Cuban death certificates of Chinese indentured workers,
Numbered death certificates issued by the Comisaria Real Hospital de Caridad de San Felipe y Santiago. Provide details of the immigrants, such as their names, racial classification, ages, origin, and cause of death.
| Format: | Manuscript |
|---|---|
| Language: | Spanish |
| Published: |
[Havana, Cuba] :
Real Hospital de Caridad de San Felipe y Santiago,
1870-1876.
|
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | Numbered death certificates issued by the Comisaria Real Hospital de Caridad de San Felipe y Santiago. Provide details of the immigrants, such as their names, racial classification, ages, origin, and cause of death. |
|---|---|
| Item Description: | Title devised by cataloger. 23 certificates say "Hospital de Caridad de San Felipe y Santiago" without the Royal. The death certificates are completed in MS on printed forms, signed by "El Administrador". Majority of certificates list the deceased as being from "Asia", with some from "Macao" or "Canton", in Southern China. During the nineteenth century, around 125,000 Chinese, predominantly men, were brought to Cuba to work as indentured workers. Oftentimes referred to as "Coolies" (culí in Spanish), the need for Chinese workers in Cuba arose during the abolition of slavery. Cubans found themselves in need of cheap labor to run the sugar industry and resorted to bringing Chinese workers to the island nation. The first Chinese workers were brought to Cuba in June of 1847, many of whom were political prisoners involved in an uprising against Chinese feudal lords. Though they were brought to Cuba as "workers," the treatment Chinese workers received under Cuban patrons is questionable and thought to be equal to the treatment received by African slaves. Within this society, the Catholic Church provided some services to the workers, such as assigning burial space and providing care to the sick in the church's charity hospitals. One of these hospitals was the Real Hospital de Caridad de San Felipe y Santiago established in 1603 by the order of friars of San Juan de Dios. The hospital provided care for slaves, soldiers, white people, blacks, and people of mixed races. However, it functioned mostly as a hospice, for most of the people who went there were either very old or very sick. Plantation owners used to send their sick slaves to die to this hospital so they did not have to care for them in their own houses. |
| Physical Description: | 56 items ; 19 cm |