDonald come Monday morning but, as we stated, McDonald was still in hiding and thus there operation was in vail. But this did not stop the community members as later on that day, an angry crowd descended upon the police station, The crowd grew into a mob which end up looting four shops operated by the Chinese in Ewarton. The next morning, it is reported that the streets of the community was “paved with cornmeal, flour and salt”, as a result of the looting. 

The rumors of the McDonald’s murder by the hands of the Chinese would spread to other towns and other crimes against Chinese business erupted. On Tuesday, in Linstead five Chinese shop was looted, where the mob shouted “colour for colour”. Several Chinese men hide way in one of the shops. When the mob, consisted of around 800-1000 persons,  learnt about this, they stone the establishment. Women were also involved in the rioting at Linstead. Julia Harris gave this account: 

“… I see man, black man carrying stone, woman, black girls, nice fat black girls carrying stone, and give dem to de man and dem fling to and the men dem fling to, if de man dem fling, and lick down de Chiney shop”

Even though McDonald had show up at this point, persons would look at his bruises and claimed it was not the man missing and  the rumor just took on a life of its own. In villages of Pear Tree Grove and Caron Hall in St. Mary, residents were told that the destruction of Chinese shops was ordered by the government and this set off residents to go out and vandalized multiple Chinese owned shops in St. Mary. A St. Mary district constable, Obadiah Sterling, rode through the street on his horse, urging residents to destroy Chinese shops. In the eyes of the residents, Mr. Sterling declaration led some legitimacy to the rumor that these anti-Chinese actions were government orders. 

An Emmanuel Lord of the district of Mongrave gave an eye witness account of the events that took place in St. Mary: 

“They say they come from Ewarton. They say the policeman corporal del wind de chine man sweetheart, so de chimney man shoot him. And the government seh must mash down every damn chimney man shop. Den yuh have about 50 people, and when dem come now, de district people join wind dem…. Dem mash up de shop and tek out every gawd goods and tief de Chinese man clothes and dawg and fowl, setting fowl pon nest”

The next upcoming days saw attacks on Chinese operated shops spread to the parishes St. Ann and Clarendon. Still, throughout the week of July 7, Chinese shops were targeted - just Chinese shops, which historian, Howard Johnson made note of. He stated, “It is important to note that in these riots violence  was directed primarily at property rather than at persons. These attacks on property were not indiscriminate but aimed very specifically at shops operated by the Chinese. The main intention of the rioters was to drive out the Chinese from those areas  where they had established themselves in business. There is no evidence that the property of the ethnic minorities was attacked. Nor did the rioters destroy creole-owned shops”

A Gleaner article, published on the 11th of July, made the theory that the crimes brought against Chinese grocery business could be because of tensions and anxieties that have lowered society discipline due to the ongoing war - World War I was occurring at this time. Nevertheless, by the time the rioting was brought under control by the authorities, there was widespread damages to Chinese business due to rioting which took place in the parishes of St. Catherine, St. Mary, Clarendon and St. Ann. In the end, almost 452 persons were arrested and 300 convicted.

After the 1918 riots, anti-Chinese sentiments did not die down. They showed up in newspapers and other media outlets alike. On the ground, multiple fires were set to different Chinese owned businesses throughout the 1920’s. In January of 1923 during his opening statements of an arson case of a Kingston Chinese shop, Norman Washington Manley, a then young barrister, states: “Wherever there’s a fire, theres’s a Chinaman”. On July 28, 1922, George Tai Team became the first Chinese to practice law in Jamaica and incidentally, it was during this year that the Parochial Board of St Andrew declared that the government should take action to prevent Chinese from coming into Jamaica. Almost a decade later, in 1931, the Jamaican government asked Hong Kong to not issue passports to Chinese immigrants. Then, immigration restrictions consisting of passing a language and physical test, were placed on Chinese immigrants. So it comes as no surprise that 20 years after the first riot, Chinese businesses were once again targeted in the midst of societal tensions that was occurring Jamaica and the wider Caribbean. 

The 1938 Riots

In the 1930’s, countries in the British West Indies experience widespread workers’ organising and subsequent labour riots. Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, St. Kits and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Guyana and St. Lucia all experience labour riots. Jamaica was no different. In future episodes, we will explore more about the 1930’s labour riots in each of these countries. 

However, for the importance of this episode, we will give a brief overview of the 1930’s labour riots in Jamaica. At this time on the island, majority of the working class was poor. In 1935, records show that of the 184,150 persons which makes up 92% of the working class, earned less than 25 shillings per week. Of this 92%, only 71% received an average of 14 shillings per week. Still, in that year, only 466 persons earned over £1000. Low wages among workers, during this period of  global recession which began in 1929 after the US Wall Street crash, underemployment and unemployment among the rest of the population and insufficient rights given to the disenfranchise population of the country, fueled hard times on the island. In a 1987 interview for an oral history project at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Lucius Watson, a dockworkers’ activist stated: 

“In those days, seven and eight year old boys had to be working for themselves and tilling for themselves at one shilling a day. Ad soft conditions in the rest of the country, oh Lawd, master, the conditions it was very miserable. For you had men who was working shoving handcart fe Chiney getting eighteen shilling a week. And all those things. Unemployment was bad, bad, bad. It was terrible!”

On May 13, 1935, a group of workers loading bananas in St. Mary went on strike. Eight days later in Trelawny, another strike occurred but this time it was port workers; one worker was shot dead by the police. Days later in Kingston, banana loaders went on strike - a woman was wounded. 

Almost 2 and a half years later, the strikes escalated. In December of 1937, a group of workers on the Serge Island Estate in St. Thomas, went on strike over poor wages. By January 4, 1938, almost 500 workers joined in - police was called to the scene which saw 63 persons been arrested in the following days. By March 1938, dissatisfaction among workers was island wide but the concentration was in Westmoreland. The parish was seeing a boom in persons due to rapid employment taking place in the sugar industry. But on May 2nd workers at the Frome Sugar Estate went on strike over low wages. On May 4th, four persons were killed by police officers on the scene and 96 arrested. The Frome strikes created a ripple effect throughout the island and with outspoken union organizers and workers activists such as Robert Rumble, Alexander Bustamante, William Grant, Agnes Bernard, Allan Combs and numerous others, the labour strikes of 1938 eventually made their way to the Kingston. Workers at the capital’s wharf put forward their demands for a wage increase and by the end of the second week of May, a strike erupted amongst the workers. A week later on the 23rd of May, Bustamante called a meeting with workers. However, troubled occured and police officers started to clash with the workers. Then, many workers in the Kingston, also refused to work and marched through the city streets. This forced many businesses to put up shutters and force close. The workers also forced some business to close. As such, Kingston was brought to a standstill and only a few businesses remained open and it was here, that the second anti-Chinese rioting took place. 

On the same day, a crowed descended upon establishments owned by Chinese and “rough handled” those who resisted to close. Some demonstrators yelled, “This is black man day.” One man ordered a Chinese business operator who was in his store on Princess Street to “come out mek we beat you.” Other persons in the crowd shouted, “All Chinamen’s shop must close and black men shop must open”. A black woman, Mrs. U. Gordon, who operated a shop at the intersection of Pink Lane and Charles Street stated in relation to the riots: 

“[D]em say: ‘Crowd coming! Close up!’ I sey: ‘No! I not closing.’ So dey come right on Charles Street an’ dey look an’ see me behind the counter, an’ dey sey ‘Oh! Black man open! Your time, you open. . . . All de Chinese dem close, [but] the black people dem open up.’ . . . [A]s long as you black dem sey you can open up. But Chinese mus’ close.”

In his book, “Freedom’s Children: The 1938 Labour Rebellion and the Birth of Modern Jamaica”, historian Dr. Colin Palmer states: 

“The assault on the oppressive status quo became overtly racialized in a physical sense with these assaults on Chinese enterprises. But the Chinese were not a part of the power elite and had no history of institutional mis- treatment of black Jamaicans. They were, however, sharp entrepreneurs, and some people looked askance at their success and seeming lack of respect for their customers… years of acute resentment against the Chinese, their upward mobility and their entrepreneurial successes were now finding a violent expression”

The attacks on Kingston’s Chinese businesses, strikes and protest of the day made 23rd of May one of the most significant days of the 1930’s labour strikes in Jamaica. In response to these events, the government send to the streets, 400 police officers, 80 troops, 250 special constables and 100 members of the militia. 

Other events would happen after, however, as stated, another time we will explore the 1930’s labour strikes in full detail. 

But as it pertains to the Chinese, in July 1939, almost a year after the attacks on Chinese business operators in Kingston, H. Beckett, head of the West Indian Department in the Colonial Office stated: 

“There is a good deal of anti-Chinese feeling in Jamaica; the Chinese have practically collared the retail trade. Also, of course, if you go looting it’s probable that the shop will be a Chinese one for that reason” 

A year later, in 1940, the government of Jamaica were barred Chinese from entering the country with the exception being diplomats, tourists and students with permits. Then in 1947, Chinese were allowed a quota of bringing 20 wives and children in total on the island. Still, a few years after Jamaica gained independence in 1962, one incident will stir up another third anti-Chinese riots again. And just like the first one, it all began in a grocery shop. 

The 1965 Riots 

Continuing into the 1950’s and early 1960’s, there existed  instances of attacks on Chinese businesses although not on the same scale as the riot of 1918 and 1938.  For instance, political scientist Dr. Obika Gray in his book, Radicalism and Social Change in Jamaica, 1960-1972 states: “In fact, by October 1960, the Chinese again became targets of racial attacks, as tensions produced by high unemployment in Kingston and black resentment against Chinese retailers and Chinese overrepresentation in commercial establishments focused on this group”. 

Then with the rise in black consciousness in Jamaica, beginning in the early 1960’s, the Chinese population also came under attacked for their dominance in certain industry’s, when equivalent black population were been overlooked. Amy Jacques Garvey, widow of Marcus Garvey, in a 1960 Gleaner quoted her husband as having said: "As Blackmen and women you must stand up and claim your country, dedicate your lives to Jamaica, acquire the economic stability the 90 percent of the population should have in relation to the 30,000 Chinese here."

As Dr. Obika Gray stated:

“The occasion for this backlash came when a section of the black lower- middle class - those who had acquired the education, comportment, and know-how to aspire to positions as clerks, secretaries, bank tellers, salespersons, and front-office staffers - became embroiled in a now-familiar conflict: opposition to an alleged Chinese monopoly of coveted positions. In this case, opposition was directed not at Chinese retailers but against an alleged overrepresentation of Chinese nationals in positions requiring the handling of tasks and personnel in banking, tourism and sales” 

To this outcry, some Chinese-Jamaicans retailed. One letter written to the editor in the Jamaica Gleaner said: 

“All I can now say is, be careful all of you who are teaching race-hatred, lest the present situation in Alabama does not develop here in years to come but with the Chinese and white Jamaicans being victimized. .. This whole concept now held by many Afro-Jamaicans that Jamaica is a Black Man's Country and Black Man Must Rule no matter what, even if the country is probably ruined in the process, is all wrong and makes a complete mockery of our motto” 

For listeners who are not aware, the national motto of Jamaica , at this time was: “Out of Many, One People”.

Despite the letter however, throughout the 1960’s, the animosity towards Chinese business owners still persisted. Then came 1965. The country was already experiencing high underemployment and unemployment among the general population but then in August of that year, England put restriction on immigrants coming from the Commonwealth. This means that previously, Jamaicans could be among the many 28,800 persons who could migrate to England for work, however as of August 1965, the quota dropped to 8500 persons who could enter England. Frustration among the disenfranchised population rang high and it would let loose a few days after, England’s new immigration policy was announced. 

On August 28th, 1965, a black salesclerk named Joyce Copeland made a police report that she a dispute with her Chinese boss, over a non-payment regarding a radio. According to Copeland, she was then beaten by her Chinese employer, Lue, and his two brothers. However, according to Dr. Victor Chang, in his November 2017 speech at the Chinese Benevolent Association, there’s another version of the story. According to Dr. Chang, Joyce Copeland was in a relationship with her employer and when his Chinese wife returned from China to live with him, he ask to leave their house in Vineyard Town. Apparently, Copeland refused to leave, and Lue physically attacked her and kicked her multiple times. 

Whatever the correct story was, the ending was that Joyce Copeland was physically harmed by Lue and when the news reach the wider population, the third anti-Chinese riot in Jamaica’s history took place. In parts of Kingston, a reported crowd of around 300 persons descended upon Chinese owned businesses. Within a week, many shops were looted, stoned and some set ablaze. In response, many Chinese-Jamaicans, immigrated to the US, England and Canada. A decade later when  political violence began to plague the island, prime minister Micheal Manley’s embraced of leftist politics and his optics of support of black consciousness, many middle-upper class Jamaicans would leave the island. The Chinese, where the majority of this population was in the middle-upper class, followed suit. Data shows that in 1970, there were 11,710 Chinese living in the country, by 1982, that figure fell to 5,320. 

Last Words

In relation to all three anti-Chinese riots that took place in Jamaica, Dr. Howard Johnson, stated: 

“The riots of 1918 were more extensive and more sustained than those of 1938 and  1965. Whereas the riots of 1918 spread to the rural villages and towns in the parishes of St Catherine, St Mary, St Ann and Clarendon, the later riots were largely confined to the city of Kingston. In the second place, the 1918 riots were directed at  the Chinese as a racial group. The later riots, the Chinese as  members of a prosperous middle-class"

However Lucius Watson, in his account as an eyewitness to the 1938 anti-Chinese riots, states: 

“The Chinese use’ to live amongst the low class people, till they start to grow up. Chinese start to come up, and come up. Hear what the Chinese use’ to do when dey come here. They use’ to laundry, use’ to do cultivation, cash crop and laundry an open shop. Dat was dere trade and dey build deyself right up and up and dey lef’ us [blacks] same place.