No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Mortality and the Javanese Diaspora
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 June 2011
Extract
During the past few decades, many scholars have studied the various demographic consequences of European overseas expansion. One focus of attention has been the fatal impact of European expansion on the native populations of the New World. Before contact with Europeans, the native populations of the Americas, Australia, and the Pacific were generally free of infectious diseases, and so lacked immunity to diseases such as smallpox, measles, and influenza, which were introduced by Europeans. A second focus of attention has been the mortality among Europeans when they went overseas and encountered new diseases, such as malaria, yellow fever, and cholera, to which they had no immunity. And a third focus of attention has been the mortality among various African, Asian, and Pacific Islander labourers when they were procured as slaves or indentured servants for work on European plantations in various parts of the world.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1997
References
Notes
* We are indebted to Vincent Houben for making available to us unpublished data from his ongoing research on Javanese migration to Sumatra, and to Stanley L. Engerman and Doug Munro for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
1 McNeill, W.H., Plagues and Peoples (New York 1976)Google Scholar; Crosby, A. W. Jr, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport 1972)Google Scholar; Crosby, A.W. Jr, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900 (Cambridge 1986).Google Scholar
2 Curtin, P.D., Death by Migration: Europe's Encounter with the Tropical World in the Nineteenth Century (New York 1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 Curtin, P.D., ‘Epidemiology and the Slave Trade’, Political Science Quarterly 83 (1968) 190–216CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Shlomowitz, R., ‘Epidemiology and the Pacific Labor Trade’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 19 (1989) 585–610CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Shlomowitz, R. and Brennan, L., ‘Epidemiology and Indian Labor Migration at Home and Abroad’, Journal of World History 5 (1994) 47–67.Google Scholar
4 Houben, V.J.H., ‘“Menyang Tanah Sabrang”: Javanese Coolie Migration in- and outside Indonesia, 1909–1940’, paper presented to the conference ‘The Malay Archipelago and the World Economy, 1790s–1990s’ (Canberra 1992).Google Scholar
5 On the number of Javanese workers and accompanying children who were brought to Suriname, see Hoefte, Rose Marie, “Plantation Labor after the Abolition of Slavery: The Case of Plantation Marienburg (Suriname) 1840–1940’ (PhD thesis, University of Florida, 1987) 456–457.Google Scholar
6 Parr, C.W.C., ‘Report of the Commission Appointed to Enquire into the Condition of Indentured Labour in the Federated Malay States, 1910’, Federated Malay States, Proceedings of tlif Federal Council for 1909–1910, Paper No. 11. 1910, c75; Annual Report on Indian Immigration, Straits Settlements, 1904. Before 1946, the Malay Peninsula was divided into three administrative regions: the Straits Settlements (Singapore, Penang, Province Wellesley, Dindings, and Malacca), the Federated Malay States (Perak, Selangor, Pahang, and Negri Sembilan), and the unfederated Malay States (Johore, Kelantan, Kedah, Trengganu, and Perils).Google Scholar
7 For Suriname, the Koloniale Verslagen reported information on the mortality suffered by Javanese and Indian recruits on their voyages to Suriname. and the causes of deaths during their contracts in Suriname. Unfortunately, however, these mortality data were inclusive of infant and children who were most at risk. In addition, the cause-of-death data are not particularly helpful: nearly half of deaths are simply attributed to a category ‘other causes’, while many other disease categories relate to symptoms (such as anaemia, convulsions, and weakness) rather than underlying causes.
8 It is possible to make an upper bound estimate of the average death rate of indentured workers during the first five years in Suriname, by simply assuming that no deaths occurred among re-indentured workers. On this assumption, the death rate of the first indentured population was at most 1.7 per 1,000 more than the death rate of the combined first indentured and re-indentured population for the period 1899–1932, the only period for which statistics on the number of re-indentured workers were reported. Unfortunately, it is not possible to conduct a similar exercise for the Federated Malay States. Data were reported on the number of re-indentured contracts but not on the number of re-indentured workers employed on the same estates as indentured workers. It is also not known if the mortality statistics relating to Javanese contract workers in the Straits Settlements were inclusive of any re-indentured workers, and separate information on reindentured contracts were not reported for 1912–1913.
9 This conclusion can be shown by assuming that all deaths of Javanese contract workers (inclusive of re-indentured contracts) in Suriname occurred in the first three years after arrival. On the basis of this assumption, the average annual death rate of Javanese during their first three years after arriving in Suriname would be seventeen per 1,000 (over 1899–1932, the period for which re-indentured contract information is available). This is an upper bound estimate of the ‘true’ mortality suffered during the first three years after arrival in Suriname, yet it is still considerably less than the mortality suffered by Javanese contract workers in Malaya.
10 Parr, , ‘Report’, c63; R.A. Pope, ‘Report on Javanese Labour’, 25 June 1923, Records of the British Phosphate Commissioners, Australian Archives Melbourne, MP1174/1, Item 898. (We are indebted to Doug Munro for a copy of this archival document.)Google Scholar
11 Emmer, P.C., ‘Asians Compared: Some Observations Regarding Indian and Indonesian Indentured Labourers in Surinam, 1873–1939’, Itineraio) 11/1 (1987) 149–153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 Shlomowitz, R. and Brennan, L., ‘Mortality and Indian Labour in Malaya, 1877–1933’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review 29 (1992) 63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13 Shlomowitz and Brennan, ‘Epidemiology’, 63.
14 Parr, , ‘Report’, c62, c75, c76; Malcolm Watson, The Prevention of Malaria in the Federated Malay States (London 1921) 37, 75, 149.Google Scholar
15 On Sumatra, see Houben,’ “MenyangTanah Sabrang”’; Langeveld, H.J., ‘Arbeidstoestanden op de Ondernemingen ter Oostkust van Sumatra tussen 1920 en 1940 in het Licht van het Verdwijnen van de Poenale Sanctie op de Arbeidscontracten’, Economisch- en Sociaal-Historisch Jaarboek 41 (1978) 340Google Scholar; Kuenen, W. A., De Keuring, Huisvesting en Vervoer van Emigranten naarDeli (Medan 1920)Google Scholar; Schueffner, W. and Kuenen, W.A., De Gezondheidstoestand van de Arbeiders, Verbonden aan de Senembah Maatschappij op Sumatra 1897–1907: Een Bijdrage ter Oplossing van het Vraagstuk, hoe een Gunstige Gezondheidstoestand Bereikt han Worden in de Grote Cultuurondememingen Gevestigd in Tropische Gewesten (Amsterdam 1909)Google Scholar; Haneveld, G.T., ‘From Slave Hospital to Reliable Health Care: Medical Work on the Plantations of Sumatra's East Coast’ in: CM. van, Heteren, A. de Knecht-van, Eekelen, and M.J.D., Poulissen eds, Dutch Medicine in the Malay Archipelago, 1816–1942 (Amsterdam/ Atlanta 1989) 73–85.Google Scholar