Asian Peruvians constitute a 0.16% of the population. Peru has the largest population of Chinese descendants in Latin America since Peru became independent from Spain in 1821 and banned the imports of slaves. The first group of Asians came in 1849 in the Danish ship named Federico Guillermo to replace slavery as part of the plan to abolished slavery in 1854 by replacing it with Asian labor force. During the next 25 years, 100,000 Chinese arrived to Peru, hired in eight-year contracts from Macao, Hong Kong, Canton, and Fujian, including some Sangley people. They were hired for sugar cane fields, rice fields, extracting guano and constructing the railroads in the Andes in semi-slavery working conditions.