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Sold People: Traffickers and Family Life in North China
A robust trade in human lives thrived throughout North China during the late Qing and Republican periods. Whether to acquire servants, slaves, concubines, or children―or dispose of unwanted household members―families at all levels of society addressed various domestic needs by participating in this market. Sold People brings into focus the complicit dynamic of human trafficking, including the social and legal networks that sustained it. Johanna Ransmeier reveals the extent to which the structure of the Chinese family not only influenced but encouraged the buying and selling of men, women, and children.
For centuries, human trafficking had an ambiguous status in Chinese society. Prohibited in principle during the Qing period, it was nevertheless widely accepted as part of family life, despite the frequent involvement of criminals. In 1910, Qing reformers, hoping to usher China into the community of modern nations, officially abolished the trade. But police and other judicial officials found the new law extremely difficult to enforce. Industrialization, urbanization, and the development of modern transportation systems created a breeding ground for continued commerce in people. The Republican government that came to power after the 1911 revolution similarly struggled to root out the entrenched practice.
Ransmeier draws from untapped archival sources to recreate the lived experience of human trafficking in turn-of-the-century North China. Not always a measure of last resort reserved for times of extreme hardship, the sale of people was a commonplace transaction that built and restructured families as often as it broke them apart.
For centuries, human trafficking had an ambiguous status in Chinese society. Prohibited in principle during the Qing period, it was nevertheless widely accepted as part of family life, despite the frequent involvement of criminals. In 1910, Qing reformers, hoping to usher China into the community of modern nations, officially abolished the trade. But police and other judicial officials found the new law extremely difficult to enforce. Industrialization, urbanization, and the development of modern transportation systems created a breeding ground for continued commerce in people. The Republican government that came to power after the 1911 revolution similarly struggled to root out the entrenched practice.
Ransmeier draws from untapped archival sources to recreate the lived experience of human trafficking in turn-of-the-century North China. Not always a measure of last resort reserved for times of extreme hardship, the sale of people was a commonplace transaction that built and restructured families as often as it broke them apart.
408 pages, Hardcover
Published March 20, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 25, 2020
With numerous fascinating cases and details of daily life of human traffickers and the families involved, the book shows how the transactional families and traffickers in North China carried out human trafficking as a regular and quotidian practice throughout the Qing period, and how they navigated and took advantage of the changing legal systems in the 20th century. Ransmeier inherits her mentor's craft of solid archival research but also benefits from the cultural turn. Although the major subject of the book is a great variety of changing social mechanisms that enabled human trafficking, Ransmeier is also concerned about changes in discourses and the reconfiguration of popular perceptions. The legal reform prohibited the practice, but it also backfired and created more legal loopholes. The natural of human trafficking also became more predatory and contractural, as more professional traffickers emerged and household domestics learnt invoking the language of contract and family to extract support from their masters. The last chapter is a bit disappointing, and I hope she could have talked more about the production of social scientific knowledge about trafficking. Overall it's a well-written, well-argued, and rich book.
August 7, 2025
understand that im not rating the research itself. long process and time have been invested in a research this large and im not rating the scholar’s work directly based on the conduction of the research.
however, i didnt like how the research was written and given to the reader. at the very beginning i couldn’t tell if it was fiction or facts and the whole book is built like this. i get a certain appeal from telling real stories of families, children, women who have been trafficked, who lied and plotted for money. but as for me, i didnt find what i was looking for, maybe i was expecting more gruesome presentation of the facts (dont get me wrong it has plenty enough just presented weirdly in my opinion).
so i skimmed through more then 180 pages and read half the conclusion before sighing and slamming the book shut. im omw now to the library to give it back and leave without a last look fr!!
few things though, because the topic isn’t something to just overlook and say ive read about for fun. trafficking is still going on like as of 2015 china reported more than 10k children being trafficked. its terrifying and from the history behind, presented in the book the chills run even colder.
i will never not be disgusted by men AND WOMEN (because too many were involved??) taking children and women for granted. like how are you selling your child to a brothel or to be a slave to someone? how are you offering your daughter as a child-bride for money to allow your family to survive? isn’t she also your family? how are you kidnapping teenage girls and women for your pleasure (sexual and monetary)? the deepening disgust i got reading each page that i read didn’t stop growing for real. and this war women have led for centuries to fend for themselves never stops, there’s always something and this trafficking in north china targeted them as disposable objects.
at some point, a Chinese ambassador (if im not mistaken) is in america talking with politicians who accuse china of allowing this trafficking, calling is slavery and all. and this chinese man replies something that i thought (as a black person myself) was quite funny (ironically):
“I don't understand it at all. You brought the black man here against his will. You made him free, or the great Lincoln did. Then you declared him equal to the white man, but you denied him equality. He cannot hold office-that is, you seldom elect him to one. He can't serve on a jury, though he has the right, and he is still a slave socially"
just wanted to point out the irony of people in positions of power dictating the lives, rights and choices of people THEY deem worthless. this quote is just an example, and i hope people who still today live by these rules, of deeming others less in every sense slam their head against a wall and gain some sense.
but also how it’s easy to point a finger at someone else, overlooking one’s own issues acting all mighty.
just food for thoughts :))
——————
picked this book up in my uni library
however, i didnt like how the research was written and given to the reader. at the very beginning i couldn’t tell if it was fiction or facts and the whole book is built like this. i get a certain appeal from telling real stories of families, children, women who have been trafficked, who lied and plotted for money. but as for me, i didnt find what i was looking for, maybe i was expecting more gruesome presentation of the facts (dont get me wrong it has plenty enough just presented weirdly in my opinion).
so i skimmed through more then 180 pages and read half the conclusion before sighing and slamming the book shut. im omw now to the library to give it back and leave without a last look fr!!
few things though, because the topic isn’t something to just overlook and say ive read about for fun. trafficking is still going on like as of 2015 china reported more than 10k children being trafficked. its terrifying and from the history behind, presented in the book the chills run even colder.
i will never not be disgusted by men AND WOMEN (because too many were involved??) taking children and women for granted. like how are you selling your child to a brothel or to be a slave to someone? how are you offering your daughter as a child-bride for money to allow your family to survive? isn’t she also your family? how are you kidnapping teenage girls and women for your pleasure (sexual and monetary)? the deepening disgust i got reading each page that i read didn’t stop growing for real. and this war women have led for centuries to fend for themselves never stops, there’s always something and this trafficking in north china targeted them as disposable objects.
at some point, a Chinese ambassador (if im not mistaken) is in america talking with politicians who accuse china of allowing this trafficking, calling is slavery and all. and this chinese man replies something that i thought (as a black person myself) was quite funny (ironically):
“I don't understand it at all. You brought the black man here against his will. You made him free, or the great Lincoln did. Then you declared him equal to the white man, but you denied him equality. He cannot hold office-that is, you seldom elect him to one. He can't serve on a jury, though he has the right, and he is still a slave socially"
just wanted to point out the irony of people in positions of power dictating the lives, rights and choices of people THEY deem worthless. this quote is just an example, and i hope people who still today live by these rules, of deeming others less in every sense slam their head against a wall and gain some sense.
but also how it’s easy to point a finger at someone else, overlooking one’s own issues acting all mighty.
just food for thoughts :))
——————
picked this book up in my uni library
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February 23, 2018306.85095 R212 2017
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews