"They lived on rice and salmon working for the CPR
While Andrew Onderdonk kept watching from his private railroad car
When scurvy hit the camps sometimes a coolie passed away
But no one mourned his passing and they soon forgot his name "- The Oriental Navvies by Bert Coughlan
The disparities between foreign labour groups on Canadian railways are most easily portrayed when comparing what the different workers ate. And while conditions vary by case, one can still draw several conclusions from these diets to understand more broadly the exploitation of Chinese "coolies" as opposed to their European counterparts.
Ethnicity was a common dividing line within railway groups and because Chinese workers were seen as second class citizens, they were left having to acquire their own food, medicine and supplies. These were things provided by rail companies to white workers. Having to supply all basic necessities, secluded in remote places, while also being paid a fraction of their promised wages, greatly impacted the Chinese and pushed many into extreme poverty. The needs of Chinese workers were disregarded despite being the driving force behind railway completion.
The Canadian Pacific Railway treated Chinese workers as if they were expendable commodities which could be easily replaced. Lack of regard towards these men meant companies and rail contractors would pay no heed to the men lost during construction, especially when camps were segregated. In the minds of the contractors, such --- men needed no share in the supply of rations. This neglectful use of Chinese labour found it's steady beginning when American railroad contractors turned to cheap imported labour for the Central Pacific branch of the Transcontinental Railroad of 1863.
However, the Chinese building the Central Pacific Railroad had one major advantage: Location.
As the railroad began it's construction in California, meaning close contact with the massive Chinese diaspora of San Francisco, Chinese workers began to thrive as discriminatory measures came with an unexpected benefit. Rather than choking back boiled beef, beans, and potatoes, Chinese opted for a different kind of diet. Imported from Hong Kong came a smorgasbord of dried seafood like oysters and abalone, bamboo sprouts, mushrooms, vermicelli, cabbage, dried fruits, herbal medicines, various meats, seaweed, sugar and tea. Not only did these foods ward off scurvy, but also brought the flavours and aromas of home to men stuck in such unfamiliar circumstances. Drinking traditional teas brought along benefits of their own, as workers were significantly less vulnerable to waterborne illnesses, such as dysentery. These goods would come in specialized train-car shops, where they were then purchased using funds pooled by workers, after having been imported to the country by Chinese merchant companies known as huiguans.
"Nearly all the food the Chinaman ate came from China, so about once a week a supply car would come from San Francisco and would be set out on the back sidetrack and all the cooks would come with their long tote poles or tote bars which were long sticks about 8 feet long with a notch near each end and a padded shoulder near the middle. They would hang a box of supplies on one end and maybe a bamboo fiber sack of brown rice or raw brown sugar balanced on the other end. They would shoulder the tote pole near it’s sic and trot off to their car direct from China via ship and C.P. supply car." - Wallace Clay, Personal Life of a Chinese Coolie, 1869–1899
Irish workers, who made up the rest of the workers on this railway, sustained themselves with the provided beef, bread, and black coffee. This seems rather lackluster in comparison to their counterparts however having guaranteed access to food each day was a dream for Chinese trainmen.
While Coolies on the Central Pacific hit the jackpot in terms of food, that luck ran dry on the Canadian Pacific Railway, where companies provided insufficient rations. Chinese workers were left to survive off rice and dried salmon for months at a time. Depending on the location and conditions in camps, foraging of local berries and plants would have been done out of necessity as scurvy became chronic and illness spread rampant through the Chinese who, unlike other navvies, had no right to medical attention. In Yale, British Colombia, CPR contractor Andrew Onderdonk refused to provide medical attention to Chinese labourers. Dukesang Wong, a coolie at the time, encapsulated the dire situation of autumn 1883 writing in his diary "many of our people have been so very ill for such a long time, and there has been no medicine nor good food to give them. Even the strongest of us are weak without medicine to fight against these diseases, which spread very rapidly. It is such a sorrowful sight. The white doctor has told us the illnesses come from lack of fresh food, but we cannot grow any, as all of us are moving constantly with the work we have to do. The good doctor has gone to the larger town in search of better food for the very ill, but I am afraid that the medicines will not arrive here to these poor gutter-shelters." Wong continued "These are troubled times for us Chinese. There has been word among the employing company that we are not good workers and do not work enough for the schedules and plans of the railway owners. How does anyone work when so ill? Many are killed when such words are spoken, and we are becoming more like dogs biting at one another. My meagre attempts at talking about being humble and waiting for better days are senseless. My words mean less than nothing. I am of so little help to everyone." These conditions persisted across all camps with Dukesang Wong still shadowed by such misfortune in his later years of rail construction stating "I am truly alone amid the dying. The leaders of the white people demand money — our poor savings — taken from we who have so little, given to those who are not so taxed. Some who are very ill have taken to spending their days in the opium shacks, with little food and even less strength. This is a bad omen."
In these camps the Chinese labourers were divided into groups of 30 and consisted of a cook, an assistant cook, Chinese record keeper, who tallied tracks laid and hours worked, and a white "herder." After groups were formed they began their trek to camps on uphill mountain trails, with supplies suspended in large packs or on shoulder poles, each clinging on to ropes and climbing single file to work sites. Due to this, cooks would have no option but to pack lightly, meaning crews would have to acquire provisions somewhere in the remote back country of Western Canada.
In their largest, crews could reach sizes of a thousand men or more, resulting in the establishment of Chinese stores and services within and along the way to camps. Simply, the bigger the camp, the higher the likelihood of access to Chinese imported goods. In Yale, Cheng Ging Butt and On Lee, opened a general merchandise store, along with companies such as Lian Chang Co and Lee Chuck Co, who operated independent stores in the town and surrounding areas. If funds pooled by workers were sufficient, merchants could be hired for a fare to transport goods to encampments. In the harsh winter of 1883, when work above Lytton, British Colombia was shut down, Chinese labourers were dependent on rice rations and supplies imported by these merchants. Many moved down to Yale, taking shelter in old buildings and scavenged food where they could.
Unlike the Chinese, white workers had a steady supply of food that year. According to trainman Stephen Pardoe, "The food was generally good and plentiful. Beef and pork, beans and potatoes, bread and hot biscuits, syrup, tea and coffee, were the mainstays, heartily consumed three times a day." Despite this, if you were to pass by the camps, complaints of the lack of variety or quality of the meals could be heard. If a white labourer so much as disliked the food provided, he could go as far as to move camps entirely. On the rail line near Calgary, Alberta, a contractor wrote to the Canadian Gazette Newspaper in 1883 reporting on the standard shipment of provisions that came throughout the week. There are mentions of meat coming from a butcher in Milwaukee, who supplied fresh beef three times a week. From Manitoba came 300 sacks of flour, each weighing 100 pounds, required for baking bread. Butter was sent from Ontario. While the rest of the rations consisted of canned fruits and vegetables, onions, potatoes, sugar and eggs, which came daily.
From these cases, we can see the broad similarities of food supplied by companies, while also showing the struggles Chinese workers faced to survive. Some flourished and some suffered, all depending on the individual circumstance.
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