1 - Crossing Imperial Borders

Summary

Abstract

The lives of a Macanese clerk, a businessman and a newspaper editor reveal the dynamic and continuous relationship between Macau and Hong Kong. Owing to the lack of exciting opportunities in the Portuguese enclave, aspiring Macanese men braved their first move to British Hong Kong in 1842, pulled by pre-existing employment, partnerships and unfulfilled dreams. The arrival of the Macanese caused a domino effect, prompting Catholic missionaries to transfer their headquarters to Hong Kong where they would set up churches and schools that catered to a growing population. As against common perceptions of Macau as a ‘prelude’ to Hong Kong's acquisition, this chapter shows how Macanese migrants created an unprecedented meeting point between the Portuguese and British imperial spheres.

Keywords: Macau, Hong Kong, migration, British companies, Catholicism, urban culture

In April 1839, Britain and China stood on the brink of war, with all hell about to break loose. The British Superintendent of Trade in China, Captain Charles Elliot, then in a Canton lockdown, wrote to his wife Clara in Macau with the instruction, ‘Desire Leonardo to send me up a copy of my secret letter to [Commander] Blake [of Her Majesty's Sloop ‘Larne’] by the first safe hand. We want it for our dispatches. This was dated March 23rd 1839.’ Elliot had instructed for his entrusted Macanese clerk Leonardo d’Almada e Castro to deliver an important letter to advise Blake, which read: ‘if you shall not hear from me in some certain and assuring manner with the space of six days […] I trust that you will proceed in Her Majesty's sloop under your command to the Bocca Tigris,’ the naval gateway to Canton. Elliot also asked Blake to avoid any intercourse with the British shipping, much of which had been engaged in the ‘illicit traffic’ of opium. Five months later, the First Opium War broke out, lasting for almost three years. The Treaty of Nanking concluded the war, earning the British a long-anticipated opportunity to open up trade with China under British terms. The Qing government ceded Hong Kong to Britain and in 1842, D’Almada sailed into the waters of Hong Kong as a leading clerk of the new colonial government. He had been a clerk at the office of the Superintendent of Trade since 1836 and the Britons trusted he was a good fit for the new Hong Kong administration.