Coolie
Coolie labourer circa 1900 in Zhenjiang, Ch-
ina. The bamboo pole he leans upon was used
to hoist and carry the bundle at his feet with
the pole over his shoulder and the bundle
leaning against his back. On the left side of
the image, in the background, another man
uses this same technique of bearing a heavy
load.
Coolie (variously spelled Cooly, Kuli, Quli,
Koelie etc.) is:
• A historical term for manual labourers
from Asia, particularly China and India, in
the 19th century and early 20th century.
• A contemporary racial slur for people of
Asian descent, including people from
India, Central Asia, etc.[1]
Etymology
In 1727 Dr. Engelbert Kämpfer described
"coolies" as dock laborers who would unload
Dutch merchant ships at Nagasaki.[2] [3] Ac-
cording to the Oxford English Dictionary, the
word dates to the mid-17th century. The
word coolie can be traced back to the Hindi
word qūlī (?????), which means "(day-)labour-
er", and perhaps ultimately to Kulī, an abori-
ginal tribe in Gujarat[4][5] or to the Tamil
word kuli ???? ("wages") (Encyclopædia Brit-
annica). Another form closely related to the
Hindi qūlī is the Bengali kuli. It is also closely
related to the Urdu term "qulī" or "kulī,"
meaning slave, which was possibly influenced
by the unrelated Ottoman Turkish "qul" or
Turkish "köle," also meaning slave. [6]
The Chinese word ?? (Pinyin: kǔlì) literally
means "bitterly hard (use of) strength." The
most commonly used cultural Chinese term is
?? (Pinyin: gu1 li2).
Connotation
19th century United States illustration show-
ing a harsh depiction of the Chinese now
called "the coolie stereotype"
When it first entered the English language,
"coolie" was a designative term describing a
low-status class of workers rather than a pe-
jorative term for them. However, in the wake
of centuries of colonialism and the social in-
equalities thereof, it has taken on not only
the characteristics of a slur in the general
sense but also that of a racial epithet. In this
last sense, it has been applied to Asian
people regardless