One British sailor named Edward Brown escaped from Vietnamese pirates in 1857 and was stranded alone in Cochin-China – now Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos – for many months before British officials were able to reach him. For much of that time, he was kept in jail for his own protection. He wrote in his book, Cohin-China, and My Experience of It (1861), about one prisoner who sold his entire family.
A most melancholy affair occurred in the jail about this time, that of a prisoner selling his wife.
It appears that this man had been committed four years ago, for having stolen a bag of white rice; and his sentence was, as usual, to remain in prison till further orders.
After he had been here about twelve months, he got permission (through good conduct) to have his wife and family with him. He had three children, two girls and a boy, whose ages varied from two to six years.
His family had not joined him more than six months, when he sold the eldest, a girl six years of age, for fifty thousand cash, or about thirteen dollars. Six months after this, he sold the youngest, a little girl three years of age, for twenty thousand cash, or about five dollars. One year after this, he sold his little boy, five years of age, for the small sum of seventeen thousand cash, or a little more than four dollars; and not he was about to sell his wife. She was a good-looking Cochinese woman; about twenty-seven years of age. He had been married to her, after the Cochinese form, by buying her, ten years ago.
I was present when the poor woman was brought out; she was crying bitterly; and, when her husband spoke to her, she appeared to turn from him in disgust. I pitied her, not merely for her present trouble, but for what she must have suffered on being separated from her children. The day had now arrived when she too must be sold, and for what? not to enable her husband to procure the necessities of life, but to satisfy his unnatural desire to obtain opium.
Well! to end this mournful affair. The poor woman was handed over to three savage-looking men, one of them receiving a paper, or bill of sale, signed by the husband. They also received a bundle of her clothes; and, after paying the purchase money, they led her away. She was sold for 80,000 cash, or about twenty dollars.
Source:
Stephens, John Richard. “Ignorance and Intelligence.” Weird History 101: Tales of Intrigue, Mayhem, and Outrageous Behavior. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006. 134-35. Print.
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