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Uncle Stanley, The Dancing King of Gambling Who Promised and Delivered the Moon

2021; Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.; Volume: 26; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1089/glr2.2021.0025

2572-5327

Pedro Luiz Cortês, António Lobo Vilela,

European and International Contract Law

Gaming Law ReviewVol. 26, No. 3 ArticlesFree AccessUncle Stanley, The Dancing King of Gambling Who Promised and Delivered the MoonPedro Cortés and António Lobo VilelaPedro CortésPedro Cortés is managing partner of the Macau-based law firm Rato, Ling, Lei & Cortés. He is also qualified to practice in Portugal, Brazil (São Paulo), China (as cross-border Macau lawyer), and East Timor. Pedro teaches gaming law in the Catholic University of Portugal–Lisbon School of Law. He holds an LLM degree in gaming law and regulation from the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.Search for more papers by this author and António Lobo VilelaAntónio Lobo Vilela is a Lawyer qualified to practice law in Macau (where he is based), Portugal, and Brazil, currently advising on gaming matters, and is the author of Macau Gaming Law, a four-volume book on Macau (casino) gaming law. He holds an LLM degree in gaming law and regulation from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.Search for more papers by this authorPublished Online:8 Apr 2022https://doi.org/10.1089/glr2.2021.0025AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB Permissions & CitationsPermissionsDownload CitationsTrack CitationsAdd to favorites Back To Publication ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail Gaming has always been a passion for Chinese people, and its practice in Macau1 has been recorded over hundreds of years. The Portuguese authorities had tolerated it from the sixteenth century, and there was never a stated prohibition. It was a popular activity played on every corner and boat, and in every meeting place in Macau.2Macau's history is ineluctably the history of the gaming industry3 and such industry—legalized in 18494 by Governor Ferreira do Amaral, beginning the Fantan Era5—has created charismatic entrepreneurs. One of them, who contributed most to the development of the industry, was Stanley Ho Hung-sun (何鴻燊), who passed away last year at the age of 99, leaving behind 16 children from four different wives. Before Stanley Ho got his concession, other taipan (top-level businesspeople) had occupied, to a certain extent, his position. Tracing the historical journey of those charismatic leaders since the activity was legalized in 1849 takes time, but it is worthwhile to know who they were.THE GAMBLING TAIPAN BEFORE THE DANCING KINGLou Kau (盧九), the first “Gambling King”Given that the public revenues being generated in Macau were at best negligible, the governor of Macau decided to create exclusive rights for activities that were previously controlled by private enterprise. Those activities first included the trading of, respectively, pork meat and beef; opium; and cheap Chinese labor.6 Subsequently came rights to operate the Chinese lottery (Pacapio7), in 1847, and the legalization of fantan houses in 1849.8Soon after the first exclusive fantan license was granted by Governor Ferreira do Amaral in Macau—known as the city of the name of God, proudly extolled as “the centre of the gambling spirits of South China”9—the purpose of the legalization had almost-immediate results, reducing the public deficit by the mid-1850s.10One year before the legalization, Lou Kau11 was born in Xinhui, Guangdong Province, China, on November 10, 1848, as the third of four brothers. In 1857, he moved with his parents to Macau, where he would spend most of his life, becoming one of the most prominent and influential Chinese merchants of the time and certainly the richest.In his 20s, he made a fortune in the exclusive pork trade, and enriched himself further12 with the opium13 trade, banking services,14 and the fantan houses between 1883 and 1905.15Before being granted the exclusive fantan license, he founded the Hong Feng Company (宏豐公司) with nine investors from Macau, Guangdong, and Hong Kong.16 That company already had rights to sell Pacapio,17 a Chinese lottery which still exists in Macau. Later on, in 1881, he established the Yee On Company and acquired the Kung Son Vo Wei Company, the company operating lotteries.18 Sixteen years later, in 1897, he was awarded with an eight-year monopoly to operate the Vaeseng19 lottery in Guangdong. At that time, the Guangdong government promised that it would fight illegal operators, a promise that was not fulfilled. In 1900, a very high-ranking Chinese official from the Qing government decided that eight years was longer than needed for the franchise period. The Viceroy of Guangdong and Guangxi, who was an opponent of gambling, banned the activity and refused to return the fee paid, instead increasing the total due to 4.75 million silver dollars, including interest and missed payments.20 The Hong Feng Company suddenly faced an irreversible crisis. The bet placed by Lou was lost, leaving him bankrupt.In May of 1888, Lou acquired Portuguese nationality, an unheard-of accomplishment, but 10 years later appeared to have renounced it.21Sun Yat Sen, the father of the Republic of China and its first president, maintained close relations with the Lou family when he arrived in Macau in 1892, at the invitation of Lou Kau to work as a doctor at Macau's Kiang Wu Hospital.22Lou, like Stanley Ho and the other moguls, was also a philanthropist. He enriched and gave back to the city. He founded and was a heavy contributor to Kiang Wu Hospital, whose construction he helped finance, and was a board member of the institution. He created free education schools for children from poor families and founded the School of Fishermen's Sons and Brothers.23 He also created a “relief committee to help victims of disasters in northern China,” and in 1895 he was the most generous contributor in the initiative to set up tents for the victims of the plague that swept through Macau.24His name is also linked with the Tung Sin Tong Charitable Society.25 Founded in 1892, it is the first Chinese charitable organization in Macau, and the most important relief-oriented organization run by the Chinese after Kiang Wu Hospital. Although its incorporation act was signed by 46 individuals, only six—including Lou Kau—signed the request submitted to the governor of Macau.26 He was decorated twice by the King of Portugal for his contributions to Macau society.27 On June 20, 1890, HM Carlos I made him a Knight of the Military Order of Our Lord Jesus Christ,28 and on April 25, 1894, awarded him the Commendation of the Royal Military Order of Our Lady of the Conception in Vila Viçosa.29 In 1898, he received an award from the Chinese Emperor.30Lou Kau's presence is still felt in the city: with a road bearing his namesake—Rua do Lou Cao on the Macau peninsula—and the houses he resided in being treated as local landmarks. These include the Lou Kau Mansion, a two-storey Cantonese-style courtyard house “featuring the graceful and delicate architectural style in central Guangdong in the late Qing dynasty,”31 built in 1889, which is located in downtown Macau. It was bought in the 1960s by the Macau government and is currently a museum. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage site. The other former residence is a house located behind Lou Lim Ieoc Garden, a Suzhou-type garden named after his eldest son, built in 1906 as part of his residence. It was bought in 1973 by the Macau government, opening to the public the following year, and it is one of the most unique retreats in the city.Lou Kau hung himself from a beam of his house on December 15, 1907, when he was 59. It is said he left behind 10 wives, 17 sons, and 10 daughters.32Kou Ho Neng (高可寧), the “Pawnshop King”Soon after the death of Lou Kau, his family took over the fantan business,33 with an exclusive license that would last until 1912.In the Fantan Era, the pricing for exclusive operating rights in Macau was, most of the time, linked with what was happening in public policy next door in Guangdong Province,34 in terms of either permission or prohibition of such gaming.35After 1912, a new bid was held, with the exclusive operating rights granted to the Chap Seng Cong Si36 company, of which O Loc—also known as O Iek Teng37—was a shareholder. O Loc died in 1913, passing the empire to O Tin Tai. The enterprise had as its manager Kou Ho Neng,38 who would become Macau's second gambling mogul.Kou was born in Macau39 in 1879,40 to a poor family from Guanyong Village, in Shaxi Town of the Panyu District of China's Guangdong Province. He was later nicknamed the “Pawnshop King” for the many pawnshops he opened successively in Macau and Hong Kong.41He was one of the most prominent Chinese business characters in Macau; a philanthropist who was able to get the monopoly of both fantan42 and of the opium trade.43Having lost his father, Cou Mao Sang, at the age of five, it is said that Kou started working at the age of 14, playing drums and singing in the streets to survive.44 In the 1920s, Kou Ho Neng's empire “sprang from gambling, opium, pawning, banking, grocery, and lotteries, (and) covered almost all of the important industries in Macau at the time.”45 His fortune made him a powerful Macanese figure in society; he was a director (and in some cases chairman) of the Kiang Wu Hospital, the Tung Sin Tong Charitable Society (“eternal director”46 since 194047), the Macau Delegation of the Portuguese Red Cross, and the (still very powerful) Macau Chinese General Chamber of Commerce.48Kou also made incursions into the maritime transportation business, through the Tong On Steamship Company, founded in 1917—the same year he opened the Fu Hang Money Exchange and the Tak Seng On Pawnshop,49 the biggest pawnshop in the city, located in the vicinity of the gambling houses.50It was an eight-story warehouse full of gold, jewelry, and precious stones—built with granite foundations, thick brick walls, and steel plates—capable of withstanding fire, flooding, and theft.51 It remained in operation until 1993. The building was sold to the Macau government in 2000, restored, and opened in 2003 as the Pawnshop Museum. It received, in September of 2004, an Honorable Mention in the UNESCO 2004 Asia-Pacific Awards for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage.Pawnshops have a long tradition in Macau52 (the first record of a pawnshop in Macau dates from 1557) and performed the role of “a bank for the poor and a place for the rich to store their valuables.”53 Working in a pawn shop was a desirable and lifelong job, accessible only to those who came well recommended. Chinese were superstitious about pawnshops: children were allowed in and could walk around, enabling the shop to rub off on them and give them health and riches in the future.54Kou Hou Neng's chain of pawnshops worked as a de facto monopoly of the pawnshop business, a synergetic activity to casinos and a greatly lucrative business.55 In the 1950s there were about 30 pawnshops that advertised “24 hours service [where the] redeemed items could be bought back in Hong Kong and Kowloon,”56 as most of the customers came from Hong Kong57 to gamble in Macau.During Kou's life, Macau was an opium distribution and selling point in the Far East. The production, processing, and consumption were legal in Macau, where factories to process the paste to produce opium were located. The taxes levied on the opium trade were an important source of revenue for the Macau government (in its peak they represented one-third of total government revenues58). To run the opium business, Kou Ho Neng undertook a joint venture on August 1, 1913, with nine of his friends59—called “Hall of Ten Friends”60—and obtained a five-year opium monopoly license on behalf of the Iau Seng Company.However, it is in the gambling business that Kou became renowned. He was linked to the operation of fantan, initially through the Tak Seng Company, of which he was a partner. In 1911, he won the bid to operate fantan houses61 and established one at Rua da Caldeira. In 1918, he operated the Daxin Pupiao Company as well. Pupiao (鋪票) was a very popular lottery at the time. In 1920, he founded the Fu Yuan Lottery Company.62To increase tax revenues and develop the economy of Macau, in 1930 the Macau government granted the first gambling concession, in the form of a monopoly, to Iun Iun Company, the first to operate all types of games of chance permitted by law.Hotel Central was the first gambling destination with other attractions, and the establishment was intricately related to gambling since 1930. Inaugurated by the governor of Macau, Tamagnini Barbosa, on July 22, 1928, as “Presidente Hotel,”63 it was remodeled, renovated, and renamed the “Grand Hotel Central” on October 31, 1930.64 The luxurious, classic lines of the casino combined with cutting-edge management, where all types of approved casino games—including fantan, cussec, and p'ai kao—could be offered, attracting gamblers from Hong Kong and mainland China. In addition to gambling, the gamblers enjoyed free cigarettes, fruit, food, and Chinese opera shows.65Due to internal problems, Iun Iun entered into “huge financial crisis and deep debts,”66 making it impossible to pay the gaming tax (even after it was adjusted to 600,000 patacas per annum). It was in this scenario that, in 1937, Tai Heng Company67 was established, with Fu Tak Iam as the dominant shareholder, with 63.8% of the share capital. Kou Ho Neng was only indirectly a shareholder in Tai Heng, through his son Kou Fok Meng.68 The company secured the monopoly of gaming operations in Macau with a carefully designed policy that excluded potential bidders,69 at a bidding price of 1.826 million patacas per annum, managing to keep the monopoly for 24 years, 7 months, and 13 days (May 18, 1937 to December 31, 1961). This lengthy period was made possible through three consecutive three-year contracts (1937–1946), followed by seven consecutive two-year contracts (1946–1961).Hotel Central was bought by Kou Ho Neng and Fu Tak Iam and re-inaugurated on May 18, 1937, under the name of “Hotel Central.” Though “[h]istorical references to the hotel depict a colorful and sometimes sinister side, with spies walking its hallways (and gambling), gangsters and occasional bomb attacks,”70 Hotel Central was one of Macau's most luxurious ventures at the time. Its dancing halls, cabaret shows, two-story casino, lavish rooms, and elevators were “highly frequented by rich men from Hong Kong and Mainland China during the Second Sino-Japanese War between Japan and China (1937–1945).”71 Nevertheless, it was the target of low-powered petards (small bombs), which resulted in minor damage and no injuries. Suicides by desperate gamblers and one or another murder inside the hotel also became relatively common, prompting authorities to propose and take preventive measures.72 Although it offered the traditional Chinese games, such as fantan, p'ai kao, and cussec, it is wrongly73 said that it was the Tai Heng Company that introduced Western games, such as baccarat (the most popular casino game to this day) and blackjack.74Featured in several cinema movies in the 1940s and 1950s, such as Macao—starring Jane Russel and Robert Mitchum—and the place where (to mention just a few) Clark Gable, William Holden, and Ian Fleming stayed while in Macau, Hotel Central is located on Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro, in Macau's main commercial district. The building, six stories tall at the time of its construction, was Macau's first ever high-rise. It is also the first building in Macau with elevators. Five extra floors were added in 1942. There were casinos on the fifth and seventh floors of the building.Hotel rooms, a bar and restaurants, live concerts and nightclubs, shops, and gambling facilities were all concentrated under the same roof. A noted feature of the hotel's gaming floor was the small reed baskets sent down by cord from the “balconies which surround the gambling hell,” balconies which “collected the members of the Chinese haute monde, mandarins and other functionaries, who can join in the game unperceived by the common herd below,”75 who, using the baskets, whisked their bets to the croupier.About Hotel Central, Ian Fleming wrote:76[t]he Central Hotel is not precisely a hotel. It is a nine-storey skyscraper, by far the largest building in Macao, and it is devoted solely to the human so-called vices. It has one more original feature. The higher up the building you go, the more beautiful and expensive are the girls, the higher the stakes at the gambling tables, and the better the music. Thus, on the ground floor, the honest coolie can choose a girl of his own class and gamble for pennies by lowering his bet on a fishing-rod contraption through a hole in the floor on to the gaming tables below. Those with longer pockets can progress upwards through various heavens until they reach the earthly paradise on the sixth floor. Above this are the bedrooms.”7However, the poor management of Tai Heng Company, and the absence of enthusiasm for the gambling industry by the heirs of Kou Ho Neng and Fu Tak Iam, led the Macau government to once again redesign the sector, ending the decades-long monopoly.In 1951, Kou Ho Neng was also involved in the wine business in Hong Kong, through Tak Chuen Distillery (德泉酒庄), a producer and distributor of a variety of Chinese wines.78The idea of giving back to society was an ever-present concern during Kou Hou Neng's life. He was enthusiastic about public welfare undertakings, making substantial charitable contributions to organizations in Macau,79 being a regular donor to Kiang Wu Hospital, Tung Sin Tong Charitable Society,80 and the Macau Delegation of the Portuguese Red Cross.81 In 1924, Kou and Li Ji Tang underwrote Tung Sin Tong's project to open a free school and passed on the operational rights after the school was on the right track. “They donated thousands of dollars for setting up an operating fund and building the new campus. There was no possibility of establishing the school without their help.”82 The same year, Kou donated 5,000 patacas for the construction of a new, 43,000-pataca83 building housing Tung Sin Tong's headquarters. In 1941, he initiated the establishment of the Tung Sin Tong Pharmacy and, aside from a contribution of 10,000 patacas84 (out of the 50,000 needed),85 he donated his private property as the pharmacy site.86In March of 1942, for example, he (along with Fu Tak Iong) contributed one-tenth of the 5 million patacas needed by the Macau government to send 50,000 refugees back to their homelands. During World War II, for an extensive period, he financed the distribution of soup to the poor.It is said that Kou won many medals in his life, including the Red Cross Dedication Medal from the Portuguese Red Cross Society.87 On November 29, 1928, according to a resolution by the Macau Holy House of Mercy's Table of Directors, he was considered a Meritorious [Member] of the Fraternity of the Macau Holy House of Mercy.88 He was also decorated as a Commander of the Order of Benevolence89 by the president of the Republic of Portugal, Óscar Carmona, and as a Commander of the Military Order of Christ by the president of the Republic of Portugal, Craveiro Lopes, on June 27, 1952.90The name of Kou Ho Neng is also associated with the story of the “Dog-Man,” a feared and famous pirate chief. It is said91 that Kou Ho Neng's brother, Kou Leong Tai, was kidnapped by pirates during a trip to Guangdong. He asked the pirates to deliver a letter to his brother, in which he asked him to pay the requested ransom for his release. Kou Ho Neng, who hated his brother, not only did not pay the ransom but also paid the pirates to keep his brother in captivity. Kou Leong Tai was incarcerated in a tiny bamboo cage for 14 years, where he could only squat. After being released, unable to stretch his legs again, he moved while supporting himself on his hands and feet, like a dog. “Destroying his brother in the seemingly inviolable refuge of Macau, more than looting, was the main objective of his actions, dedicating himself to him with frustrating tenacity until the end of his days.”92His presence is still felt in Macau, be it the road on the Macau peninsula named after him93—“Rua do Comendador Kou Hó Neng”94—located in the exquisite Penha Hill district;95 the house he bought96 to live in in 191697—the “Kou Ho Neng Mansion”98—a Portuguese colonial era yellow mansion located on the Macau peninsula at Rua do Campo; the Pawnshop Museum in the Seng On Pawnshop building, located in downtown Macau at Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro; or his bronze bust in the courtyard of the centenary Macau Tung Sin Tong Charitable Society, erected as a token of appreciation for the large contributions he made. In Hong Kong, he also has a school named after him.99Kou Ho Neng died at 8:00 a.m. on April 13, 1955, in his house in Hong Kong, at 515 The Peak,100 at the age of 77.101 He left behind “some 16 sons and 24 daughters, as well as numerous other descendants.”102Fu Tak Iam (傅德蔭), the “Chinese Capitalist”Known as the “Chinese Capitalist,” Fu Tak Iam103 was born in the 21st year of the Qing dynasty's Guangxu reign, on March 15, 1895,104 in Xiqiao Town, Nanhai District, Foshan City, Guangdong Province, to a poor farming family.105The second of four sons, he was raised by his mother in poverty. His father, Fu Yangfang, was forced to leave Nanhai to make a living in Hong Kong to support the family.Fu never received a formal education.106 He made the journey to Hong Kong in 1912, to help his father in a metal shop. In 1914, he took a job at Siu On Shipping Company as a stoker in the boiler room of a British vessel, working a route between Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, and ports along the Pearl River Delta. When working in Hong Kong, he often came to Macau to try his luck in the casino. People in gambling circles were so familiar with him that they called him “Lao Yong.”107Although his fortune derives from the trade of opium, it was the operation of gambling that brought him fame.108 Fu was already in the gambling business before having a stake in Macau's gambling market. By the end of the 1920s, he got into a fight which led to his imprisonment for 10 months. After serving out his sentence, Fu returned to Guangdong, where he started his first pawnshop business109 and, in collaboration with Huo Zhiting—the holder of the opium and gambling franchise for the entire Guangdong province, opened “gambling houses chiefly devoted to Fan-Tan in Guangzhou and nearby cities and towns.”110 Allegedly a powerful character in the secret societies of Guangdong (“bodyguard to warlords in the Canton area in his wayward formative years”),111 Macau, and Hong Kong, he operated underground casinos in Shenzhen, China.112Fu was “sharper with the pistol than the pen” andreputedly shared Sherlock Holmes' weakness for indoor pistol practice at the family residence. According to one story, perhaps apocryphal, he had the hearty habit, in his middle years, when the port was being passed after the ladies had retired, of firing a revolver under the table “to see who was the lucky man.” In his mellowing years, he disclaimed this story with a thin smile, but it is seriously reported that two of his retainers on the pension list had wooden legs.113In 1937, the Nationalist government in China banned gambling on the mainland. The casino in Shenzhen closed and Fu returned to Macau to make a second attempt at the franchise in the city. Not successful in the 1930 bid for the gaming monopoly, he joined ranks in 1937 with Kou Ho Neng, under the umbrella of the Tai Heng Company, and successfully bid for the gaming monopoly, starting January of 1937. According to one of his grandsons, he “stayed up until all the cash from the casinos had been collected and safely stored.”114In February of 1946, Fu was kidnapped at the pavilions behind Kun Iam Temple,115 where he used to go for a pipe or two of opium with the abbot, and held for ransom.116 After reporting the kidnapping to the police, the kidnappers sent the family part of Fu's ear to show that they meant business (the same happened in 1953 when one of his sons was kidnapped).117 The highly influential Chinese businessman Ho Hin was asked by the family “to act as a middleman to plead for his friend” and went118 to Hong Kong to hand over the HKD 900,000 ransom to the kidnappers.119To diversify his investment risk, Fu had interests in passenger ships, through Tai Sang Ferry Company, operating between Hong Kong and Macau, and later through Tak Kee Shipping and Trading Co., which expanded into passenger and cargo services in the greater Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macau area. He also invested in the redevelopment of Macau's inner harbor Pier 16, which was completed in 1948. In the financial sector, he became the major shareholder of Tai Fung Money Changer,120 which later evolved into Tai Fung Bank, an institution that still operates in Macau.As most Chinese, Fu was superstitious, namely, “of the colour red being unlucky, and of green and white favouring the casino,” and as such “red was banned from gambling rooms.”121 The Hotel Central casino employees wore green and white uniforms.As almost all influential Chinese in Macau, Fu was also recognized by the Portuguese authorities, being decorated a Commander of the Military Order of Christ by the president of the Republic of Portugal, Craveiro Lopes, on June 27, 1952.122In 2017, Fu Tak Iam's family created the Fu Tak Yung Foundation, which aims to develop the areas of education, culture, health, and technological research, and other activities of a social and charitable nature.123 His name is also associated with the house he owned at the very tip of Barra, down from the Penha Hill, at 28–34 Avenida da República, which is still in the family estate.Fu Tak Iam died at the age of 65, on November 16, 1960, at the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital. He is buried alongside his four wives at Hong Kong's Aberdeen Chinese Permanent Cemetery. He left behind 15 children.These individuals were the most important predecessors of Stanley Ho, who helped to create the business for which Stanley and his partners presented a bid for the exclusive concession in 1961. Common among them were the various businesses in which they were involved and their philanthropic nature, with an altruistic approach to corporate responsibility.Stanley followed in their footsteps, innovated and improved the industry which was then built up to achieve international recognition. The process was not easy, but when the 24 bidders submitted proposals for the international public tender in 2001, what had been created by the Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau (STDM) and Stanley Ho permitted the immense success of all the operators since 2002, totally changing and influencing other jurisdictions. Given that Macau has become the world's top casino gambling destination and if “it's going continue to be one of the most interesting stories in gambling for years to come,”124 we should credit what was achieved by Stanley Ho before 2002.STANLEY'S EURASIAN DUTCH ROOTSIn June of 1598, five ships lay ready to depart from the port of Rotterdam,125 to set sail for Asia for the first time. By that time, the Portuguese had been doing business with China for nearly 90 years, and had established a settlement in Macau for about 40 years.In 1513, Captain Jorge Álvares set foot on Chinese soil—just miles from where Stanley Ho, the grandson of Ho Fook and great grandson of the Dutch Comprador126 Charles Henri Maurice Bosman and Sze Sze, would make his fortune in casinos—which would see the establishment of the Portuguese settlement and the entry into the so-called mixed jurisdiction period,127 one which was to last until 1849 (the date on which the first fantan houses were legalized).The original idea for the Dutch ship, at least in the minds of the sailors, was to reach the Moluccas to buy spices, and explore the silver route of Japan.128 Once they were on the high seas, heavily laden with weaponry, the real mission was revealed: to raid and plunder the Portuguese and Spanish, the two great powers of the day, in South America and Asia.129Only one of the ships arrived in Japan: Liefde (“Charity” or “Love”). One returned to Rotterdam, one was lost to the Portuguese, another was lost to the Spanish, and the last to the Tempest.130A few years later, in 1613, the leadership of Dutch East India Company, in Dutch Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), realized the importance of direct trade with China.131 In 1624, the Dutch established a “fortified settlement” on the island of Formosa and, after being threatened, VOC endeavored through diplomacy to obtain what were then called trading privileges.132The first VOC embassy of 1655–1657 was a failure, wiping out Dutch commercial success in maritime Asia, with the rise of the Zheng family's Chinese trading empire.133About two centuries after the failure of the VOC's embassy, and once the Dutch had dominated maritime commerce in Asia, Comprador Bosman came to Hong Kong, at the age of 20, to work for coolie merchant Cornelius Koopmanschap,134 a Dutch labor broker who was in the business of importing and exporting cheap Chinese labor. In the 1860s, Koopmanschap lived between California and Hong Kong, and with his connections he was considered the main contractor and importer of Chinese labor to San Francisco.135The skills of the 24-year-old Charles Bosman, along with the fact that Cornelius needed to focus on the thriving U.S. market—the Central Pacific Railroad needed a lot of cheap labor—and spend more time in California, are most likely key reasons for the transformation of the firm in Hong Kong into Bosman & Co, with the U.S. unit operating under the name Koopmanschap & Co shortly after Mr. Bosman became Dutch Consul, a tenure that allowed him to control and oversee the shipping of labor to Dutch Guiana, in South America.On February 19, 1863, an act was passed prohibiting the “Coolie Trade” by American Citizens in American Vessels.136 The coolie trade