Swallows and Settlers

Between the 1890s and the Second World War, twenty-five million people traveled from the densely populated North China provinces of Shandong and Hebei to seek employment in the growing economy of China's three northeastern provinces, the area known as Manchuria. This was the greatest population movement in modern Chinese history and ranks among the largest migrations in the world. Swallows and Settlers is the first comprehensive study of that migration. Drawing methods from their respective fields of economics and history, the coauthors focus on both the broad quantitative outlines of the movement and on the decisions and experiences of individual migrants and their families. In readable narrative prose, the book lays out the historical relationship between North China and the Northeast (Manchuria) and concludes with an examination of ongoing population movement between these regions since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949

Swallows and Settlers

Between the 1890s and the Second World War, twenty-five million people traveled from the densely populated North China provinces of Shandong and Hebei to seek employment in the growing economy of China's three northeastern provinces, the area known as Manchuria. This was the greatest population movement in modern Chinese history and ranks among the largest migrations in the world. Swallows and Settlers is the first comprehensive study of that migration. Drawing methods from their respective fields of economics and history, the coauthors focus on both the broad quantitative outlines of the movement and on the decisions and experiences of individual migrants and their families. In readable narrative prose, the book lays out the historical relationship between North China and the Northeast (Manchuria) and concludes with an examination of ongoing population movement between these regions since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949

Globalization and labor market integration in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Asia

This chapter uses new data sets to analyze labor market integration between 1882 and 1936 in an area of Asia stretching from South India to Southeastern China and encompassing the three Southeast Asian countries of Burma, Malaya, and Thailand. We find that by the late nineteenth century, globalization, of which a principal feature was the mass migration of Indians and Chinese to Southeast Asia, gave rise to both an integrated Asian labor market and a period of real wage convergence. Integration did not, however, extend beyond Asia to include core industrial countries. Asian and core areas, in contrast to globally integrated commodity markets, showed divergent trends in unskilled real wages

Japanese colonialism in comparative perspective

The paper examines the economic consequences of Japanese colonialism in Taiwan, Korea and Manchuria in the years from 1910 to 1945, and compares Japanese policies with those implemented by other colonial powers in Southeast Asia. In particular it addresses the writings of an influential group of American scholars who have published widely on Japanese colonial policies over the last fifty years. Their work has been used to support the argument that Japanese colonial policy was more developmental than that of other colonial powers, and laid the foundations for the stellar economic performance of Taiwan and the Republic of Korea in the decades after 1950. The paper challenges this argument by comparing a number of economic and social indicators in Korea, Taiwan and Manchuria with those from other Asian colonies and also from Thailand. The main conclusion is that while the Japanese colonies, especially Taiwan, score well on some indicators, they do less well on others. The idea of Japanese exceptionalism cannot be accepted uncritically

Cultural Analysis of the Early Japanese Immigration to the United States During Meiji to Taisho Era (1868-1926)

Focusing on the years between 1868 and 1926 during which Japan underwent drastic socioeconomic, political, and cultural changes, this study traces the "pushes" (forces that caused the people to leave Japan) and "pulls" (things that attracted the people to go to Hawaii and the United States) of Japanese immigration. Utilizing a variety of primary sources such as Japanese and American newspapers, Nihon Gaiko Bunsho, Reports of the Immigration Commission, Japanese and the U.S. census records, and works of the Meiji intellectuals, this study offers cultural analysis of the Japanese immigration to Hawaii and the United States. Findings and Conclusions: Following the opening of Japan, the Japanese immigration was a byproduct of nation's rapid modernization which created a modern nation-state. Unlike colonized countries, modernization/Westernization was voluntary for the Japanese and was a way of achieving the national policy called fukoku kyohei. Nakahama Manjiro, a castaway who obtained navigation and shipbuilding skills in the United States, not only inspired the young Japanese but also facilitated Japan's modernization process. Nationalistic leaders promoted fukoku kyohei to equalize with the West by repealing "unequal treaties." To pursue this policy, the government fostered the growth of industries--Mitsubishi played an important role in developing the nation's maritime industry and the Imperial Navy. While actively adopting advanced western science and technology, Japanese cultural values were emphasized for implanting the institutionalized nationalism. The Meiji intellectuals like Fukuzawa Yukichi contributed to the government's aim by indoctrinating the superiority of Japanese over other Asians. Significantly, the cooperation between the government and industries for achieving fukoku kyohei both directly and indirectly resulted in a large-scale overseas emigration. The emigrants' remittance became an important source of foreign currencies required for carrying out expensive modernization. Meanwhile, the Japanese emigration alleviated the labor shortage problem in Hawaii and the United States. This study illustrates that the government with the help of certain individuals created a climate, which made immigration possible. The socioeconomic conditions of the emigrants as well as the national policy and attitude towards the West made the United States the place to go as opposed to China.Department of Histor

On Many Routes: Internal, European, and Transatlantic Migration in the Late Habsburg Empire

On Many Routes is about the history of human migration. With a focus on the Habsburg Empire, this innovative work presents an integrated and creative study of spatial mobilities: from short to long term, and intranational and inter-European to transatlantic. Migration was not just relegated to city folk, but likewise was the reality for rural dwellers, and we gain a better understanding of how sending and receiving states and shipping companies worked together to regulate migration and shape populations. Bringing historical census data, governmental statistics, and ship manifests into conversation with centuries-old migration patterns of servants, agricultural workers, seasonal laborers, peddlers, and artisans—both male and female—this research argues that Central Europeans have long been mobile, that this mobility has been driven by diverse motivations, and that post-1850 transatlantic migration was an obvious extension of earlier spatial mobility patterns. Demonstrating the complexity of human mobility via an exploration of the links between overseas, continental, and internal migrations, On Many Routes shows that migrations to the United States, to the nearest coalfield, and to the urban capitals are embedded within complicated patterns of movement. There is no good reason to study internal apart from transnational moves, and combining these fields brings ample possibility to make migration research more relevant for the much broader field of social and economic history. This work poses an invaluable resource to the understudied area of Habsburg Empire migration studies, which it relocates within its wider European context and provides a major methodological contribution to the history of human migration more broadly. The ubiquity and functionality of human movement sheds light on the relationship between human nature and society, and challenges simplistic notions of human mobility then and now.https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/ces/1001/thumbnail.jp

Bonded Labour: Global and Comparative Perspectives (18th-21st Century)

Parallel to the abolition of Atlantic slavery, new forms of indentured labour stilled global capitalism's need for cheap, disposable labour. The famous 'coolie trade' - mainly Asian labourers transferred to French and British islands in the Indian Ocean, Australia, Indonesia, South Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas, as well as to Portuguese colonies in Africa - was one of the largest migration movements in global history. Indentured contract workers are perhaps the most revealing example of bonded labour in the grey area between the poles of chattel slavery and 'free' wage labour. This interdisciplinary volume addresses historically and regionally specific cases of bonded labour relations from the 18th century to sponsorship systems in the Arab Gulf States today

South Asians and the creation of international legal order, c. 1850-c. 1920 : global political thought and imperial legal politics

This dissertation argues that South Asians used international legal discourse both for ideological disputation and to mount political challenges to the domination and subjugation that accompanied British imperial rule between roughly 1850 and 1920. South Asians instigated political and legal disputes in India and Britain, throughout the empire, and overseas, and gained promises and partial concessions to Indian opinions and demands that limited British options in imperial and international relations. In so doing, they compelled the British state to alter the ideology, the policies, and the practices of the state, in India and in its relations with other states both within and outside the empire. Britain’s power, ultimately, meant that South Asians’ argumentation and actions shaped the contours of global order after the First World War. The traditional international-legal framework of treaties, treatises, and states provides little insight into South Asians’ contributions to global order and law between roughly 1850 and 1920. This situation exists, partly, because of the perceived and purported normalcy of the nation-state as the fundamental category of international life. Traditional histories of international law argue that international law originated in Europe and regulated European states’ relations until colonized states were granted international legal recognition at the time of decolonization. Recent revisionist scholarship argues that the existence and experience of empire and colonial rule shaped the development of international law and global order throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This dissertation approaches empire in a way that emphasizes the global exchange of ideas and the active connections between colonizers and the colonized. Elite, English-speaking South Asians acted as cultural translators or intermediaries. They engaged in debates as public intellectuals, and they carved out spaces for themselves in the social and political communities that created public opinion. Consequently, South Asians' ideas about relations among different peoples and between states and South Asians' mobilization of these ideas throughout the empire and overseas to make political claims about the obligations of the imperial state and the rights of imperial subjects shaped ideas about global order and the structure of international legal relations.Histor

Bonded Labour

Parallel to the abolition of Atlantic slavery, new forms of indentured labour stilled global capitalisms need for cheap, disposable labour. The famous coolie trade – mainly Asian labourers transferred to French and British islands in the Indian Ocean, Australia, Indonesia, South Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas, as well as to Portuguese colonies in Africa – was one of the largest migration movements in global history. Indentured contract workers are perhaps the most revealing example of bonded labour in the grey area between the poles of chattel slavery and free wage labour. This interdisciplinary volume addresses historically and regionally specific cases of bonded labour relations from the 18th century to sponsorship systems in the Arab Gulf States today

Colonial settlement and migratory labour in Karafuto 1905-1941

Following the Russo-Japanese War Japan acquired its second formal colony, Karafuto (southern Sakhalin), which became thoroughly integrated with mainland Japan, developing into an important supplier of marine products, lumber, paper and pulp, and coal. This sparsely populated colony offered the prospect of large scale settlement and over the course of the Japanese colonial period the population of the Karafuto increased to over 400,000 before the Pacific War. This thesis traces the course of migration to Karafuto and assesses the role of settlement policy, and migratory labour in colonial settlement. Utilizing colonial media, government reports and local documents, as well as the recollections of former settlers, this study argues that the phenomenon of migratory labour acted as an indirect means for establishing a permanent settler community in Karafuto. This study stresses that the colonial government of Karafuto’s efforts towards the establishment of permanent settlements based on agriculture largely failed. Instead, it was industries that involved the utilization of migratory labour which acted as base-industries for economic life in the colony, and helped support Karafuto’s more enduring communities. Indeed, even in the few cases of successfully established government sponsored agricultural communities in Karafuto, seasonal migratory labour and nonagricultural activity were a persistently crucial component of the community’s economic life. A further implication of this study relates to the comprehensive integration of Karafuto with migratory labour markets in northern mainland Japan and Hokkaido. Evidence presented in this study allows us to question the prevalent notions that northern Japan was an isolated, or poorly connected, region. Instead, it is found that the prefectures of Japan’s northeast were actively engaged in northward bound settlement and migratory labour circuits