The Name is China, Sam China

IOL News

5 days ago

'Boysie' Moodley with the Sam China Cup
Image: Supplied
OUR research has in part being dedicated to turning the numbers that were given to the indentured into people. As we stalked the corridors of archives, scanned the newspapers of the time and poured over the reports of commissions, we got a deep sense of their refusal to be simple cogs in the colonial labouring machine, but human beings, with hopes and desires to build a life on African soil.
In this 20 year journey, we have learnt to be patient, to search material with a fine toothed comb, to follow small details, to accept that there will be dead-ends. But the rewards of what Jacques Derrida called archive fever is to uncover and bring to light incredible stories that would put Bollywood to shame and reduce Crocodile Dundee to tears of awe.
Sam China with his extended family in Kimberley, 1900
Image: Supplied
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In this column we present, the name Sam China who, if you were the follower of the game of football, would be as well-known as a Patel's beans bunny in the 1960s. It is a story of a of a man who arrived as an indentured labourer and built a life that would give so much to a people who had so little. We honour Sam China and the legacy he bequeathed.
The name Sam China was inscribed in the memory of many generations as the name of the premier soccer competition in which Indians competed nationally until the 1970s. As the 1960 tournament brochure described it, the 'nameless, magic quality of the Sam China Cup kept pulling them in, in their usual thousands'.
Many Indians made their way to Kimberley following the diamond boom.
Image: Supplied
Sam China was six when he arrived in Natal in 1863 as Camatchee Seeneevassen, indentured number 1856, on the Earl of Hardinch from the French colony of Pondicherry (now Pudicherry) in September 1863 with his parents Seeneevassen Maurimutoo and Anundoyee, and siblings Peraman, Arjoonenv, Rungasawmy, and Veramah.
As a teenager, Sam China worked for William Hartley's Overport Sugar and Coffee Estate, which covered the greater part of present-day Overport and subsequently joined a M Smith, manager of Standard Bank, as a "stable boy".
Students of the Perseverance School, Kimberley, early 20th Century
Image: Supplied
Sam China gave up his right to a free return passage to India when he obtained a licence on 31 March 1875 to leave Natal. Together with five friends, legend has it that they went by foot Kimberley in 21 days. Sam China was part of a stream of Indians who moved to Kimberley where the diamond industry was flourishing.
The newspaper Diamond Fields published an article in 1874 on Indian life in Kimberley: 'Our Coolie friends are on the rampage just now. Generally speaking, the mild Hindu on the diamond fields takes life and its cares more easily than other exotics. At all hours of the day, let alone the night, they may be found in their odorous quarters, some playing pitch and toss for shillings and half crowns, some chanting their devotions in the whine of primitive piety, some professing to sell stale cucumbers, and other green and yellow impositions; all enjoying an enviable immunity from solicitude.'
Sam China (right) with some of Kimberley's leading merchants.
Image: Supplied
Another report in Diamond Fields in 1880 observed that Indians earned a living as 'itinerant purveyors of fruit and vegetables', barbers, proprietors of hot and cold baths, and waiters. By 1899, there were approximately 1 500 Indians in Kimberley out of a population of around 35 000.
Sam China worked for Rogers Bros for several years before opening his own general dealer's and fruit business in Kimberley in the mid-1880s. He was well known to influential white figures in the city, including mining magnate Cecil John Rhodes. Several members of his extended family followed him.
Sam China had two daughters, Patty, who married boxing promoter Nat Moodley, and Valliamah, who married Leo Gopaul and was one the first Indian women councillors in the Cape.
Nat Moodley was a renowned figure in the sporting world. He was president of the Natal Indian Football Association, executive member and treasurer of the Durban Indian Sports Ground Association and manager of Natal teams at the Sam China Cup. He was best known as a boxing promoter whose bouts drew thousands to Curries Fountain. Nat Moodley's only son, named Sam China after his grandfather but popularly known as 'Booysie', was associated with Young Aces soccer club for many years.
Sam China has been described as "at heart, a great philanthropist whose hands itched to give generously to any cause that required his support". He is most famous for donating a trophy for which Indian provincial teams competed. He saw the national competition as an opportunity to bring Indians together and forge a common Indian South African identity. The Sam China Cup was designed and manufactured in London by Lezard and Robins.
The tournament, held under the auspices of the South African Indian Football Association, generated great excitement and the games avidly followed. One official reflected in 1960 that "not even Sam China, however much he may have stretched his imagination, could have visualised the impact his munificence in the presentation of the Cup would have on Indian soccer in particular and non-White soccer in South Africa in general, thirty years after his death".
The magic ended when the final whistle was blown in Chatsworth in 1973. His contemporaries' wonderful memories were recorded in tributes such as the following: 'Those who have had the privilege of knowing him attest to the fact that Sam China was a man of unimpeachable trustworthiness, possessed of a driving force, and a shrewd business brain that gave him the Midas touch…
"He was a martinet who carried himself with an old world dignity. His ability to analyse a given situation, his clarity of thought, and the gift of galvanising those around him into immediate action to meet any problem lifted him above mediocrity. His was not the good fortune to receive formal education but he was one of the best informed men of his day… But of all his attributes his greatest was his ability to make and keep friends. He never forgot his beginnings, however much he rose as an amazingly successful businessman and outstanding public figure.'
Sam China died in Kimberley on September 9, 1930, appropriately when footballers from all over South Africa had gathered in Kimberley to participate in the Sam China Cup. The captains of the participating teams acted as pall-bearers while all the players wore black armbands throughout the tournament. It was a fitting farewell for one who rose from indenture to become a great sports benefactor, and whose name and legend lives on.
As the 95th anniversary of his death looms, think about Sam China as you get engrossed once more by the English Premier League. Spare a smile for a man who walked from Overport to Kimberley and reputedly introduced himself to Cecil John Rhodes with the words; 'China, Sam China from India'.
Ashwin Desai
Image: File
Goolam Vahed
Image: File
Ashwin Desai is at the University of Johannesburg and Goolam Vahed is at the University of KwaZulu Natal.
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