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The meek Hindu; the recruitment of Indian indentured labourers for service overseas, 1870–1916

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Colonialism and Migration; Indentured Labour Before and After Slavery

Part of the book series: Comparative Studies in Overseas History ((CSOH,volume 7))

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.

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Notes

  1. India Office Records, (hereafter IOR), Emigration Proceedings, (hereafter EP), 2278, (1884), p. 31.

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© 1986 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht

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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

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4354-4_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-8436-9

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