THE ANTI-CHINESE RIOTS OF 1918 IN JAMAICA

THE ANTI-CHINESE RIOTS OF 1918 IN JAMAICAAuthor(s): HOWARD JOHNSONSource: Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 3 (SEPTEMBER, 1982), pp. 19-32Published by: University of the West Indies and Caribbean QuarterlyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40653503 .

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19

THE ANTI-CHINESE RIOTS OF 1918 IN JAMAICA

by

HOWARD JOHNSON

In the modest scholarly literature devoted to examining the relationship between the immigrant Chinese Community and the receiving society in Jamaica no mention has been made of the anti-Chinese riots of July 1918.1 It has usually been assumed that the riots of 1938 and 1965 were the only examples of mass violence directed at the Chinese. It can be argued, however, that the 1918 riots have been the most important expression of anti-Chinese sentiment. In the first place, 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.2 In the second place, the 1918 riots were directed at the Chinese as a racial group. The later riots, on the other hand, were directed as Gordon Lewis and Maurice St Pierre have argued, at the Chinese as members of a prosperous middle -class.3 In fact, as St Pierre has pointed out, in 1938 the property and persons of Syrians and Jews as well as the Chinese - ethnic minorities whose members constituted "an integral part of the middle stratum and of the distributive sector" - were attacked.4 This paper analyzes the origins and character of the 1918 riots. Such an analysis involves an examination of the economic role of the Chinese Com- munity in Jamaica in the early twentieth century and its effect upon relations with the créole population. The paper also fits the experience of the Chinese in Jamaica into the wider comparative framework of trading minorities throughout the world.5

The riots in July 1918 followed on rumoured versions of an incident between a créole policeman and a Chinese shopkeeper in Ewarton, St Catherine. Forig Sue, the Chinese grocer, had left his shop on Sunday, 7 July, in the charge of his paramour, a créole woman, Caroline Lindo. He was not expected to return that night. Acting Corporal McDonald, who was in charge of the Ewarton Police Station, took advantage of Fong Sue's absence to sleep with his paramour.6 Fong Sue returned that same night unexpec- tedly, at about 1 1 o'clock, to find McDonald in an intimate embrace with lindo and, as one contemporary police report delicately noted, "in plain clothes."7 McDonald was given a beating by Fong Sue, with the help of a few Chinese friends, and then made good his escape. He did not return to the police station but remained hidden in the bushes for two days. He eventually re-appeared at the police station on the night of Tuesday, 9 July, to resume his duties.8

During McDonald's absence a rumour that he had been murdered by the Chinese shopkeeper was circulated in the town. It was rumoured that McDonald had spoken to Fong Sue about his violation of the law which forbade selling on Sundays and had informed Fong Sue early on that Sunday morning of his intention to prosecute him. It was said that later that day Fong Sue sent for McDonald and then summoned some Chinese friends. When McDonald arrived, so the story ran, Fong Sue and his friends murdered him. The alarm was raised by another policeman who, it was claimed, had



20

found the step of the police station and the bed of the corporal covered with blood. Members of the police force spent the entire day on Monday searching for McDonald without success.9 By Monday evening an angry crowd had gathered before the police station in Ewarton. Eventually the crowd was transformed into a mob which broke into and looted four shops owned by the Chinese. By the following morning the streets of Ewarton were "literally paved with cornmeal, flour and salt," from the looted shops.10

The rumours of McDonald's murder circulated rapidly to adjoining towns and villages and were usually accompanied by attacks on Chinese shops and looting by angry mobs. In Linstead, where news of events in Ewarton had spread by Tuesday, five Chinese shops were partially wrecked during the day. Eleven Chinese men sought refuge in a back room of one of these shops. At approximately 7.30 that evening, the shop in which the Chinese had secured themselves was stoned by a mob officially estimated at between 800 and 1,000 persons.11 By the morning of 10 July the Chinese-owned shops in the outly- ing districts in the parishes of St Catherine and St Mary were being attacked by "roving bands of hooligans."12 These 'roving bands' marched from the main centres of rioting to the small villages inciting the villagers to destroy and loot the Chinese shops. As Emmanuel Lord of the district of Mongrave recalled:

"They say they come from Ewarton. They say the policeman corporal deh wid de chiney man sweet- heart, so de chiney man shoot him. And the government seh dem must mash down every damn chiney man shop. Den yuh have about 50 people, and when dem come now, de district people join wid dem."13

As these marauding bands journeyed into the rural interiors, armed with machetes, sticks, and sledge-hammers, and waving banners and branches, the versions of the rumours multiplied.14 Villagers of Pear Tree Grove and Carron Hall heard, for example, that the Chinese shopkeeper had murdered the policeman and pickled his corpse.15 These rural folk were also told that the Government had ordered the destruction of the Chinese shops.16 This information might have given some legitimacy to the looting activities of the credulous. But villagers usually needed little encouragement to loot the Chinese-owned shops. Emmanuel Lord described the scene in Mongrave in this way:

"Dem mash up de shop and tek out every gawd goods and tief de chiney man clothes and dawg and fowl, setting fowl pon nest."17

In Woodside, St. Mary, cultivators who had previously sold bags of cacao to the Chinese

grocer returned to the shop to collect them.18

Although the main centres of rioting were in the parishes of St Catherine and St

Mary, these riots also had repercussions in the parishes of St Ann and Clarendon. There were riots in River Head district in St Ann and attacks on Chinese shops in Blackwoods, Crooked River, Mahoe Hill and May Pen in Clarendon.19 When the riots were finally brought under control by the police the damage done to Chinese shops was considerable. The rumours had spread so rapidly that the police were, in many instances, unable to act before extensive damage had been done. An index of popular participation in the riots is the fact that in St Catherine alone more than 452 arrests were made and 300 persons were eventually convicted.20



21

It is improtant 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.21 Nor did the rioters destroy créole -owned shops. In linstead, for example, créole shopkeepers were reassured by the rioters that their property would not be damaged.22 In the district of Facey rioters ceased their destruction of a Chinese-operated shop when they were told that it was, in fact, owned by a créole.23 It is clear then that the créole rioters' main quarrel was with the Chinese. It is worth noting that the destruction of Chinese shops in Linstead was accompanied by shouts of 'colour for colour'.24

It is not possible, in this instance, to determine the composition of the rioting crowd with any precision. Newspaper accounts of the riots and the trials of those arrested failed to mention, in most cases, the social class or occupation of the members of the crowd. Court records which might have provided us with a list of those arrested and convicted, with their occupations, have not been preserved. Our conclusions about the social composition of the crowd nre therefore necessarily impressionistic. The leader- writer in the Daily Gleaner of 12 July chose to regard the riots as the work of "the deliberately idle" and "the naturally criminal."25 But the rioters seem to have included a wide cross-section of the labouring class in the rural villages and towns where the riots occurred. The rioters also included district constables who would normally have been expected to protect the Chinese community from attack?6 Among those arrested and convicted was Obadiah Sterling, a district constable of Windsor Castle, St Mary, who mounted his horse and rode through neighbouring villages urging people to destroy the Chinese shops.27 The appearance of this man, known to villagers as a district constable, must have lent credence to the claim that the Government had ordered the destruction of Chinese property. Women were also among the rioters. As Mrs Julia Harris recalled of the Linstead riots:

"... 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 Chineyshop."28

There is nothing to suggest that these anti-Chinese riots were part of an organized conspi- racy. The riots developed spontaneously in Ewarton in response to rumours of McDonald's murder. But, as noted previously, the subsequent spread of the riots was engineered, in part, by groups of people who marched from village to village inciting the villagers to riot.

How does one account for this outburst of hostility towards the Chinese in July 1918? The rumours which were then in circulation determined the timing of the riots but not the "fundamental probability of their occurrence."29 As Gordon Allport and Leo Postman have observed:

"Hostility rumours circulate only among those pre- disposed to hate the victim of the story. like propa- ganda, with which it is closely related, rumour acti-



22

vates and confirms the pre-existing attitudes rather than forming new ones."30

The officiai view was that economic competition between the Chinese arid the members of the host society was a major source of this hostility. Sir Leslie Probyn, Governor of Jamaica in 1918, in a despatch to the Secretary of State for the Colonies attributed the anti-Chinese feeling to créole jealousy of the commercial success of the Chinese community. He suggested that it was this jealousy which made the people in the areas of rioting suggestible to the rumours of Corporal McDonald's murder:

"The Chinese are very enterprising in their methods of trade, hence they have ousted the native shopkeeper. Owing to their success, the Chinese are regarded jealously; and the warping effect of this jealousy, made the villagers of Ewarton (and other places) foolishly ready to believe that Constable McDonald had been murdered by the Chinaman."31

Let us review the economic role of the Chinese in Jamaica in this period in order to evaluate the official explanation for the outbreak of the anti-Chinese riots.

The Chinese were first introduced into Jamaica as indentured labourers in 1854 in response to planter demands for a cheap and tractable labour supply to replace the recently emancipated slave labour force.32 In 1854, 472 Chinese were brought to Jam- aica and in 1884 another 680 were introduced as indentured labourers.33 These experiments at using the Chinese as agricultural labourers were unsuccessful. The majority of Chinese labourers who came to the island in 1884, for example, abandoned the plantations for commercial pursuits in the urban areas before their contracts had expired.34 This rapid shift from agricultural labour to commercial activities is confirmed by the fact that in 1891, 16.3 per cent of the Chinese population resided in Kingston and Port Royal. Only 8 per cent remained in St Thomas and St Mary where the majority of indentured labourers in 1884 had been allotted to sugar estates.35 From Kingston the Chinese extended their trading and commercial activities to the rural areas of the island.

The trading activity to which most Chinese were attracted was the grocery retail trade. As recent arrivals, the Chinese were quick to recognize and exploit the economic opportunities in this field at a time when there was an expansion in the consumer market for imported foodstuffs.36 This commercial expansion can be partly explained by the prosperity of a peasantry engaged in the cultivation of bananas. With the development of an export industry in bananas in the late nineteenth century, earnings from overseas trade became more widely spread to include small farmers. It was this section of society with new purchasing power which then demanded cheap imported food. The evidence suggests that the Chinese realized the trade potential of the banana-producing areas. Official census figures for 191 1 and 1921 indicate that the majority of those Chinese who resided outside Kingston and St Andrew was concentrated in those parishes like St Mary, St. Catherine and Portland which had been made prosperous by the banana industry.37 In the rural communities the Chinese shopkeepers formed "a bridge between the people and the wholesale dealer."38



23

It has frequently been suggested that the Chinese by venturing into the grocery retail trade entered an area previously neglected by the créole population.39 Leonard Bloom, for example, has observed that:

"The opportunity to develop a retail grocery trade lay fallow in the hands of the coloured population until the latter 19th century when it was taken over by the Chinese with their greater entrepreneurial experience."40

This is cleany an over-statement. After emancipation, as Douglas Hall has shown, retail commerce had developed rapidly in the country districts as former labourers and crafts- men turned to shopkeeping and well-established merchants in large towns extended their operations. However, lack of capital, credit and general inexperience in business matters often caused the failure of the enterprises of the smaller créole retailers.41 It is more than likely that these problems continued to plague créole efforts in the grocery retail trade throughout the nineteenth century. It is possible that prior to the entry of the Chinese in the grocery retail trade, its full potential had been unexploited. The Chinese achievement was to create a network of small shops, of some permanence, which catered almost exclu- sively to the needs of the peasantry and the small wage-earners in the towns.42

The extent of Chinese involvement in the grocery retail trade at the beginning of the twentieth century may be gauged from figures presented by the Collector General in his report for 1908.43 In that year there were 834 Chinese engaged in the retail trade. These represented 13.2% of the total figure. Since the Chinese population in 1911 was only 2,111 - a mere .3% of Jamaica's population - more than one out of every three Chinese persons in the island engaged in the retail trade.44 The figures which we have cited might well have under-represented Chinese participation. One of the techniques of business expansion employed by the Chinese grocers was to establish a chain of shops (called 'branch shops') operated by assistants recruited from the local population or the Chinese community.45 It is important to emphasize that in this period the Chinese were primarily retailers of staples like salted herring, fish, beef and pork, cornmeal, flour and rice demanded by the créole population.46 Thus while they competed increasingly with the larger retail establishments - a fact which explains the vocal middle-class opposition to their presence - they did not yet threaten white control of the wholesale and import business. As late as 1923 an observer, writing in Planter's Punch, woridereë wnether the Chinese had the capacity for big business.47

The economic success of the Chinese in the grocery retail trade did not go unno- ticed by the wider society. In the early years of the twentieth century complaints began to appear in the press that the Chinese shopkeeper was displacing his créole competitor.48 Middle-class commentators, whose views were most often represented in the newspapers and magazines, often preferred to attribute the success of the Chinese community to sharp practices than to the quality of the service which they offered in their shops. Repre- sentative of this viewpoint was the comment of H. G. deLisser, the influential editor of the Daily Gleaner, in 1910 that the Chinese had captured the retail trade of Jamaica "by masterly and judicious knavery."49 Middle -class resentment of Chinese economic success was, however, most clearly expressed in a resolution which was passed by the Parochial Board of the Parish of St Ann in October, 1917, urging the adoption of protective mea-



24

sures for créoles against "undue competition and improper methods on the part of Chinese shopkeepers." In this resolution the consequences of the concentration of the Chinese in the grocery trade were pointed to:

"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."50

This resolution was submitted to other Parochial Boards in the hope that they would co-operate with the St Ann Board in pressing the Government to take action on this matter. Supporting resolutions were eventually received by the Governor from the parishes of Portland and Clarendon.51

The resolution of the St Ann Parochial Board had accused the Chinese shopkeepers of "skilful manipulation of their goods." A speech by Mr A. B. Lowe, a member of the St James Board, on 3 January, 1918, in support of the action of the St Ann's Board, was more explicit in its denunciation of Chinese business methods:

"It is true he [the Chinese shopkeeper] seldom gets into the poorhouse, but on his account somebody else gets there. He will sell you less: he adulterates everything, even champagne. In his [sic] district a Chinaman attempted to adulterate "Jeyes" fluid but same turned white to his dismay (laughter). To kero- sene oil, he added hot water. 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 it is sharpened by the fact that he knows no bound [sic] - the sin in China being not to steal, but being caught. He sells any putrified stuff because he does not eat it himself, but buys beef, pork and chicken at the expense of the poor people who have to eat his nasty products. 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."52

The passage above has been quoted at length because it includes some of the popular stereotypes which had developed about the Chinese as businessmen. The development of these stereotypes was an indication of the threat which sections of Jamaican society perceived as coming from this trading minority.

The relationship between the Chinese grocers and their créole clients of the labouring classes in the small towns and villages of Jamaica was, however, more complex than Mr Lowe's statement suggests. The resentment which créoles expressed about the increasingly strong economic position of the Chinese in Jamaica was not generated primarily by direct economic competition.53 In fact, as Jacqueline Levy has suggested, there was something approaching a division of labour along ethnic lines. According to Levy the majority of those créole peasants who engaged in trading were middlemen in the distribu- tion of food crops in the domestic market.54 It is therefore reasonable to conclude that



25

most créoles of the labouring class were consumers rather than business competitors. As consumers, créoles often regarded the services offered by the Chinese as superior to those of the the créole shopkeepers. The Chinese grocers' main strength in attracting créole

patronage was that they endeavoured to service the special needs of the labouring classes. Unlike their créole counterparts, they kept their groceries open for long hours, sold their

goods in quantities which the working-class could afford and were always willing to give a little extra free to each customer.55 They were also willing to extend credit to their regu- lar customers. The Chinese had the advantage of also being low-cost operators.56 The

competitive prices which they charged were based on lower business and personal costs. As the resolution from the St Ann Parochial Board had noted: "Their [the Chinese] custom and manner of living along with the skilful manipulation of their goods make it

impossible for the natives to compete."57 The role of the Chinese grocer as the link between the importer of foodstuffs and

the consumer has been given prominence in the existing literature on the Chinese in Jamaica. Equally important, though ignored, was the function of the Chinese shopkeeper as the middleman between peasants who cultivated produce - those durable cash crops like cacao, coffee, pimento and sarsaparilla destined for the European Market - and the

exporters in the urban centres.58 He was often obliged to extend credit in the form of goods to the suppliers of produce. It should be noted that the Chinese as intermediaries in the marketing and distributive sectors of the Jamaican economy in this period belong to that group of racially distinct trading communities around the world which have been variously called 'middleman minorities',59 'marginal trading people'60 and 'trading minorities'.61

Our discussion has shown that the economic relationship between the Chinese and the créoles in many of the rural villages and towns in Jamaica was one of symbiosis rather than competition.62 The position of the Chinese trader in Jamaica may be usefully con- trasted with that of another trading minority - the Lebanese. Lebanese immigrants had not become as important a part of Jamaican peasant life as had the Chinese. Although they participated in the retail trade they were most often itinerant traders who special- ized in dry goods.63 By contrast, the Chinese who engaged in "retail trade of a more fixed variety" became an integral part of the créoles' daily routine and existence.64

Despite the existence of these economic ties the Chinese were not, in this period, culturally integrated into the communities which they served. The process of creolization was undoubtedly underway even though this might have been at a superficial level. There were several factors which promoted the cultural adaptation of the Chinese. One of these was the fact that the majority of early Chinese immigrants entered the island as single males.65 Those men who were married most often left their wives and family behind in China. It should be remembered that most families in South China, until the 1920s and 1930s, forbade the emigration of wives with husbands, especially if the prospects of husbands were uncertain in their new countries.66 As George Roberts has pointed out female Chinese immigrants were, until 1921, rare.67 The consequence of this strong imbalance between the sexes in the Chinese community was that Chinese males lived in concubinage with créole women. This was an arrangement which aided cultural adaptation and produced a steadily increasing population of mixed ancestry.68 At this stage of their existence as a group in Jamaica the Chinese experienced little of the social isolation



26

of another immigrant trading minority - the Portugese - in British Guiana. There the Portugese had migrated as families, married within their own group and formed a self- sufficient community which mixed little with the créoles.69

The cultural adaptation of the Chinese in Jamaica was also stimulated by commercial necessity. Isolated in rural communities, Chinese shopkeepers had to make some adjustments to the créole society which they served. Thus they attempted to learn the English Language (or its local variant) in order to communicate with their clientele. As the press reports of the anti-Chinese riots show, Chinese shopkeepers often adopted Christian names and surnames popular in the wider community.70 At this time there were none of the accusations of exclusivity and familism which later became so central to the anti- Chinese rhetoric. Creole shop assistants, for example, were widely employed by Chinese shopkeepers. In later years, the Chinese grocers would rely almost entirely on family and other ethnic members for assistance in their business establishments.71

Despite the existence of these integrative factors, the Chinese were still regarded as aliens.72 This is not surprising for Chinese adaptation to the Jamaican environment did not extend to a complete assimilation or identification with créole society. The Chinese had remained distinctively Chinese. They were highly visible, clustered in an economic activity aptly described "as the most conspicuous of businesses," and not yet in command of the English Language.73 The rumours of McDonald's murder further emphasized the position of the Chinese as outsiders. What united the créole rioters in opposition to the Chinese in July 1918 was a sense of créole identity in which race was a major compo- nent.74 The créole rioters made no distinction between those Chinese who had achieved a measure of assimilation and those who had not. As Emmanuel Lord recalled:

"James, James did deh a Woodside, Chinee bway. Him confarm [he was confirmed] a Woodside Church. James, a créole man you haffe call him, and when dem loot Woodside, you see, him haffe run go quite a Rock Spring and go under me auntie bed go hide."75

There were members of the Chinese community who recognized the importance of shared cultural values for survival in this alien society. It is significant that Alexander Young, a Chinese grocer of River Head, St. Ann, should have responded to threats to attack his shop by claiming:

"Shop is not mine, shop is for Christ."76 The experience of the Chinese community in Jamaica is perhaps best understood in

the wider context of the responses of host societies to trading minorities. In Jamaica it was the impersonal economic relationship which remained the most important link between the créole society and the Chinese shopkeepers. Most créoles met the Chinese primarily as "buyers of produce, shopkeepers and givers of credit."77 One consequence of this type of relationship, L. A. Fallers has argued, is that the immigrant trader remains an outsider, despite economic integration:

"The immigrant trader is commonly an essential economic link between the village community of peasants and the outside world. As a result, he is often in the community, but he is seldom really of it. Economically he is a member, but culturally he is



27

not, and it is this which lies at the root of the peasant s ambivalent and often violent attitude toward him. The peasant needs him, but dislikes him."78

Up to this point we have been examining those long-term factors which led to the development of anti-Chinese feeling. There were, however, other more immediate factors which explain the people's willingness to riot and loot. It is important to remember that these riots occurred during World War I . The leader-writer of the Daily Gleaner of 1 1 July, 1918 suggested that the wartime tensions and anxieties might have lowered the people's 'threshold of control and excitability":

"We know quite well that what was done on Monday at Ewarton and at Linstead on Tuesday would not have happened three or four years ago; but the fact is that four years of war are now having an exciting effect upon the minds of our population: a result that was to be expected. They have heard so much of war and of disturbances all over the world that they have become unsettled and now and then of late they have developed a tendency to allow a momentary gust of anger to move them to extreme and reprehensible action."79

The suggestion of that contemporary analyst is not as implausible as it might first appear. H. O. Dahlke, a social psychologist, has suggested more recently in a study on race and minority riots, that the likelihood of rioting and violence is very high "in a transitional period, such as industrialization, or a period involving unusual stresses and strains, such as a major war."80

Wartime inflation and food shortages caused by interruptions in the usual imported supplies added to the 'structural strain'.81 In June, 1918 the Director of the Department of Agriculture had forecast that the total food imports for that year would be considerably less than those for the previous ten years. The decrease in imports was anticipated because the United States and Canada, the usual suppliers of the island's staples, had become the main suppliers of food to their European allies.82 It is too facile to equate the rising prices of the wartime period with this outbreak of anti-Chinese hostility. But it is possible that the Chinese in their 'sandwich position' between the wholesaler and the consumers were held responsible for the increased prices of imported staples.83 Increased food prices partly explains the willingness to loot. The riots which had started out as reprisals against the Chinese community for the alleged murder of a créole policeman became, in some areas, an excuse for the looting of shops. In Woodside, for example, people marched with trays and pudding pans to get their food supplies from those shops which would be broken into the neighbouring districts.84 As Mr. Charles James of Carron Hall recalled:

"Well to be frank, the people at that time were only thinking about food. They had no other thought about anything else."85

It is not then surprising that women should have formed a significant part of the rioting and looting crowd. They were most directly involved in shopping and were therefore most sensitive to price increases.



28

The anti-Chinese riots of 1918 demonstrated the basic instability of the relationship between working-class créoles and the Chinese traders. Although Chinese shopkeepers had become, by that date, in many communities, the essential middlemen between the

import-export houses and the peasants and small wage-earners they remained outsiders who were vulnerable to attack in times of crisis. As the Chinese community grew in size and economic importance they attracted the hostility of other sections of Jamaican society. In 1930 the Native Defender Committee was formed by a group of urban blacks with the intention of organizing opposition to the Chinese presence.86 In 1933 the white merchant class responded to the encroaching activities of Chinese businessmen, who had extended the range of their commercial activities to include the wholesale trade and direct importation, by legislative action. In that year, an Alien Restriction Law, designed to curb Chinese immigration, was enacted by a Legislative Council on which the merchant class was well represented.87 Despite opposition, the Chinese consolidated their position in the grocery retail trade and other areas of the Jamaican economy. In fact, the attacks on Chinese property in 1938 may be interpreted as evidence of their economic success. As H. Beckett, head of the West Indian Department in the Colonial Office perceptively remarked:

"There is a good deal of anti-Chinese feeling in J'ca.: the Chinese have practically collared the retail trade. (Also, of course, if you go looting, its probable that the shop will be a Chinese one, for that reason.)"88

FOOTNOTES

1. Andrew W. Lind, "Adjustment Patterns Among the Jamaican Chinese", Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 7 (1958), 144 - 164; Jacqueline Levy, "The Economic Role of the Chinese in Jamaica: The Grocery Retail Trade" (unpublished paper, Jan. 1967); "Chinese Indentured Immigration to Jamaica during the latter part of the Nineteenth Century". Paper presented to the Fourth Conference of Caribbean Historians, Mona, Jamaica, April 9 - 14, 1972.

2. In St. Catherine and St. Mary 29 towns and villages were the main areas of the rioting. See Enclosure in Sir Leslie Probyn to Walter H. Long, No. 337, 5 Sept., 1918. C. O. 137/727.

3. Maurice St. Pierre, "The 1938 Jamaican Disturbances: A Portrait of Mass Reaction against Colonialism", Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 27 (1978), 187; Gordon Lewis, The Growth of the Modern West Indies (paperback edition, New York, 1968), p. 192.

4. St. Pierre, 187. 5. Throughout this paper the term 'créole' describes 'coloured' persons born in Jamaica. This was

the sense in which it was used by those persons interviewed about the riots. A 'trading minority' may be defined as an ethnic minority with a dominant position in some aspect of trade.

6. Daily Gleaner, 11 July, 1918. 7. Report by Owen F. Wright, Inspector at Spanish Town, 20 August 1918. Enclosure in Probyn

to Walter H. Long, No. 337, 5 September 1918. C. O. 137/727. 8. Ibid. 9. Daily Gleaner, 10 July, 1918.



29

10. Ibid. 11. Report by Thomas J. Hazlitt, Acting Deputy Inspector General, 20 August 1918. Enclosure in

Probyn to Long, No. 337, 5 September 1918. C. 0. 137/727. 12. Ibid. 13. Interview with Emmanuel Lord, who was 17 years old at the time of the riots.

An attempt has been made, in this paper, to balance the evidence from the historian's traditional sources - government despatches and newspapers - with the perspective of men and women who experienced the riots. Interviews were conducted with people who still lived in the towns and villages where the riots occurred. Informants were usually found by enquiring who the oldest long-time residents of the villages were.

14. Interviews with Stanley Lawes of Pear Tree Grove, St Mary and Emmanuel Lord.

15. Interview with Stanley Lawes; letter (undated) by W.O.B. Aitcheson, Jamaica Times, 20 July, 1918.

16. Letter (undated) by W.O.B. Aitcheson, Jamaica Times, 20 July, 1918; Interviews with Arnold Remekie of Rock Spring, St Mary and Emmanuel Lord.

17. Interview with Emmanuel Lord.

18. Interview with Arnold Remekie.

19. Daily Gleaner, 12, 15, 16 July, 1918.

20. Enclosure in Probyn to Long, No. 337, 5 September 1918. C. O. 137/727. 21. The Daily Gleaner correspondent in Linstead, for example, had written that "the mob is out

against all aliens," but had given no evidence to show that it included any group but the Chinese. Daily Gleaner, 10 July, 1918.

22. Interview with Mrs Julia Harris of Ewarton, who was 25 years old at the time of the riots.

23. See trial of prisoners for disturbances at Facey. Daily Gleaner, 23 July, 1918.

24. Interview with Julia Harris.

25. Daily Gleaner, 12 July, 1918. Editorial 'We Must Stop Disorder'.

26. Both Noel Bather of Linstead and Emmanuel Lord mentioned the involvement of district constables in the riots.

27. Daily Gleaner, 31 July, 1918.

28. Interview with Mrs. Julia Harris.

29. The phrase is Richard Tilly's. Richard Tilly, "Popular Disorders in Nineteenth Century Ger- many: A Preliminary Survey", Journal of Social History, Vol. 4 (1970), 6.

30. Gordon W. Allport and Leo Postman, The Psychology of Rumor (New York, 1965), pp. 181 - 182.

31. Probyn to Long, No. 283A, 22 July, 1918. C. O. 137/726. 32. Lind, 145.

33. George W. Roberts, The Population of Jamaica (Cambridge, 1 957), p. 66.

34. For an extended discussion of these experiments with Chinese indentured labour see Levy, "Chinese Indentured Immigration to Jamaica".

In Jamaica, as elsewhere, Chinese immigrants have tended to desert agricultural pursuits for the retail trade. SeeTamotsu Shibutani and Kian M. Kwan, Ethnic Stratification (New York, 1965), p. 192.



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35. Lind, 151. 36. Levy, "The Economic Role of the Chinese in Jamaica," pp. 12 - 13. 37. See Abstract F, p. 28. Census for 1911 in Jamaica Annual General Report with Departmental

Reports 1911 - 12; abstract F, p. 27. Census of Jamaica and its Dependencies, 1921. 38. The phrase is A. B. Lowe's. Daily Gleaner, 7 January 1918. 39. See, for example, Leonard Bloom, "The Social Differentiation of Jamaica," American Socio-

logical Review, Vol. 19 (1954), 122 - 123; David Lowenthal, West Indian Societies (London, 1972), pp. 193-194.

40. Bloom, 122 - 123. 41. Douglas Hall, Free Jamaica (New Haven, 1959), pp. 222 - 226. 42. H. G. deLisser, In Jamaica and Cuba (Kingston, 1910), p. 88; "John Chinaman in Jamaica,"

Planter's Punch, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Kingston 1923 - 1924), 9. The short-lived nature of créole shops gave rise to the popular saying: "Black man open shop but Chinee man keep shop."

43. Levy, "The Economic Role of the Chinese in Jamaica," pp. 14 - 15. 44. Ibid.

45. Interview with Emmanuel Lord. Lord's eveidence is corroborated by the claims made by Chinese grocers for damage done to their shops by rioters. E. A. Chinn and Bro., for example, reported damage done to shops at Knollis, Wakefield, West Prospect and Church Pass. Daily Gleaner, 13 July, 1918.

46. "John Chinaman in Jamaica," 9-10.

47. Ibid. 48. Lind, 156. 49. deLisser, p. 88. 50. Resolution passed by the Parochial Board of St. Ann on 4 October 1917. Enclosure in Probyn

to Long, Conf. 30 September 1918, CO. 137/727. 51. Probyn to Long, Conf. 30 Sept., 1918. CO. 137/727. 52. Daily Gleaner, 7 January 1918. 53. It was widely felt that the Chinese had 'taken charge' of the country. Interviews with Elliston

Pratt of Riversdale and Robert Hamilton of Ham Walk.

54. Levy, "The Economic Role of the Chinese in Jamaica," pp. 6-8.

55. "John Chinaman in Jamaica," 9. For a useful discussion of the reasons for Chinese success in the grocery trade see Levy, "The Economic Role of the Chinese in Jamaica," pp. 19 - 25.

56. A comment made by Mr A. H. Browne, Vice-Chairmán of the Parochial Board of St James, in 1918 provides us with a useful insight into the business operations of the Chinese. As the Daily Gleaner reported: "He [Mr. Browne] observed that 25 years ago the native shopkeeper was selling his goods at a profit of twenty to twenty-five per cent of which five per cent went for bad debts, five per cent for waste, and ten per cent for profit. The Chinese were now doing splendidly, selling at 5 per cent profit." Daily Gleaner, 7 Jan., 1918.

57. Enclosure in Probyn to Long, Conf. 30 September 1918. CO. 137/727.

58. 'John Chinaman in Jamaica," 10; Interview with Mr. Sydney Chang. H. L. Van Der Laan has noted that "the destination of Europe is a cardinal element in the character of produce." H. L. Van Der Laan, The Lebanese Traders in Sierra Leone (The Hague, 1975), p. 32.



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59. Hubert M. Blalock, Jr., Toward a Theory of Minority Group Relations (New York, 1967), pp. 79 - 84. For a useful discussion of 'middlemen minorities' see Edna Bonacich, "A Theory of Middleman Minorities," American Sociological Review, Vol. 38 (1973), 583 - 594.

60. Howard Becker, "Constructive Typology in Social Sciences," in Harry Elmer Barnes et al (ed.), Contemporary Social Theory (New York, 1971), pp. 31 - 33.

61. W. F. Wertheim, 'The Trading Minorities in Southeast Asia," in W. F. Wertheim, East-West Parallels: Sociological Approaches to Modern Asia (The Hague, 1964).

62. A comment made by Go Gien Tjwan of the Chinese in South-East Asia is also relevant in the Jamaican context: "It would seem that, despite the colonial colour-caste barriers a specific patron-client relationship developed which lessened the danger of latent anti-Chinese feelings flaring up violently. This patronage institution is a complementary economic function . . ." Go Gien Tjwan, "The changing trade position of the Chinese in South-East Asia," International Social Science Journal, Vol. XXIII (1971), 570.

63. An obvious exception was the Issa family who had established themselves as dry goods merchants in Kingston by this date.

64. The phrase is R. Bayly Winder's. R. Bayly Winder, "The Lebanese in West Africa," Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 4 (1962), 307.

65. George W. Roberts, p. 66. 66. Lois Mitchison, The Overseas Chinese (London, 1961), p. 36.

67. Roberts, p. 73.

68. George Roberts has partly explained the increase in the Chinese population from 480 in 1891 to 2,100 in 1911 by this increasing miscegenation'. Roberts, p. 66.

69. Lowenthal, pp. 199 - 200; K. O. Laurence, "The Establishment of the Portugese Community in British Guiana," The Jamaica Historical Review, Vol. 5 (1965), 7.

70. Some examples of the names adopted by Chinese shopkeepers in the areas of the riots were Isaac Chance, Albert Lawrence, Alexander Young, Len Tom, David Lea and Zachariah Williamson.

71. Bloom, 123; Lowenthal, p. 145.

72. Interviews with Robert Hamilton and Noel Bather and with Charles James of Carron Hall.

73. Bloom, 123.

74. Richard Tilly has made an observation about popular disorders in nineteenth century Germany which is applicable to the créoles in the anti-Chinese riots: "People had to possess a sense of common identity and a certain amount of familiarity with the views and probable reactions of others before they were likely to engage in collective violence." Tilly, 33.

75. Interview with Emmanuel Lord.

76. Daily Gleaner, 24 July, 1918.

77. H. S. Morris, The Indians in Uganda (Chicago, 1968), p. 143.

78. L. A. Fallers, Immigrants and Associations (The Hague, 1967), p. 10 of the introduction.

79. Daily Gleaner, 11 July, 1918. Editorial 'No Lynching Wanted Here'. The phrase quoted is H. O. Dahlke, "Race and Minority Riots - A Study in the Typology of Violence," Social Forces, Vol. XXX, (1952), 422.

80. H. O. Dahlke, 425.

81. Neil J. Smelser, Theory of Collective Behavior (New York, 1963), p. 47. An overall retail price index constructed by Richard Lobdell has shown conclusively that there was "rapid and severe



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inflation during and immediately following the First World War." Richard Lobdell, "Emigration and the Cost of Living in Jamaica, 1897 - 1938: An Exploratory Essay." Paper presented at the Fourth Conference of Caribbean Historians, Mona, Jamaica, 1972, p. 5.

82. Daily Gleaner, 2 July, 1918. Editorial on Relieving the Situation*. 83. Go Gien Tjwan, 569. 84. Interview with Charles James. 85. Ibid. 86. James Carnegie, Some Aspects of Jamaica's politics: 1918 - 1938 (Kingston, 1973), pp. 120 -

121. 87. Carnegie, pp. 82 - 83. 88. Minute by H. Beckett, 10 July, 1939. File No. 68868. C. 0. 1 37/836.



ERRATA

piii Handler/Lange on Newton Estate, Barbados and Craton/Greenland on para 5 Worthy Park, Jamaica.

ρ 27 In Woodside, for example, people marched with trays and pudding pans to get their food supplies from those shops which would be broken into in the neighbouring districts.84

ρ 35) For ρ 35 read ρ 36 and vice versa. Ρ 36)

ρ 51 Someone described it as the "smadditisation of Jamaica".15

ρ 52 FN 2 The two journalists who objected most vociferously were Mr. John Hearne and Mr. Wilmot Perkins, both writing for The Daily Gleaner. Their arguments were picked up in Ottawa and Toronto.

p. 53 The Craton/Greenland book uses a more conventional data base and deploys an array of quantitative techniques with which to establish the general demographic patterns at Worthy Park between 1783 and 1838. Against this background it isolates for specific treatment 34 individuals, including 3 whites, from the slave society of Worthy Park.



THE ANTI-CHINESE RIOTS OF 1918 IN JAMAICA

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