World War I's “Exciting Effects”
2015; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 61; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/00086495.2015.11878850
ISSN2470-6302
Autores Tópico(s)World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact
ResumoON A JULY 1918 EVENING IN THE VILLAGE OF Ewarton, Jamaica, McDonald covertly slipped into a house to meet a woman named Caroline Lindo. Their rendezvous had to be under cover of darkness because Lindo was already involved with another man, Chinese shopkeeper Fong Sue. In fact, Lindo and McDonald were meeting Fong's home. This proved to be a particularly bad decision, for Fong arrived home unexpectedly and, on catching two together, what any other man would have done and . . . gave [Pretty Man] a licking.1 It must have been a serious licking, for subsequently, Pretty Man ran away and, for reasons never fully explained, hid himself woods. As many historians know, story does end here. When surrounding community realised that Pretty Man was missing, rumours quickly spread: Fong had emasculated Pretty Man! No, Fong had killed Pretty Man!2 Rumours turned to rage; and rage turned to riot. Around 11:30 p.m. on night of 9 July 1918, a mob converged on shop of Albert Chin Ewarton, smashing and looting shop revenge for purported violence against Pretty Man. The crowd then surged onward and attacked three other shops area operated by Chinese men. Their rallying cry, not a damn Chinaman leave today,3 sent Chinese men associated with these shops running for their lives. Mob violence directed at shops either owned or operated by Chinese men spread across county of Middlesex just as quickly as had rumours of Pretty Man's demise. Over course of three terrifying nights and days, Chinese shops were smashed and goods inside stolen or destroyed.4 When it was over, damage was estimated as high as £30,0005 and hundreds of Jamaicans were sentenced to one year of hard labour prison for their participation what would later become known as 1918 AntiChinese Riots.Why was there such an extreme public reaction to what was essentially a private matter? Why did such violence against Chinese flare up so readily Jamaica at this time? Of course, answer to such questions is necessarily complex. In his seminal article on riots, Howard Johnson identifies and explores some of more long-term and immediate factors leading up to events of July 1918. Johnson focuses particularly on economic history of Chinese Jamaica; namely, their close association with shopkeeping during this period. Then, drawing on theory of middlemen minorities, Johnson concludes that 1918 riots are best understood as an aggravated reaction of a host society to an ethnic trading minority its midst. He states: Although Chinese shopkeepers had become, by that date, many communities, essential middlemen between import-export houses and peasants and small wage-earners, they remained outsiders who were vulnerable to attack times of crisis.6 This time of crisis was, Johnson asserts, immediate greater context of World War I. More particularly, Johnson argues that Jamaican population, faced with wartime inflation and food shortages, saw Chinese in their 'sandwich position' between wholesaler and consumers . . . [as] responsible for increased prices of imported staples and were therefore more prone to react violently against Chinese when rumours of Fong's alleged abuse of Pretty Man began to spread.7Johnson's focus on economic factors underlying violence directed at Chinese 1918 riots is line both with popular opinions of that period and with subsequent research on relationship between Chinese and other Jamaicans during first part of twentieth century. For example, H. Gordon Tennant, a member of St Ann Parochial Board at that time, who considered himself a defender of native Jamaican shopkeeping interests, linked violence against Chinese Jamaica to competition over shopkeeping trade. In a 1917 letter published Gleaner, Tennant argued that the inarticulate mass cannot write to papers or make fine speeches; however, he concluded, they were expressing their resentment against rise of Chinese shopkeeping class through numerous assaults and killing of Chinamen . …
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