Paper short abstract:

This paper examines “new slavery” as it relates to Chinese indentured labor in early 1900s South Africa. It argues that to bring to life the story of these laborers, who are left out of African Studies, the concept of “new slavery” requires reflection on all its historical and systemic aspects.

Paper long abstract:

Following the South African Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, a demand for cheap labor from the gold mining industry in the Witwatersrand (Rand) had the British colonial government looking towards Asia for labor. The turn to China for indenture labor was met with condemnation by white laborers and trade unions along with various other actors in South Africa and the metropolitan center, claiming that a system of “new slavery” was being introduced. Despite protests across the British empire, the first Chinese laborers arrived on the Rand in 1904. By 1906, the Liberal Party’s victory in Britain reinvigorated the “new slavery” debate, contributing to the abolition of Chinese indenture. My paper aims to answer the following questions: Given that South Africa already had local sources of cheap labor, why was labor sought in China? What were the characteristics of “new slavery” from the perspective of those who opposed the importation of Chinese indentured laborers, and how was it eventually abolished in South Africa? Through my answers, I aim to delineate the sociopolitical framing of “new slavery” that has since been supplanted by what Cooper (2005, 17) calls “agentless abstraction” that does little to illuminate the experience of indenture labor and their role in historic transformations, namely South Africa’s racial capitalist future after reconstruction. By demonstrating this, I argue that to bring to life the story of Chinese indentured labor, who are left out of history books about Africa, the concept of “new slavery” requires reflection on all its historical and systemic aspects.