Additional info on Indian Indenturship
The Arrival of the Indian Immigrants
Tutorial Question: Explore the role gender and religion played in the experiences of the East Indian Immigrants in the Caribbean.
With the legal abolition of slavery – labourers brought in to the British West Indies would assume the status of Indentured Immigrant to labour under contract for a fixed period of time. It was hoped that at the end of the period of indenture the immigrant would settle in the respective colonies to which they were assigned, raise families and provide a permanent reservoir from which labour could be obtained whenever desired.
In 1837 John Gladstone, father of the British Prime Minister W. E. Gladstone and the owner of two plantations in British Guiana, applied to the Secretary of State for the Colonies for permission to import Indian labourers.
In 1838, 396 Indians arrived.
It was immediately proclaimed a success in British Guiana, but investigations by the Anti-Slavery Society revealed that many of the immigrants had died quickly. Some had been flogged and wrongly imprisoned, while others had not been paid what they had been promised.
In July 1838, the Indian government suspended emigration to the West Indies while a Commission of Enquiry made a thorough investigation into conditions in British Guiana.
Immigration resumed officially in 1844, and it lasted until 1917.
Planter expectation: alternative labour supply to the ex-slaves would generate competition for the work and keep down wages. With wages reduced, planters would then be able to better compete with foreign cane and beet sugar.
Indian Immigration
The first group of 396 Indian Immigrants arrived in Guyana in May 1838 on board the ships Whitby and Hesperus. They were distributed among 6 sugar estates to labour under contract for 5 years. Although the treatment on three of the estates was satisfactory there was ill treatment, sickness and death on the others.
The Anti-Slavery Society was aroused and a Commission was appointed to
Tutorial Question: Explore the role gender and religion played in the experiences of the East Indian Immigrants in the Caribbean.
With the legal abolition of slavery – labourers brought in to the British West Indies would assume the status of Indentured Immigrant to labour under contract for a fixed period of time. It was hoped that at the end of the period of indenture the immigrant would settle in the respective colonies to which they were assigned, raise families and provide a permanent reservoir from which labour could be obtained whenever desired.
In 1837 John Gladstone, father of the British Prime Minister W. E. Gladstone and the owner of two plantations in British Guiana, applied to the Secretary of State for the Colonies for permission to import Indian labourers.
In 1838, 396 Indians arrived.
It was immediately proclaimed a success in British Guiana, but investigations by the Anti-Slavery Society revealed that many of the immigrants had died quickly. Some had been flogged and wrongly imprisoned, while others had not been paid what they had been promised.
In July 1838, the Indian government suspended emigration to the West Indies while a Commission of Enquiry made a thorough investigation into conditions in British Guiana.
Immigration resumed officially in 1844, and it lasted until 1917.
Planter expectation: alternative labour supply to the ex-slaves would generate competition for the work and keep down wages. With wages reduced, planters would then be able to better compete with foreign cane and beet sugar.
Indian Immigration
The first group of 396 Indian Immigrants arrived in Guyana in May 1838 on board the ships Whitby and Hesperus. They were distributed among 6 sugar estates to labour under contract for 5 years. Although the treatment on three of the estates was satisfactory there was ill treatment, sickness and death on the others.
The Anti-Slavery Society was aroused and a Commission was appointed to