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Alien Labor on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, 1880–1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Victor C. Dahl
Victor C. Dahl*
Affiliation:
Portland State College, Portland, Oregon
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Extract

Economic activity on Mexico's Gulf coast steadily increased during the last two decades of the nineteenth century partially as a result of improved means of transportation and the enforced peace of Porfirio Díaz. The Mexican government modernized that area's communication facilities by letting out several highly profitable construction contracts to foreigners for building or improving harbor and port facilities at Tampico, Veracruz, Coatzacoalcos, and Campeche. Alien contractors and investors were responsible for railway connections from Verácruz to the interior which had been completed in 1873, and other Gulf ports were similarly linked to the hinterland during the next two decades. A Mexican-built interoceanic line spanned the Tehuantepec Isthmus in 1894, but it was so poorly erected that in 1898 an English construction firm, S. Pearson and Sons, contracted to rebuild the line. Subsequently the same company leased and operated that railroad. These material improvements served to enliven the growing Mexican economy.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , July 1960 , pp. 21 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1960

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References

1 For a description of the growth of Mexico’s transportation and communication facilities, including railroads, telegraph lines, and shipping accommodations before the turn of the twentieth century, see Mexico, Department of Finance, Mexican Year Book 1908 (London, 1908), pp. 325–413; 717–725.

2 According to W. Adolphe Roberts, large numbers of Jamaicans emigrated from the crown colony as a consequence of various economic pressures. In the 1880's employment agents recruited Jamaicans to work on Ferdinand de Lessep’s abortive canal project in fever-ridden Panama and few returned. Others found work later on Central American banana plantations and in Cuban sugar fields. In the 1890’s thousands of Jamaicans began emigrating to the United States, especially to New York and other large coastal cities, seeking any kind of employment. Jamaica, the Portrait of an Island (New York, 1955), pp. 122–126.

3 Romero, Matías, Geographical and Statistical Notes on Mexico (New York and London, 1898), p. 126.Google Scholar

4 “ Report on the Condition of Agricultural Labourers in the State of Veracruz,” Augustus Baker, British consul at Veracruz, May 7, 1887. See Great Britain, Public Records Office, documents on microfilm, Foreign Office, Classification 50, Mexico, Volume 461, folio 309, hereinafter cited as FO/50/ according to volume and folio (FO/50/461/309). Hubert Howe Bancroft gives a well documented account, much like Baker’s in History of Mexico, VI (San Francisco, 1888), 612–613.

5 Lord Granville (Granville George Levenson Gower), foreign secretary, to Sir Spenser St. John, special envoy to Mexico, No. 4, draft, June 28, 1883, FO/50/441/21.

6 St. John to Granville, Mexico, No. 9, August 6, 1883, FO/50/441/156.

7 St. John to Granville, No. 42(5), January 7, 1884, FO/50/445/9.

8 Ibid.

9 St. John, , Hayti or the Black Republic (London, 1884), pp. 131–132.Google Scholar

10 Philip H. W. Currie, foreign undersecretary, to H. P. Millard, employee of Mexican Telegraph Company at Tampico, January 1, 1887, FO/50/464/2.

11 St. John to Lord Iddesleigh (Stafford Henry Northcote Iddesleigh), foreign secretary, Consular, No. 7, December 9, 1886, FO/50/455/77.

12 St. John to Marquess of Salisbury (Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne Cecil), foreign secretary, Consular, No. 3, March 11, 1887, FO/50/460/37.

13 W. C. Justice, governor of Jamaica, to H. Holland, colonial undersecretary, Kingston, May 12, 1887, copy, FO/50/460/68.

14 St. John to Salisbury, Consular, No. 8, July 30, 1887, FO/50/460/68.

15 “ Statement of George Congdon, Able Seaman of British Steamer ‘ Telephone,’” Plymouth, April 18, 1887, FO/50/461/112.

16 “ Account by R. J. Betty, received at the Foreign Office,” August 21, 1891, FO/50/512/1.

17 Extract from Anti-Slavery Reporter, September-October issue, 1891, London, 228–231, “ Illtreatment of a Jamaica Negro. Alleged Enslavement of British Subjects in Mexico,” FO/50/512/98.

18 “ A ‘ Nigger Story’ from Mexico,” Pall Mall Gazette, London, October 19, 1891, FO/50/512/15.

19 A. Latch, British vice-consul at Carmen, to Daniel A. Miron, acting British consul at Veracruz, September 28, 1891, copy, FO/50/512/11. The town of Carmen was then named Laguna de Terminos.

20 Sir Thomas Villiers Lister, assistant foreign under-secretary, to Betty, November 2, 1891, draft, FO/50/512/20.

21 St. John to Ignacio Mariscal, Mexican secretary of foreign relations, December 22, 1891, copy, FO/50/483/62; and St. John to Salisbury, Consular, No. 6, duplicate, December 22, 1891, FO/50/512/28.

22 Mariscal to St. John, December 25, 1891, copy, FO/50/483/64.

23 Marsical to St. John, March 5, 1892, translation, FO/50/512/33.

24 St. John to Salisbury, Consular, No. 4, March 16, 1892, FO/50/512/30.

25 St. John to Salisbury, No. 25, May 27, 1892, FO/50/512/56.

26 Leocadio Preve, president of superior court, to Mariscal, Campeche, May 31, 1892, copy, FO/50/512/61.

27 Foreign Office Memorandum, “ Mr. Betty’s complaint,” April 2, 1892, FO/50/512/41.

28 R. H. Meade, colonial undersecretary, to Lister, August 3, 1892, FO/50/512/63; and “Report of the Inspector General of Police to Colonial Secretary,” Kingston, June 21, 1892, FO/50/512/65.

29 Reverend R. W. Hunt, Headquarters of the Church Army, to Lister, London, October 29, 1891, FO/50/512/16; and Foreign Office Memorandum, “Mr. Perkins, June 11, 1895,” FO/50/512/101.

30 Betty to Salisbury, London, November 18, 1891, and May 5, 1892; FO/50/512/22, and FO/50/512/50; Betty to Kimberley, London, September 14, 1894, FO/50/512/73.

31 Geoffrey A. Perkins, attorney, to Francis Bertie, London, May 15, 1895; and May 20, 1895, FO/50/512/100. Also see “Petition of R. J. Betty to Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,” May, 1895, FO/50/512/83; and E. F. Fox, solicitor, to Kimberley, London, July 3, 1895, FO/50/512/107.

32 Betty to Salisbury, Capetown, March 24, 1897, FO/50/512/121.

33 St. John to Granville, No. 51(14), March 19, 1884, FO/50/445/33.

34 Edward Wingfield, colonial undersecretary, to Julian Pauncefote, foreign undersecretary, August 8, 1884, FO/50/447/199.

35 Great Britain, Public Records Office, documents on microfilm, Foreign Office, General Correspondence Mexico, Volume 451, “Emigration from China to Mexico,” 321 folios; and Mexico, Ministerio de relaciones exteriores, Correspondencia diplomática cambiada entre el gobierno de los estados unidos mexicanos y los de varias potencias extranjeras desde el 30 de Junio de 1881 á 30 de Junio de 1886 (México, 1887), “Emigración china á la república. Los inmigrantes chinos in México quedan bajo la protección de la Gran Bretaña,” 602–633.

36 Lionel Carden, British consul at Mexico City, to St. John, Mexico, “ Report on Chinese Coolies in Tehuantepec,” August 27, 1891, Great Britain, Public Records Office, documents on microfilm, Foreign Office, Series 203, Consular Archives, Mexico, Volume 102, folio 51 (FO/203/102/51).

37 Spender, J. A., Weetman Pearson First Viscount Cowdray 1856–1921 (London, 1930), pp. 101–109.Google Scholar

38 Arthur Chapman, British consul at Veracruz, to Salisbury, March 16, 1898, Commercial, No. 2, FO/50/515/256; and Commercial, No. 3, March 21, 1898, FO/50/515/258.

38 Philip C. Cord, assistant colonial secretary, to Chapman, No. 26622/3429, April 6, 1898, FO/50/515/272.

40 John Β. Body, manager of Obras del Puerto de Veracruz, to Chapman, April 20, 1898, copy, FO/50/515/270.

41 Chapman to W. A. L. Hemming, governor of Jamaica, Veracruz, April 22/1898, FO/50/515/266.

42 Chapman to C. P. Lucas, assistant colonial secretary, Veracruz, April 19, 1898, FO/50/515/274.

43 Pearson and Sons had a bad reputation in labor relations. In the same year the Pearson company had lost two separate law suits in British courts to two former employees who had been dismissed summarily and left stranded in Veracruz. See Henry George Churchill, attorney, to Salisbury, Etonville, Middlesex, February 2, 1898, FO/50/516/117; and April 7, 1898, FO/50/516/144.

44 C. Romero, Mexican chargé d’affaires in London, to Marquess of Lansdowne (Henry Charles Keith Petty Fitzmaurice), foreign secretary, November 29, 1900, FO/50/523/7.

45 George N. Curzon, government of India, Department of Revenue and Agriculture (Emigration), to George F. Hamilton, secretary for India, Calcutta, February 28, 1901, FO/50/526/124.

46 George S. Sanborn, president of Mexican Mutual Planters Company, to Sir George Greville, British minister to Mexico, Chicago, June 11, 1901, FO/50/524/124.

47 Greville to Lansdowne, No. 31, Mexico, June 17, 1901, FO/50/524/122.

48 Lord Hardwicke (Albert Edward Philip Henry Yorke), undersecretary for India, to Lansdowne, July 30, 1901, FO/50/526/177.

49 G. W. E. Griffith, British vice consul at Tampico, to Lucien Jerome, consul at Mexico City, Consular, No. 18, August 2, 1900, FO/50/522/164, or FO/203/139/171, copy; private letter, August 11, 1900, FO/203/139/171; and No. 24, September 24, 1900, FO/203/139/219.

50 G. T. Carter, governor of Bahama, to Joseph Chamberlain, colonial secretary, Nassau, September 19, 1900, copy, FO/50/523/176.

51 Fairfax L. Cartwright, secretary of British legation at Mexico, to Salisbury, Consular, No. 4, October 10, 1900, FO/50/521/29.

52 Lucien Jerome, British consul at Mexico, to Salisbury, Consular, No. 28, August 6, 1900, FO/50/522/162.

53 Greville to Lansdowne, Consular, No. 3, May 3, 1902, FO/50/529/191.

54 The author wishes to express his appreciation to Professor Lawrence Kinnaird who suggested the topic for this article and provided helpful recommendations for its preparation.