Coolie Emigration Flow
These "Alluvial Flow" models show the composition of the flow of coolie laborers from their chinese port of origin to their various destinations in latin america. the thickness of the lines indicate the number/volume of coolies transported.
The significance of these models is twofold.
- First, they shows that the vast majority of Chinese laborers were destined for Peru or Cuba.
- Second, they shows that the vast majority of those Chinese laborers transported were processed through the port of Macao, which was a Portuguese-controlled territory during the Coolie Trade and long after its demise.
Thus, these models help to visually explain why the Chinese government was so limited in its control over the trade, since so many coolies were transported out of ports that they did not have jurisdiction in. Canton and Hong Kong also fall under this category of ports outside direct Chinese control. These models also include less significant ports of departure and arrival and help to frame departure and arrival locations in terms of transportation volume side-by-side.
This second Alluvial model, while much busier and complex, maintains the relative clarity of the Port of Departure and Destination country's volume but causes the flow lines to pass through a 3rd variable (Year). This allows one to see the volume of each year relative to the total volume of coolies being transported. What is lost in this 3 dimension flow is the direct relationships between Port of Departure and Destination Country. The total volume leaving a Port and arriving in a country is preserved, but one can no longer determine the amount of coolies transported from Macao to Cuba, for example. But we can now see which years had the most transport volume and how each port of departure and destination contributed to the volume in a given year.
Raw data from Meagher, Arnold J. 2008. The Coolie Trade : The Traffic in Chinese Laborers to Latin America, 1847-1874. Xlibris Corporation.