Abstract
Slavery and indentured labour are usually closely associated. The letters of the British consular officers on the treatment of indentured labourers from British India in the French and Dutch colonies were classified under the old heading ‘Slave Trade’. In one of these letters the British consul in Paramaribo expressed what many observers had always thought about indentured labour: ‘… the Surinam planters… found in the meek Hindu a ready substitution for the negro slave he had lost’1.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
India Office Records, (hereafter IOR), Emigration Proceedings, (hereafter EP), 2278, (1884), p. 31.
Gail Omvedt, ‘Migration in Colonial India: the Articulation of Feudalism and Capitalism by the Colonial State’, Journal of Peasant Studies, VII, 2, (Jan., 1980), p. 189-tries to show that Indian indentured emigration is not comparable to the African slave trade or to the European migration. Her arguments, however, do not take into account that all these migratory movements changed over time.
Omvedt, ‘Migration in Colonial India’, pp. 188, 189; Hugh Tinker, A New System of Slavery: the Export of Indian Labour Overseas, 1830–1890, (Oxford, 1974), pp. 39–60 and Arnaud A. Yang, ‘Peasants on the Move, A Study of Internal Migration in India’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, X, 1, (Summer, 1979), pp. 37–58.
George A. Grierson, Report on Colonial Emigration from the Bengal Presidency, (Calcutta, 1883) and L.F.S. Lutchman, (ed.), Verslag eener zending naar Britsch-Indië, ter bestudering van het emigratie-wezen aldaar, voor zover betreft de werving, het in depots onder dak brengen en het afschepen van Britsch-Indische emigranten naar Suriname, opgemaakt door P. Wiersma, gepensioneerd majoor der infantrie van het Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger, (Paramaribo, 1973).
IOR, EP, 1662, (1881), pp. 51–58 and C.J.M. de Klerk, De immigratie der Hindostanen in Suriname, (Amsterdam, 1953), p. 70.
Report on Emigration from the Port of Calcutta to British and Foreign Colonies, by the Protector of Emigrants, 1871 to 1917 and Koloniaal Verslag, (Suriname), 1873–1916/7.
Yearly Reports on Emigration, 1877/1878. Comment by British Indian Government.
Yearly Reports on Emigration, 1878/1879.
See various Yearly Reports on Emigration each with a special paragraph on the granting and withdrawal of licenses.
Lutchman, Verslag, p. 10.
Yearly Reports on Emigration, 1903, IOR, EP, 1862, (1882), pp. 1241–1268.
EP, 7682, (1907), pp. 121, 122.
EP, 7968, (1908), p. 551 and Lutchman, Verslag, p. 36.
IOR, EP, 9270, (1912), pp. 329–341.
IOR, EP, 1862, (1882), pp. 1241–1268.
[Sanderson], Report of the Committee on Emigration from India to the Crown Colonies and Protectorates, (London, 1910), question 2923; Tinker, New System, p. 319.
Lutchman, Verslag, p. 85.
Yearly Reports on Emigration, 1894.
Yearly Reports on Emigration, 1880.
[Sanderson], Report of the Committee on Emigration, question 704; Yearly Reports on Emigration, 1884/1885; Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague, (hereafter ARA), Buiza, (Foreign Office), A 135, box 278. Incoming letter by Count van Hogendorp. 17-VI-1876, IOR. P+J/6/15/371 and 373 (files 673 and 878).
Lutchman, Verslag, p. 59.
IOR, EP, 9270, (1912), p. 339.
Grierson, Report on Colonial Emigration, pp. 2, 3.
[Sanderson], Report of the Committee on Emigration, questions 4740–4741.
Yearly Reports on Emigration, 1889.
IOR, EP, 10219, (1917), pp. 489–494.
Yearly Reports on Emigration, section: Comments by British Indian government.
IOR, EP, 19526, (1914, Jan.–July), pp. 75–83 and ARA, Buiza, A 135, box 282, 16-VII-1912.
IOR, EP, 694, (1875), pp. 15, 16.
IOR, EP, 10001, (1916), p. 333.
ARA, Buiza, A 135, box 282, 21-11-1914.
Grierson and [Sanderson] Report of the Committee on Emigration, questions 5387–5389, 5340, 5371 and 4764–4775.
IOR, EP, 8772, (1911), pp. 557–570. Complaint of the government of Bengal about the Dutch emigration-agent, who provides the invalid and poor ex-indentureds with only ‘a rupee or two to find their own way home after repatriation to Calcutta’.
De Klerk, De Immigratie, pp. 150–154.
IOR, EP, 5442, (1898), 9-XII-1897.
Yearly Reports on Emigration, 1878–1916.
Yearly Reports on Emigration, 1879/80 and 1880/81.
Yearly Reports on Emigration, 1880/81.
Yearly Reports on Emigration, 1879/80 and [Sanderson] Report of the Committee on Emigration, question 586 and 4948.
Tinker, New Sytem, pp 365, 366.
IOR/Z/P/1986, pp. 619, 620 and P 11051, pp. 134,135.
Tinker, New System, pp. 39–60.
Yearly Reports on Emigration; the birthrate in Surinam was 32‰, see Pieter Emmer, ‘The Importation of British Indians into Surinam (Dutch Guiana), 1873–1916’, in Shula Marks and Peter Richardson, (eds.), International Labour Migration; Historical Perspectives, (London, 1974), p. 91. The birthrate in India was 40‰ in: K. Davis, The Population of India and Pakistan, (Princeton, 1951), p. 68. However, these two figures can not be compared, because the Indian immigrant population in Surinam was a select group, heavily dominated by males between the ages of 16 and 30. Koloniaal Verslag (Surinam), 1876, p. 45 mentions the healthy state of newly born infants in the colony.
[Sanderson] Report of the Committee on Emigration, question 2923; Tinker, New System, p. 119.
Yearly Reports on Emigration, 1884/1885.
Yearly Reports on Emigration, 1897 (comment by British Indian Government).
IOR, EP, 1502, (1880), pp. 65–188, 24-III-1875.
Omvedt, ‘Migration in Colonial India’, pp. 207, 208–209.
J. McNeil and Chimman Lal, Report on the Condition of Indian Immigrants in the Four British Colonies: Trinidad, Guiana or Demerara, Jamaica and Fiji, and in the Dutch Colony of Surinam or Dutch Guiana, (Simla, 1914), p. 180 (appendix 21).
Yearly Reports on Emigration, 1882–1883.
Yearly Reports on Emigration, 1884–1885, 1889, 1903; IOR, EP, 9270, (1912), pp. 329–341.
Tinker, New System, pp. 236–366 and A.T. Yarwood, ‘The Overseas Indians as a Problem in Indian and Imperial Politics at the End of World War One’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, XIV, (1968), pp. 204–248.
IOR, EP, 10219, (1917), pp. 53–63.
IOR, EP, 10219, (1917), pp. 489–494.
IOR, EP, 10422, (1917), pp. 191–207.
IOR, L/P+J/6/1037/13 and 3892/17.
IOR, P 9778, (1914), pp. 741–744.
IOR, EP, 10219, (1917), pp. 53–63.
IOR, Conference Proceedings 29, p. 281.
IOR, EP, 10001, (1916), pp. 331–346.
IOR, EP, 10219, (1917), pp. 53–63.
IOR, EP, 9527, (1914), pp. 1129.
IOR, L/P+J/6/1448, file 2933/16.
IOR/L/P+J/6/1683.
IOR/P 49/ pp. 89–102.
Tinker, New System, pp. 367–383.
Tinker, New System, p. 301.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1986 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Emmer, P.C. (1986). The meek Hindu; the recruitment of Indian indentured labourers for service overseas, 1870–1916. In: Emmer, P.C. (eds) Colonialism and Migration; Indentured Labour Before and After Slavery. Comparative Studies in Overseas History, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4354-4_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4354-4_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-8436-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-4354-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive