Asian Migration to Latin America: Patterns of Mobility in the Sailing Ships Age

The article treats the features of trans-Pacific migration, when mobility was carried out using sailing vessels. Manila galleons became a key element of commodity exchange during the colonial period and a symbol of two-way communication between New Spain and the Philippines. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Asian migration was expressed in the slave trade, but the prohibition of “indio-chino” slavery in 1672 limited this form of human traffic. After gaining independence, Latin American states faced a shortage of workers. Based on the example of Peru, the peculiarities of the transformation of the trans–Pacific transport communication, the quantitative dynamics of the importation of contracted Chinese coolie workers, and their working conditions are considered. It is concluded that the coolie phenomenon was a transitional form of labor relations on plantations, which ended at the same time as the decline of the sailing age as the dominant form of transoceanic communication.