346 Boundaries and Beyond
highlights the peak period of the Min-Yue people’s seaborne activities
from the eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. The narrative will
go beyond the descriptions of ships, cargoes and ports and will focus
the spotlight on the human actors. By taking a panoramic view of the
omnipresence of the seafarers and their contributions to the formation
of mercantile communities at home and abroad, the scattered pieces of
information will be assembled to form a coherent picture. It is hoped that
this endeavor will bridge some missing links in the existing scholarship.
Fujian and Guangdong provinces on China’s southeastern coast are
also known by their respective abbreviated names of “Min” and “Yue”,
but in this chapter, the two geographical terms will principally denote
the four coastal prefectural units of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou in
southern Fujian, and Chaozhou and Canton (Guangzhou) in Guangdong.
Since the seventeenth century, the three ports of Amoy (Xiamen),
Changlim (Zhanglin) and Canton in the Min-Yue region had been playing
an increasingly important role in the Chinese junk trade. A good start
would be to look at the term “Min people”. In this chapter it denotes
the Quan-Zhang people of southern Fujian, also known as the South
Fujianese (Minnan, or Hokkien) people. The term “Yue people” denotes
the Chaozhou (Teochiu/Teochew) people when it refers to the major
group of seafarers who βitted out the trading junks from Changlim in
eastern Guangdong. Although Canton was a transshipment and operation
base for the South Fujianese and Chaozhou people, the native Cantonese
did not personally engage in maritime trade in signiβicant numbers
during the period in question. By the early nineteenth century, another
group that became involved in coasting trade with Vietnam and Siam had
emerged. They came from Qiongzhou prefecture in Hainan Island, then
part of Guangdong province.
From the source materials, it is not always possible in all cases
to identify the native-place origins of the ship-owners, shippers and
merchants connected to the junk trade. Complicating the matter even
further is the fact that it was not uncommon for the Min-Yue merchants
to operate their maritime businesses in ports that were not their
hometowns. In their eyes, this was a sound strategy that enabled them to
manage the businesses in which they had the greatest stake personally.
The upshot was that this practice created double or multiple identities for
them in the sense that it cannot be said for certain whether these settlers
should be regarded as locals or expatriates who had come from other
districts or provinces. However, all is not lost, since from the sources it is
still possible to puzzle out the predominant role of the Min-Yue people in
the junk trade enterprise.
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