Indo-Caribbean Heritage

Indians were indentured in fourteen different colonies in the Caribbean Basin/ South America:

Here are the ship names, date and number of Indians landed in St Vincent:

Travancore, Jun 01, 1861, (260)

Castle Howard, Apr 11, 1862, (307)

Saint Lucia has a sizeable population who are descendants of indentured laborers from India that were brought to save the cultivation and processing of sugar cane. The Palmyra brought the first, of thirteen, shiploads on May 6, 1859. A point of note: the last ship to bring Indian laborers to St. Lucia was the Volga, which sank off the coast of Vigie Point, near Castries on the night of Dec 10, 1893. It was carrying 156 Indians for St. Lucia and 487 for Jamaica.

All souls were saved; and those for Jamaica were taken there on the Jumna on Dec 22nd. So not only were the Volga’s Indians jahaji’s, but they shared a strong bond, forged through the same tragic experience.

Lieutenant Governor Edward Eyre submitted the colony’s request for the extension of Indian emigration to St. Vincent, which had resumed to the West Indies in 1852, and extended to Grenada and St. Lucia in 1855. Governor Francis Hincks did not support Eyre's proposal for Indian immigrants, concurring with the Anti Slavery Society that indenture was nothing but "mitigated slavery" for the purpose of underbidding negroes in the labour market and which was likely to produce race animosity. As an alternative Hincks proposed Barbadian "poor whites" Paul who had become unemployed and destitute after slavery ended.

Apparently Hincks did not think that the introduction of whites would have the same effect on blacks as the introduction of Indians, but both the Colonial Office and the St. Vincent legislature were agreed that the scheme would have created a furor among the neighbouring population if free grants of land were given to whites at a time when the blacks themselves were effectively prevented from purchasing land, not to mention squatters being chased off Crown Lands; the local oligarchy also feared that in time they would become a threat to the established power structure.

Hincks' objections failed to prevent the St. Vincent Legislative Council from passing four acts in October 1857 setting out the framework for an Indian immigration scheme. Although the main one, the Immigration Act of 1857 was based on the Grenada Immigration Act of 1855 (which in turn was modeled after the British Guyana Immigration Ordinance), there were some significant differences relating to wages, conditions of work and free return passage, which held up its approval for a long time. In their haste to get cheap labor into St. Vincent the planters even requested 500 Chinese laborers, but St. Vincent was spared Chinese coolies because one shipment alone would have exhausted the Immigration Fund which stood at 5,000 pounds.

After the Immigration Act was suitably amended to satisfy the demand of the Government of India that wages be increased from eight pence a day to 10 pence per day, in September 1859 the Government of India was formally requested to approve emigration of 2,000 to 3,000 immigrants at the rate of 600-700 per year, but it was not until April 1860 that the Government of India finally passed an act extending to St. Vincent the provisions of Act XXXI. of 1855; by that time it was too late to meet the St. Vincent request for two shiploads of Calcutta Indians for the 1859 to 1860 season, and the first ship did not arrive until 1861.

In all there were eight shiploads of Indians to St. Vincent over a period of 20 years between 1861 and 1880, the first and only one originating from Madras, while the other seven ships left from Calcutta bringing a total of 2,475 Indians. On the other hand most of the 2,100 Portuguese arrived over a three-year period between 1845 and 1848. Most Indians were Hindus from the Northwestern Provinces, Bihar and Oude.

The conditions under which the Indians were recruited were significantly different from those under which the Portuguese came: whereas the Portuguese were recruited under private arrangements, the Indians came under a highly regulated and organized system. In India there was an agent representing the island and recruiters licensed by the Government of India, whereas in Madeira ships' captains and their agents were the recruiters, but crimping and kidnapping was carried on nevertheless according to some immigrants; the ships bearing immigrants from India were chartered by the Emigration Commissioners and had to meet certain stipulations, including the employment of a surgeon during the voyage, while the ships that brought Portuguese were invariably cargo and passenger ships outward bound from Britain.

The Immigration Act of 1859 introduced the concept of industrial residence, unknown to the Portuguese, under which Indians were to serve eight years (later increased to 10 years), five of which were to be spent under indenture, and the promise of a return passage, while the Portuguese only contracted for one to two years with no offer of return passage. The first class (adults over 50 years of age) wage rate of 10 pence per day was a huge price to pay for the privilege of having Indians, but the planters hardly ever paid and this wage . For the Indians full wages and weekly food rations were supplied during the first month but deductions were allowed for the second and third months rations, a slightly better deal than the Portuguese who received rations for six months deducted from their monthly pay packet; both groups had to be 'seasoned' before the first class wage was paid. Contracts would be drawn upon arrival, and often created problems. For instance, in 1847 a few Portuguese refused to enter into contract, as an Indian woman did in 1866, after another Indian offered to pay the 10 pound cost of the passage.

Every estate was required by law to provide proper housing, a hospital with nurses, and weekly visits by a medical officer , while the governor was empowered under the Immigration Act to make regulations for the health and welfare of immigrants, but there was only one hospital for the whole island. Planters were required by low to submit half yearly returns to the Immigration Agent and report births, deaths and desertion and details of work performed, wages earned, and absences; breaches of contract were treated more or less as criminal offenses subject to fines or imprisonment with hard labour; anyone found more than two miles from the estate without a pass was liable to arrest for desertion, while absence for more than 24 hours was treated as vagrancy; for the Portuguese records were compiled by Stipendiary Magistrates and were mainly confined to numbers on estates. Indian indenture lasted from 1861 to 1890, but because of the vagaries of the sugar market the treatment of Indians varied from benevolence to malevolence; during this period the Immigration Ordinance was amended no less than six times, each time purportedly making it more favorable for the Indians.

The first shipment of Indians was probably unique in the annals of Indian emigration, because the Travancore arrived in St. Vincent on first of June 1861 with 260 Madras Indians, two more than it left Madras with, there having been two births and no deaths; they performed beyond expectation in spite of the language problem made more difficult by the absence of an official interpreter. The second ship which arrived from Calcutta in January 1862 with 307 Indians and 14 "Liberated Africans" taken on board at St Helena much to the ire of the Indian government, could not have arrived at the more unpropitious time-for the price of sugar had again fallen in Europe and the island was hit by bad weather; consequently some planters refused to take up their share of applications and many Indians had to remain in the depot for weeks during which the Government have to pay for their upkeep.

From: Drouilhet Sidney < DisplayMail('mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu','galois'); This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it >
To: Richard B. Cheddie < DisplayMail('ix.netcom.com','Yuddh'); This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it >
Subject: Blue Book Reports
Date: Friday, March 28, 1997 2:46 PM

Dear Mr. Cheddie,

In the following, I refer to the "Blue Books" but I really mean the
reports the governors filed to the Colonial Office in connection with the
Blue Books. The Blue Books, containing statistical and other information
on St Lucia, can be found at the PRO in London.

The reports on the Blue Books do provide very useful information about
East Indians. Be warned that the persons making the Blue Book reports tend
to take a very disriminatory attitude towards them, referring to them as
"Coolies" and dwelling on the deficiencies of what were no doubt only a few
of them. I can try to mail you photocpies of the relevant sections when
you
get back from your trip if you want. This is what I have been able to piece
together quickly, and it needs to be checked and gone over carefully.

The first group of East Indians [318 Indians] arrived in May 1859 on a
ship called the Palmyra. They were indentured for three years. The next
group of them [261 Indians] arrived in a ship called the Francis Ridley, in
June of the same year. Breen, who wrote this report, says far more details
have been transmitted to the Colonial Office. Thus, these reports are
still undoubtedly in existence in the Public Records Office in London. As
I have said, I have seen some, but paid attention only to those relating to
Breen's downfall and the reprehsible conduct of my great great-grandfather.

In 1860, two more ships arrived with East Indians: The Victor Emmanuel on
Feb 15, and the Zemindar on April 10. The former had 367, the latter had
293. [In a 1986 paper by Ram Persad, "Indians in St. Lucia Too" he listed
the Victor Emmanuel as carrying 393 and the Zemindar 316.] The total
number of East Indian labourers by the end of the year was 1076 (I think; I
cannot read the photocopy clearly.)

In 1861, there were no new East Indians. The report states that 1215
East Indians were introduced in 1859 and 1860 but by the end of 1861 only
973 were alive, one of whom "absconded from the island" leaving 972. Fifty
Indian children were born, so that there were 1022 in the island by the end
of 1861. There is discussion of the fact that the importation of the
labourers was under the auspices of an Imperial Loan, so there must be lots
of documentation on this at the PRO. I believe 1861 is the year of the
disastrous mortality at the Roseaux Valley estates owned by William Muter.
Raymond Francois Drouilhet was in charge, but Breen alleged he did not pay
proper attention to the health of the workers. Breen was ultimately
dismissed as Colonial Administrator and packed off to St. Vincent. Along
with the Indians, Africans were also brought in for work (free ones).

Two hundred and eighty-seven Indians arrived in February 1862 on the
Ulysses [Ram Persad listed 320.] from Calcutta. By the end of 1862, there
were 1463 East Indians. In 1862, a new hospital system was set up because
the previous system of medical care for the labourers had proved to be a
disaster. Another ship brought labourers in 1862, the Damietta, but it
seems to have carried only Africans.

In the report for 1863, it sates that the Indians who came on the Victor
Emmanual and Zemindar were all reindintured. Two hundred ninety-nine
Victor Emmanual and 235 Zemindar workers were reindintured. By the end of
1863 there were 1304 Indians.

Report for 1864: The Palmyra and Francis Ridley workers were mostly
reindintured. Number of East Indians: 1325.

1865 report: two more sets of Indians completed their 5 year contracts:
the Victor Emmanuel and the Zemindar (note: I am a bit confused on the
reindenturing, contract extension, etc. as the statements don't seem
completely consistent. Anyway: in May 1867, the first group who arrived on
the Palmyra, were entitled to claim a free passage back to India. However,
those who wanted, could obtain a free grant of Crown land from the colony
instead to be made by the governor. At the end of the year there were 1009
Indians in the island, 1050 on estates, only 251 were still indentured.
When the Indians were no longer indentured, they had complete freedom of
travel and residence throughout the island.

Report for 1866: States there were no new East Indians or Africans after
1862. One hundred and twenty-one Indians at end of year. The report
expresses wonder at whether the Indians will choose to remain or return to
India. Very few of them immigrate to other islands, although at one time
it was thought many would.

Report for 1867: At end of year 1207 Indians in colony. Only those
brought by the Ulysses still have time to serve to qualify for free passage
back to India. So many of the Palmyra and Francis Ridley workers want to
return that the governor is paying them a bounty if they wanted to exchange
their right to a free return passage. Four hundred have applied for and
received bounty; 230 have registered for trip back to India in autumn
(whether of 1867 or 1868 I am not sure.) Very few who have chosen the
bounty intend to go to Trinidad, and the governor hopes that most of them
will stay in St Lucia as permanent colonists. The total cost of the
indentured labourer program (Presumably including the Africans) was 40,000
pounds. One thousand five hundred and thirty-five1535 person were emplyed
for 8 years (5 of them indentured) for 5000 pounds a year (clearly total).
A new problem is that many estates are totally dependent on East Indian
labourer, and without the East Indians the estates could collapse. [The
Ganges carried back 451 Indians.]

Report for 1868: In November 298 Indians returned to India on the
Lincelles: 180 men, 56 women, 23 boys, 12 girls, 27 infants, costing the
Colony 3600 pounds. They had a combined saving in the Treasury of roughly
2397 pounds which was sent to the Protector of Immigrants in Calcutta.
Four hundred twent-five Indians exchanged their right of passage back for
money (by the way, I think it was for less than 10 pounds [According to my
family, it was five pounds.]; the total cost of this bounty program was
3097 pounds.) 86 Indians have not indicated whether they will claim the
bounty of the free passage back. Next year 220 from the Ulysses will make
the choice between a free trip back to India or the bounty.

Report for 1869: does not say much.

Report for 1870: 1500 Indians were imported during 1859-1862. Only 300
remained in the island. Most of those who did not go back to India left
for neighboring islands to join larger groups of their fellow Indians. As
an inducement to get the Indians to stay, a new bounty was offered. All
they had to agree to do was stay in the colony for 8 more years, register
themselves periodically, stick to agricultural pursuits, and they were
guaranteed a free trip back to India for themselves and their children.
Last January 162 chose the free trip back to India and the voyage was
successful. Barbadians are largely taking the places vacated by the
Indians.

Book Report for 1871: Refers to last shipment of Indians entitled to free
passage back to India. [The 162 Indians were taken back by the Harkaway.]

Reports for 1872, 1873, 1874, and 1875: do not say much.

Suggestion: There is a book of memoirs by the governor in the early
1870's, named Desvoeux, which might have something to say about the return
of the East Indians to India. You can check on this, or I will try to.

Report for 1876: Apparently this was never published. I have the
governor's manuscript version in a photocopied state, but do not have it at
hand, as I write.

Report for 1878: Apparently another group of East Indians arrived in April
of 1878 because a large number of new Indians are reported to have been
ill; 340 were admitted to the hospital, out of a total of 913 admissions.
[580 Indians arrived on the Lucindas.] In fact, the report refers to "the
resumption of Coolie immigration".

In 1879, 221 East Indians arrived on the Chetah.

In 1880, 67 East Indians arrived on the Foyle.

In 1881, 316 East Indians arrived on the Bann.

Report for 1883: St Lucia is having trouble obtaining Indian labourers.
It is in competition for them with the larger islands. Since 1881, it has
not been able to get any. It is considering Chinese labourers. The Jumna
carried back 95 Eaast Indians.

Report for 1884: 626 East Indians arrived on the Bracadaile. [Ram
Persad listed 619 East Indians.] The ship sailed from Calcultta. St Lucian
authorities quarantined it on arrival because there were cases of cholera
on board, causing the neighboring islands to quarantine St Lucia.

Report for 1885: There was a large number of admissions of Indians to the
hospital. The condition of those who arrived on the Bracadaile was so
unhealthy that they were considered to be in the poorest physical state of
any Indians who had ever arrived as labourers. [The Poonah brought 306
East Indians.]

Report for 1886: It states that East Indians arrived in St Lucia at both
the end of 1884 and the beginning fo 1885 in very bad health but are now in
fairly good shape.

Report for 1887: Speaks of three schools for Indian children, to which
"Creoles" were also welcomed, opened under auspices of Canadian
Presbyterian Mission to Indian immigrants in Trinidad. A report on one
school said the Master was Indian, 25 students were Indian, 5 creole.

In 1888, the Moy carried 327 East Indians back to India.

Report for 1889 or 1890: 132 Indians returned to India upon expiration
of their service. Victoria Hospital treated 1900 patients, 1301 of whom
were East Indians. [Ram Persad listed that 132 Indians were carried back
to India on the Rhone in 1889, and 21 were carried back on te Hereford in
1890.]

Report for 1891: It speaks of another resumption of East Indian
immigration. In the last decade 1806 labourers were obtained through East
Indian and other immigration. Five hundred fifty-four East Indians arrived
in St Lucia in 1891 on board the SS Roumania on March 31 from Calcutta.
They came via the Red Sea, Suez Canal, and Mediterranean "the Roumania
being the first ship that brought immigrants for the West Indies by that
route." There were 309 male and 126 female adults, 7 children, 105
infants. On the voyage hthere were 3 births, 5 deaths; in Castries harbour
before debarkation, 1 birth, 1 death. Adult - anyone above 15, child above
10 years infant below 10 yrs old. There were 2523 East Indians in the
colony: 1849 Hindus, 199 Mohammedans, 475 Christians. A large number of
the immigrants were sent directly from the ship to the hospital; many of
the children were extremely emaciated. Out of the 554 Roumania immigrants:
19 children and 3 adults died.

"Although the immigrants who were brought to the colony in 1881 had
fulfilled their 10 years' engagement under which they were entitled to a
free passage back to India in 1891, none of them returned during the year
in consequence of a failure on the part of the Government to obtain the
means of transport, no accommodation being available in any of the ships
conveying
coolies back to India from any of the other West Indian Colonies." There
were 2523 East Indians in St Lucia and many were large depositors in the
Savings Bank, many of them have bought livestock, and the leading East
Indian men are buying property around Castries.
There are now five schools for East Indian children, four partly
government aided, organized by the Canadian Mission.

REPORT FOR 1892: There were 592 indentured East Indians at the end of
the year. In August, 137 time-expired immigrants went back to India in the
ship Jumna. [Ram Persad listed 139 here.] They took away a total of 2138
pounds. One had 170 pounds himself, another 143 pounds. In 1891, 627
acres of Crown land were reserved for forming an East Indian settlement
near Castries. Several grants of 5 to 10 acres were made, for 1 pound an
acre, payment being by installment over 5 years. The governor says, "I
hope to be able before long to establish the nucleus of another Indian
coolie settlement in the neighborhood of Vieux Fort at the south end of the
island, and am having lands surveyed in that locality for that purpose."
Technically, it was not the governor, it was V. Skipton Gouldsbury,
Administrator in Chief, who wrote the report and made that statement. I am
loose with the term governor because I cannot remeber who the governors
versus the lieutenant governors versus the administrators were. Who was
actually in charge varied from year to year. Breen called himself
governor, but was actually only a colonial administrator.

REPORT FOR 1893: There were 730 indentured East Indian immigrants: 554
adults, 395 male and 159 female. "On the night of the 10th of December,
the ship Volga with Indian immigrants on board arrived off the port of
Castries after a quick and sade voyage from Calcutta; but unfortunately
owing to keeping too close to shore the vessel went aground at the Vigie
Point and became a total wreck. Providentially there was not much wind
blowing and the sea was comparatively smooth, so that, with the aid of the
ship's boats and those from shore, every soul on board was safely landed
without the occurrence of a single accident. Of the Immigrants on board,
487 were for Jamaica and 156 were for this Colony. The coolies for Jamaica
remained in this Colony from the 10th to the 22nd of December on the
afternoon of which latter date they were despatched for their destination
in the ship Jumna."

" An East Indian Mission school which had been established at Crown
Lands (part of Central Factory Estate) but which had been closed in the end
of 1892 by the action of the present authorities of the estate (the
mortgagees) was reopened in February 1893, but was again closed by the same
authorities in October of that year." There are also noted that east
Indians could be imprisoned for being absent from their estates without
leave, neglecting or refusing to work.

REPORT FOR 1894: "No new immigrnts were introduced from the East Indies
during 1894 and in the month of September 450 immigrants equivalent to 410
statute adults were repatriated. [These 450 returned to India on the
British Peer.] The repatriated immigrants lodged in the Treasury for
transmission through the usual channel to India, the sum of 2989 pounds,
and the protector reported that the women were more than usually ornamented
with jewellery. The time-expired immigrants entitled to return passages
during the year amounted to 889 but 317 accepted the usual bounty in
substitution of a return passage; 36 remained in the Colony but have not
yet claimed bounty; the remainder viz 112 were the children of those who
accepted bounty. At the close of the year there were in the Colony 708
indentured immigrants."

REPORT FOR 1895: 721 indentured East Indian immigrants including 513
statute adults or immigrants over 15 yrs of age. No new immigrants or
repatriation of time-expried immigrants. Four East Indian Mission schools
in operation with 233 children enrolled.

REPORT FOR 1896: 149 indentured East Indian immigrants of which 125
are adults. No repatriation of time-expired immigrants this year, no new
East Indian immigrants. Four Indian Mission schools with 211 children.

NOTE: I DO NOT HAVE BLUE BOOK REPORTS BEYOND 1896, but Robert Devaux
says St. Lucia has them. You can also get them rather tediously at the
Library of Congress or the British Library; or at Duke University and
perhaps at other large libraried in the Irish University Press
Parliamentary Papers series.

Jim Drouilhet.

Indo-Caribbean people or Indo Caribbean’s are people of South Asian origin who live in the Caribbean, or the descendants of such people.From 1838 to 1917, Indians from the former British Raj or British India, were brought to the Caribbean as indentured servants to address the demand for labor following the abolition of slavery.

Today, Indo-Caribbeans form a large part of the population in Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad. Smaller groups of Indo-Caribbeans live elsewhere in the Caribbean, especially Barbados, Jamaica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Martinique and Guadeloupe. Many Indo-Caribbean people have migrated to the United States of America, Canada, The Netherlands, France and the United Kingdom.

The indentured Indians and their descendants have actively contributed to the evolution of their adopted lands in spite of many difficulties. In 2003, Martinique celebrated the 150th anniversary of Indian arrival. Guadeloupe did the same in 2004. These celebrations were not the fact of just the Indian minority but the official recognition by the French and local authorities of their integration and their wide-scale contribution in various fields from Agriculture to Education, Politics, and to the diversification of the Creole Culture. Thus the noted participation of the whole multi-ethnic population of the two islands in these events.

145 years ago on June 1, 1861 a ship with 260 Indians landed on the Western end of the Kingstown harbor, Edinboro. They had traveled for about 94 days from Madras, India to St. Vincent. This was the first of eight ships to bring a total number of 2,475 Indians to St. Vincent. The other seven ships departed from Calcutta with Indians who originated from the Northern provinces of India. The migration of Indians to St. Vincent lasted for about 20 years from 1861 to 1880.

Why did they come to St. Vincent?

The economic conditions in India were very bad. The British had just taken over the governance of India (1850s) and the offer of contract work in St. Vincent was made to Indians. Famines in India in the 1870s also impacted on Indian emigration.

Indian migration to the Caribbean had started since the late 1830s to British Guyana. Consequent to the termination of slavery in St. Vincent on August 1, 1838 there was a shortage of labor as the resident workers refused to work on the estates. During the period 1839 to 1864, prior to the Indians, 1,036 liberated Africans and 2,110 Portuguese Madeirans had taken up work in St. Vincent. Typically, an Indian signed a bond to work for a period of five or 10 years at a rate of 10 pence per day after which he would be entitled to passage back to India.

Phases of Indian immigration to St. Vincent

There were several phases of the Indian immigration to St. Vincent which was mainly dictated by conditions in the sugar market; but other factors such as epidemics in SVG and ill treatment of Indians also had an impact. When the price of sugar was good, Indian immigration increased but when the Industry suffered the Indians also suffered.

For example, in 1862 when the second ship of Indians arrived, the price of sugar had fallen and the planters did not take up their share of workers and many Indian workers had to remain in the depot. The planters attempted to cut cost by lowering wages and withdrawing the weekly allowances of sugar, rum and molasses. This resulted in riots, disturbances, abandonment of estates and the neglect and abuse of the Indians. The depot where the unassigned Indians were kept was the commissariat building for the militia.

Indian immigration to St. Vincent can be divided into five phases:-

l 1861-62: First arrivals followed by riots; estates abandoned

l 1862-65: immigration suspended and estates consolidated

l 1866-75: Revival of sugar; most immigration; prosperity

l 1876-80: Decline of sugar in SVG

l 1880-85: Last arrivals, protest and end of indenture system

Protest and End of Indenture

By 1880 when the last ship of Indians arrived in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the sugar market had become very competitive and planters tried to cut costs by reducing wages, increasing tasks and neglecting their contractual obligations to the Indians. The Indians were treated horribly and in 1882 the Acting Administrator Roger Goldsworthy received 82 formal complaints from Indians alleging ill-treatment, non payment of wages and other abuses.

The frequency of complaints forced Governor Robinson to order an investigation. This was conducted by R.P. Cropper, the St. Lucia Protector of Indians. His report describes the horrible conditions under which the Indians had to live and work. Like the Africans, they were exploited and treated harshly by the plantation owners.

However, this investigation did not make things better for the Indians. Rather, their treatment continued to worsen. Finally, on October 7th, 1882, in an effort to bring their grievances directly to the Lieutenant Governor, 50 Indians marched from Argyle to Kingstown. They protested against abuse, loss of wages, and some claimed they were robbed out of their return passage to India.

The march resulted in 7 Indians being found guilty of vagrancy, i.e. going more than 2 miles from the estate. These Indians, who later came to be known as the “Argyle Seven”, were assisted by Barrister George Smith who petitioned the colonial office and won the case giving the Argyle Seven their right to a passage back to India. The case also exposed the sloppy way the records of the Indians were kept as they could not be relied upon to prove whether an Indian or the employer had fulfilled their contractual obligations. A decision was therefore taken by the Colonial office that all Indians who had no work or a place to live should be given passage back to India.

During the period 1871 to 1885 a total of 1,141 Indian indentured workers departed SVG for India. However, many were prevented from returning due to the plantation owners’ devious manipulation of the system. Those who could not return included those who were kidnapped as children in India and brought to St. Vincent. When the Indians went to Kingstown on August 1st, 1885 to board the last ship to India they had to walk through two long lines of armed officers or militia. This tight security was to prevent certain Indians from getting onto the ship. There were a few Indians who voluntarily forfeited their right to a return passage to India by accepting a £10.00 bounty offered. Many migrated to Guyana and Trinidad but those who remained in St. Vincent lived mainly on estates at Argyle and at Lot 14, near to the indigenous Carib community.

Post Indenture Life

The hurricane of 1898 and volcanic eruption of 1902 crippled the sugar industry and the estate system was finally broken up. A new land settlement scheme in St. Vincent allowed the Indians to move away from the estates. They settled mainly at Calder, Akers, Richland Park, Park Hill, Georgetown and Rose Bank. In 1902 the Indian population in SVG was just under 500 but by the 1950s Indians in SVG numbered over 5000. It was not uncommon for a married couple to have more than ten children.

The Indians assimilated into the Vincentian community and worked alongside a melting pot of cultures: Africans, Portuguese, British, the aboriginal Amerindians or Yellow Caribs and the Black Garifuna Caribs. They were mainly involved in agriculture, manufacturing and trade. They were thrifty and hardly got involved in crime. They adopted British names and Christian religions. By the 1920s when the indentured labor system was abolished in the Caribbean, the Indians had integrated into the society and had made an impact on the culture of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Curry, roti, rice and dhal were now embraced as a vital part of the Vincentian diet.

There was a small amount of Indian migration from St. Vincent to other Caribbean islands in the first half of the 20th century but the latter half saw migration of hundreds of Indians to the UK, USA and Canada.

Indians came to Trinidad to perform the most important job anybody can do for a country - save it from collapsing. They did that job, but received no thanks or recognition.

Instead they were cheated and denied their rightful place in the country they helped to build. This situation still exists today. This is a brief idea of the story of those early Indians, the greatest story in Trinidad in modern times.

Indians came after to work after the end of slavery, when the freed slaves left the estates and refused to work on the sugar estates. Without labour the sugar estates broke down, and since sugar was Trinidad this meant the end of the country.

The planters were desperate. They tried everything, like blacks from the other islands, Portuguese from Madeira, Chinese, even white workers from England end Scotland. Nobody gave satisfaction until the Indians came. Those 219 who arrived on the Fatal Razack on May 30, 1845, the day we now celebrate as Indian Arrival Day, were the first of 143,000 who gave new hope to a dying Trinidad,

Indians came to work in Trinidad from 1845 to 1917, at an average of about 2,000 a year. Most came from North India and left from tine port of Calcutta, and about 5,000 came from South India, leaving from the port of Madras.

Those from North India came mostly from the plains of the Ganges River, in what is now Uttar Pradesh, with some from Bihar and Bengal. The name Beharry in Trinidad comes from Bihari, meaning a person from Bihar. In 1871, to take a year at random, those who left from Calcutta to work overseas were 41 per cent from central India, Agra and Oudh, 29 per cent came from Bihar and 22 per cent from West Bengal. Those who came to Trinidad would have been in about the same proportion from those parts of India.

An interesting point is that the very first India's up to the l850'|s many of the Indians who came were "hill coolies" or Dhangars from Chota Nagpur. But they were not satisfactory as agricultural workers and few were chosen later. A very few Christian Indians came from the Malabar Coast.

In those parts of North and Central India from which our ancestors came the division of Hindus to Moslems was around 85 per cent to 13 per cent. That is about the division of Hindus and Moslems who came to Trinidad.

The main language was a dialect of Hindi called bhojpuri. This is what people in Trinidad still speak. Bhojpuri is a little different from pure Hindi, with some words and ways of saying things being different. If Trinidad English is a dialect of BBC English then bhojpuri is a dialect of Hindi. Some other languages from India were spoken such as Urdu Tamil (by the Madrasis) and Malayalam. It is not known for sure how much Bengali or Gujarati was spoken, as little or nothing of those languages survives. A few people could read and write in Hindi and Sanskrit.

Most of the Indians were men, young men too, since strong labourers were what the planters wanted but some women came too. At first men outnumbered women by three to one, and later it was two to one. But they never came in equal amounts. This was to cause a lot of changes and problems. Because of the demand for them women became more independent than in India, with their ability to work and support themselves being another reason.

In spite of the shortage of Indian women, however, Indian men refused to take Negro women as wives, unlike the Chinese and Portuguese. There was stiff competition for the Indian women, sometimes leading to fights and murder.

India at the time had many castes and sub-castes. The four main castes of brahmins (priests and teachers), kshatriyas (warriors) vaishas (traders and service people), and sudras (farmers and labourers) being divided into 2,378 sub castes. In India in 1901 the brahmins were the biggest caste with 14 million members, chamars coming next with 11 million and rajputs (landowners) with 10 million. As one would expect, successful people in India did not come to Trinidad to work as laborers, so very few brahmins, kshatriyas and vaishas came to Trinidad. Usually those coming to Trinidad were the lower castes. Chamars (shoe makers and drum beaters) were a big group, as were agricultural castes like ahir (cattle farmers), kahar and kurmi.

Over the years people with a wide range of jobs came to Trinidad, and many carried on their trade here. Most Indians at that time had a single name, though some had caste names like Singh or Panday. A second name was taken at the demand of the planters, and most people just added on their father's name to their own name .

Naturally there would be many reasons why 143,000 people different people did something.

Some Indians were just looking for work, or had fallen on bad times. There were people who had drifted into Calcutta, Some were fleeing the famines and floods common at the time or were people who had lost their land. Some found the promised wages of 25 cents a day much better than the third of a cent they could get in India. Some were just looking for adventure, others were encouraged by relatives, and some were getting away from family problems or crimes. But very few knew of the actual conditions in Trinidad. They were cheated and fooled about that - some thought they were going to another part of India. After the 1857 Indian Mutiny some were just escaping the persecution of Indians.

Whatever the reasons, they came, and suffered much even on the way. In the beginning it was a long, miserable journey of about 100 days in small, cramped sailing ships. Later, steamships would cut the time by half and reduce the discomfort. The death rate was usually below 5 per cent but could climb high in some cases. On the first ship the Fatel Razack five out of the 225 passengers died but on a later occasion 124 passengers out of 323 on the Salsette (bound for Trinidad) died on the way. To compare, note that the death rate for British criminals being dumped in Australia was under one per cent. Shipwreck, fires, pirates, disease, poor food, cold and heat could all affect the trip. On one occasion a shipload of Indians was abandoned at sea by the English crew after the ship caught fire- they took the lifeboats leaving the Indians to burn or drown.

But there was one result of the trip - a deep bond developed between those who travelled together. They called themselves jahagi bahin or jahagi bhai (ship sister or ship brother) and often remained friends for life in Trinidad.

The Fatel Razack landed directly in Port of Spain harbor, but later ships would land first in one of the islands of the Bocas. Indians spent a few days there trying to get used to the climate (and usually a few died here too). In one year, 1862, a full 9 per cent of the new arrivals died here. Those who lived would be parcelled out to the estates to begin what was later called of a new system of slavery

Life on the estates was hard and miserable. They lived in the old slave barracks, lived in the old slave barracks, the "nigger yards", in little rooms with no privacy, no real cooking facilities. They had to use the bush for latrines. Water supplies were often polluted, and the food was dull and below standard. Work started at the break of dawn and went on for 9 hours, six days a week. In the crop they could work up to 15 hours a day. After this they were often cheated of the 25 cents a day by being overcharged for food, or being regularly fined for minor offences. Sometimes the money was just not paid, and they had nobody to complain to. On the estate the white planter was like a god.

Diseases were everywhere, to an extent we cannot imagine now. There was yellow fiver, malaria, dysentery, cholera, hookworm, to name a few. Chiggers, not known in Indian plagued the barefoot Indians, as did other insect pests. There were hospitals but very bad ones, and still Indians usually went to hospital on average twice a year. In 1895 there were 10,770 Indians working on estates, but there were 23,688 admissions to hospitals. In Usine Ste. Madeleine (estate) from 1892-5 sickness caused workers to work only 53 per cent of the possible work hours.

A feature of the estate was a jail, for punishing Indians. They could be jailed for leaving the estate, refusing to start or finish work, insolence, vagrancy and many more, or jailed AND fined. Overseers could set the task so hard that people could not finish it in time - and then they could fine the Indians for failing to finish the job. An Indian who failed to finish his task got nothing at all. Next day he had to start new again on another task. Heavy fines were a popular way for planters to avoid paying wages to the Indian workers, as was overcharging for food sold to them.

When Indians became really sick, planters would often turn them out to starve. Their bodies or skeletons would be found by the sides of the roads and the paths. If these people tried to go into the towns to beg they were beaten and chased out. Christian charity was not for "heathen" coolies.

Still, these coolies saved sugar. Sugar exports, which had fallen to 10,399 tons in 1833, went up to 53,847 tons in 1896. Later, Indians would be sent to the cocoa, coffee, and coconut plantations, and they helped save those crops too.

Indians were entitled to a free return passage back to India after five years service, but only one in six took it . Many decided to settle in Trinidad, especially after 1869 when the passage could be exchanged for a land grant. But few got the grant of land.

Many surviving indentured servants said they never received any land. They had to save money and buy their own land .From very early they started growing cane for themselves and selling to the estates, and planting food crops.

Indians refused to live in towns. They went out and opened up the country. Hundreds of villages and towns like Curepe, Chaguanas, Princes Town, Rio Claro, and Penal were started by Indians with no outside help. Many returned to old caste jobs like kumhar (potter), nau (barber), boatman, bania (grocer), mallah (fisherman), sonar (goldsmith), cart men, and farming.

Those Indians were a proud people. From society they got only scorn and hostility. The whites and blacks laughed at their clothes, religion, language, customs, names, even their food. But Indians did not change to please other people. They passed on their religion, language and culture, their identity to their children under great pressure.

They kept their roots, their culture, their pride. That is their greatest gift to us the present generation of Indians. We must never let their sacrifices be in vain and abandon this Indian heritage.

After a time bad reports caused an outcry in India. In 1917 a motion by Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya to end indentured Indian labour was passed in the Indian parliament.

The system was over but Indians had found a new home in Trinidad. It is their coming we mark on Indian Arrival Day, the birthday of all Indians in Trinidad.

The Journey Across the Kala Pani
The Indian Indentureship System & Arrival of Hindus in the Caribbean

Letters of Jaipal Chamar and his son Ayodhya Das - Dr. Brinsley Samaroo
"Respected father, You will be surprised to know that a son whom you might not have seen is replying from this side. I was about to born when you left this place..".

A Brief Summary of The Arrival of Indians in the Caribbean (1838 - 1917)
"With the abolition of slavery in the British colonies in 1833, large numbers of Indians (primarily Hindus), through an indentureship system, were brought to the sugar colonies to continue the production of sugar. As a result of this movement, Indians were transported to the British colonies of Fiji, Mauritius, Natal, Guyana, Trinidad, Jamaica, and some smaller Caribbean, including Reunion, Martinique and Guadeloupe among French colonies, and to the Dutch colony of Surinam."

Our Heritage - Ravi Dev
"Well, the day is here: the day our ancestors arrived off the coast of Guyana - Indian Arrival Day. No holiday, but we’re not surprised, are we? Some may say, “Why worry? This year May 5^th falls on a Sunday…it’s a holiday, isn’t it?” Yes, it’s a holiday all right, and that’s the point. Why is it a holiday? It’s a holiday because, oh so long ago, Christians decided..."

Indian Arrival Day - 164th Anniversary - Dr. Ramesh Gampat
"May 5, 1838. To Guyanese, especially those of Indian ancestry, this is a sacred day and date. It was on this fateful day, perhaps around 2 –3 PM, that the Whitby, after a sea voyage of 112 days, docked into the colony of Berbice with its precious cargo of 249 immigrants, bound for the sugar plantations of British Guiana. Having landed 164 Indians at the estates of Davidson, Barclay and Company in Highbury and Waterloo,..."

The Story of Indian Immigration - Dr. Ramesh Gampat
"I considered myself privileged to be invited to deliver a short talk on Indian Immigration. For this privilege, I owe a debt of gratitude to Somdatji. You all probably know that this month marks the 161^st anniversary of Indian Immigration in Guyana. That means that Indians have been living in Guyana for 161 years now. Actually, the first batch of 246 Indians set sail in the Whitby from Calcutta on January 13, 1838 and, after a journey of 112 days at sea, they arrived in Guyana on May 5, 1838..."

Hill Coolies - A pamphlet was drafted by the British Foreign and Anti-Slavery Society, 1840
"Under the colour of a Bill for protecting the Indian labourers, it is proposed to legalize the importation of them into the colonies." ****** "Hundreds of thousands of poor helpless women and children are now to be abandoned to want, that the growth of sugar in the West Indies may not languish."

Construction of the Indian Image in Surinam - Mohan K autam

LETTERS OF HINDU INDENTURED LABORERS
Letters of Jaipal Chamar and his son Ayodhya Das

In 1912, Jaipal Chamar, then 25 years of age was indentured from his hometown in Basti District, Uttar Pradesh for five years of service in the Caribbean. Landed in Jamaica, he was sent to Westmoreland where he re-indentured himself after the initial five-year period. After his indentureship, he worked in various parts of Jamaica as a paid laborer, finally settling down in Kingston where he resides at the home of an adopted daughter. In his day Jaipal who was a noted dancer, and today treasures his old dancing costume, brought from India, as dear as life. In 1954 at age 66, Jaipal who had lost touch with his family in India was able to re-establish his Indian connection: he was able to trace and write to a son in Calcutta who was born some months after Jaipal's departure; born to a mother forcibly widowed by the vagaries of the system which Indians neither created nor desired. From Calcutta, Ayodhya Das was equally happy to renew his connection. His letters to his father are as informative as they are poignant:

"Respected father,
You will be surprised to know that a son whom you might not have seen is replying from this side. I was about to born when you left this place. We were two brothers. Our mother looked after us anyhow and we came to Calcutta for service. Fifteen years ago my brother Dwarika passed away and left me alone in this unlucky world."

As the correspondence developed, Jaipal’s eagerness to find out about his wife and his village friends increased:

"Write me about your mother’s welfare and the rest of the village. Respectful greetings to all who know me."

Ayodhya had a fervent wish to see his father. He begged him to return:

"Whenever your letter comes I wish I had wings
And could fly away to see you.

She has gone blind crying for you.
She now lives only with the hope of seeing her brother's face.

(Quoted in: Brinsley Samaroo: The Indian Connection: The influence of Indian Thought and Ideas on East Indians in the Caribbean. In India in the Caribbean. Edited by Dr. David Dabydeen and Dr. Brinsley Samaroo. 1987)

A Brief Summary of the Arrival of Hindus in the Caribbean:
The Indentureship system - 1838 to 1917

With the abolition of slavery in the British colonies in 1833, large numbers of Indians (primarily Hindus), through an indentureship system, were brought to the sugar colonies to continue the production of sugar. As a result of this movement, Indians were transported to the British colonies of Fiji, Mauritius, Natal, Guyana, Trinidad, Jamaica, and some smaller Caribbean, including Reunion, Martinique and Guadeloupe among French colonies, and to the Dutch colony of Surinam.

"Understanding the background of the Indians who came to the Caribbean, is crucial to the understanding of the development of Hinduism in Guyana. That the labourers were exclusively rural and illiterate, that the majority belonged to the lower castes and were engaged as cultivators; that in the early years large numbers of tribal peoples were among the recruits, that a mere third of those who came were women, and that children, under 10 years, accounted for about 10% of the immigrants; that an adult was reckoned to be anyone over ten years, and that recruits between 10-20 years made up more that 25% of the total; that though numerically small there was a South Indian recruitment, all these factors combined to affect the nature of Hinduism that emerged in Guyana and elsewhere in the Caribbean." - (Swami Aksharananda: Hinduism in Guyana: A study in traditions of worship. 1993).

The journey of the Hindus across the kala-pani (black waters) to their destination of bondage to the sugar plantations was one of fear and trauma. Many had the fear that:

"...they will be converted into Christianity... and the Hindoos will be fed beef and the Mohammedans with pork; the thread of the Brahmins and the heads of the Hindoos will be taken off and they will not be able to keep their caste." - (Quoted by: Emmer, PC. The Importation of the British Indians in Surinam 1873-1916. In: International Labour Migration, 1984.)

Once Indians arrived in the Caribbean, the plantation housed them in the former slave barracks. The white expatriate managers, described as the "czar, prosecutor, king and judge all in one" lived in massive mansions while the white supervisory staff on the estates lived in their own segregated areas in what must have looked like a plantation type apartheid system.

"Whatever public religion was permitted, it was within the framework of the structure and demand of the plantation that Hinduism was confronted with the greatest challenge in Guyana and the Caribbean. It did not remain unaffected and was forced to undergo a series of rapid transformation. Hinduism, of course, was never the "eternal" unchanging entity that it is often made out to be, not even in India. But changes in India were probably more organic and slower against the background of a permanent landscape with its sacred mountains and rivers, its major temples and centers of pilgrimage. Customs, beliefs, and practices, the interplay along the ever porous boundary between the Great and Little traditions, the challenge from and syncretism with Islam, the emergence of bhakti, the encounter with the British with all its consequences, and the Hindu reformers who were themselves a product of this encounter, all these were important and permanent changes. But, Kailasa in the Himalayas stood its grounds, the Ganga kept on flowing, and Kasi, the eternal city, continued to beckon to pilgrims across the land. In Guyana and the Caribbean, however, these orienting and stabilizing signposts of the sacred landscape were absent and in the absence of its cultural context changes, in Hinduism in Guyana and the Caribbean, were more momentous, more rapid, and more drastic." - (Swami Aksharananda: Hinduism in Guyana: A study in traditions of worship. 1993).

The following table shows the number of Indians taken to overseas European territories (excepting those of Southeast Asia) in the 19th and 20th centuries and population estimates.

Table 1. Indians taken to overseas European territories (excepting those of Southeast Asia) in the 19th and 20th centuries.

(Quoted in: Swami Aksharananda: Hinduism in Guyana: A study in traditions of worship. PhD Thesis, 1993).

Well, the day is here: the day our ancestors arrived off the coast of Guyana - Indian Arrival Day. No holiday, but we’re not surprised, are we? Some may say, “Why worry? This year May 5^th falls on a Sunday…it’s a holiday, isn’t it?” Yes, it’s a holiday all right, and that’s the point. Why is it a holiday? It’s a holiday because, oh so long ago, Christians decided that the day they worshipped their God – their Sabbath - was important enough to be put aside as a not-working day – a holiday. Christians could make such a decision because they had power. So we ended up with fifty two holidays a year because a resolute set of people decided that their custom was important enough to demand time-off to commemorate it.

We will have Indian Arrival Day as a holiday when we, the descendants of those brave souls who came from India, are ready to demand that our heritage is important enough to deserve a day of commemoration. And that will only occur when Indians have real power. Not a day before. We will have Indian Arrival Day as a holiday when we can brush aside weak, irresolute and unmanly leaders and stand on our own two feet. It is possible that we cannot celebrate a heritage until we are ready to live up to that heritage. And what a heritage has our fore-parents bequeathed us! It is a study in courage, fortitude and resolute character. It is a study of pain and sacrifice. It is a study in overcoming. Let us today remember and reflect from whose loins we have sprung.

Many historians remind us of the tricky Arkatis (recruiters) who spun tall tales of easy money in “Damru Tapu” (Demerara Island) to lure our unsuspecting ancestors from India. There was that – but there was more. Indians would not leave their homes so easily. Every Indian was filled with trepidation, and even fear, to cross the Black waters (Kala Pani) because it meant expulsion from their ancestral group and this meant a loss of belonging and even identity. We have to look much closer at conditions in India of the mid nineteenth century to understand the mindset of our forefathers. It is not coincidental that the parts of India, which provided most of the immigrants – Bengal, Bihar, Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Madras – had been ruled the longest by the British and were the most devastated. It is not coincidental that the word “loot” is one of the first Hindi word to enter the English language. Our fore-parents made a conscious decision to seek a better life abroad, out of the desolation wrought by the British in India.

Sepoys (soldiers) would have left after the First Indian War of Independence (1857) to escape the vindictiveness and harsh retribution of the British. Women, such as the paternal and maternal grandmothers of Cheddi Jagan, would have left because their husbands in the harsh conditions and as widows with children, they faced a bleak future. These were brave women who went against the grain. They would have left, like the three young Luckhoo brothers and countless other young men, because they really wanted to make their fortune and were prepared to work hard to do so. All would have left because they made a decision to seek a life of dignity (Izzat), which was denied them in India, because of British avarice and greed.

Our ancestors survived the horrors of the passage across the Indian and Atlantic oceans in small ships in which they were packed like sardines for months. Thousands died and were unceremoniously (literally, since they did not have their pandits and imams to perform ceremonies of last rites) thrown overboard. New bonds of “jahaji bhai and bahen”, which proved to be very resilient, were forged during the passage. Today may of us have forgotten, or pretend to forget that we are all still Jahajis – in the same boat – subjected to the same humiliations and brutalities.

Plantation life was dehumanising. Forget the long hours of toil with little pay. Forget the poor diet and rampant diseases that made us die like fleas. Forget the insults of the massas. What was most challenging was how our forefathers survived and kept their traditions of strong family life, the foundation of a society, when at the best of times the Planters brought only one woman to every three men. In the early days, this condition took a tremendous toll on the community – wife murders became so rampant that it defined Indian life to others in Guyana. But eventually a stable family structure did evolve. Our foreparents have not been given enough credit for this stupendous achievement. Today many commentators give credit for Indian attainments to our strong family bonds – but we have to try to appreciate what strength and forbearance it took to create those bonds out of the worst possible initial conditions.

Ridiculed and scorned for being uncivilized, illiterate and heathen, our ancestors did not allow themselves to be bought out to discard their culture for mere trinklets. Out of the recesses of their minds and memories they pieced together their religious and social practices and philosophies and recreated the institutions that sustain a civilization. Mandirs and masjids sprung up all across the land from as early as the late 1860’s. Unbeknownst to the other groups in society, reform movements sprung up in the Indian community, which rid it of many of the pernicious practices that had sprung up in India, and which had hindered social progress. Caste, regionalism and religious bigotry were practically abolished. Today there are some who would turn the clock backwards.

Our great grandparents established great industries such as rice, timber, and jewellery, which have survived to this day to keep the country afloat. Know that most of the thousands of acres of rice- land were cleared, leveled and cultivated by blood, sweat and tears. They were not whiners about their lot: they went out and created their destiny.

Contrary to what others would have us believe (why else would they blank it in the history books?) our forefathers were fierce fighters for their rights. As early as 1869 riots at Plantation Leonora forced the Government to introduce reforms to alleviate the immigrants’ abysmal conditions. There were countless other protests during indentureship and dozens of Indians were gunned down during uprisings at Devonshire Castle (Essequibo, 1872), Non Pariel (Demerara, 1896), Friends (Berbice, 1903) and Rose Hall (Berbice, 1913). In the last clash, fifteen Indians were murdered in cold blood by the authorities and when the news percolated back to India it sensitized Indian leaders there, who pressed for the abolition of Indentureship, which was effected in 1917. Our forefathers fought for their own freedom. What say we now?

Every year, as we observe Indian Arrival Day, I ask a simple question. Have we arrived? We can only answer if we know what was our fore-parents destination. We go back to the beginning. They were seeking a life of dignity – izzat. Have we arrived? And why not? We have forgotten from whose loins we have sprung. We have forgotten our heritage.

[Talk delivered by Dr. Ramesh Gampat on the occasion of Indian Immigration Day, May 30, 1999 at 4 PM, to Durga Shakha, HSS, Richmond Hill, NY, ]

I considered myself privileged to be invited to deliver a short talk on Indian Immigration. For this privilege, I owe a debt of gratitude to Somdatji.

You all probably know that this month marks the 161^st anniversary of Indian Immigration in Guyana. That means that Indians have been living in Guyana for 161 years now. Actually, the first batch of 246 Indians set sail in the Whitby from Calcutta on January 13, 1838 and, after a journey of 112 days at sea, they arrived in Guyana on May 5, 1838. Five Indians died at sea during the journey. The Whitby headed for Berbice where it landed 164 Indians landed in Berbice at the estates of Davidson, Barclay and Company in Highbury and Waterloo. Let me reemphasize this: the first Indian set foot on the county of Berbice, not Demerara as is popularly believed. If a monument is to be built to honor the "geographic landing" of Indian, as the Indian Human Rights Activist puts it, then it must be built in Berbice for that is where the original home of Indo-Guyanese it.

The Whitby them proceeded to Demerara and, between the 14 and 16 of May, landed the remaining 80 Indians at the estate of Andrew Colville in Belle Vue. Thus the first ship bringing Indian immigrants landed them at both Berbice and Demerara. In the same month, within a matter of 9 days, Indians landed on the two most important states of Guyana.

Between 1838, when Indian immigration began, and 1917, when it ended, a total of 238,960 Indians came to Guyana. During this time 75,792 of them returned. This meant that 163,168 of them remained in the colony. In other words, at the time when Indian immigration came to an end in 1917, Indians comprised about 44 per cent of the colony’s population.

With this little introduction, I want to talk very briefly about two aspects of Indian immigration: (i) why Indian immigration? And (i) why was – and still is – Indian immigration important to Guyana?

Why did Indians come to Guyana?

In short, without Indian Immigration, Guyana would have been a country where life was miserable indeed.

If we loose our culture and value system, then we are no longer Indians, even though physically we look like Indians. It is not physical features that define who you are, but your values and morals. It is for this reason that it is crucial to demonstrate that we can retain our identity – even though we were not born in Bharat, even though some of us have not there or have no intention of living there and even though we are very far away from her. Indeed, I think that it is not necessary to live in Bharat to be Indians: to be Indians it is only necessary to think and act in accordance with the Indian value system.

And this is why the work of Somdatji, Panditji and others are so important. These people are our teachers, our gurus, and should be respected. It will be up to you, our youths, to practice Indian values at the level of your individual person, the family and society. And I do have great faith in you, our youths, to whom tomorrow belongs.

Indian Arrival Day - 164th Anniversary
“Those Indian Hands Fed Us All”

May 5, 1838. To Guyanese, especially those of Indian ancestry, this is a sacred day and date. It was on this fateful day, perhaps around 2 –3 PM, that the Whitby, after a sea voyage of 112 days, docked into the colony of Berbice with its precious cargo of 249 immigrants, bound for the sugar plantations of British Guiana. Having landed 164 Indians at the estates of Davidson, Barclay and Company in Highbury and Waterloo, the Whitby proceeded to Georgetown. Another ship, the Hesperus, which left 16 days after the Whitby, arrived in Guyana around the same time (either the night of May 5 or early next morning). Let me reemphasize this: Indians first landed in the county of Berbice, not Demerara as is popularly believed. If a monument is to be built to honor the “geographic landing” of Indians, as Parliamentarian Ravi Dev so eloquently puts it, Berbice is the natural location for that is where Indian feet first touched land since they left their native Bharat.

As expected, the gender balance of the original 396 immigrants was heavily biased towards males – 368, or 93%, were males; 11, or 3%, were females; 17, or 4%, were children (most likely under 10 years of age). This distorted gender balance, dictated by the interest of planters in profits, characterized the entire indenture enterprise, although it was not as pronounced from the 1870s. When Indian immigration ended in 1917, about 238,960 Indians had crossed the kala-pani to slave on the Guianese sugar plantations and perchance to uplift their life chances and that of their progeny. All of them did not stay, though, for Bharat Mata pulled a good many of them back, especially so given the atrocious living and working conditions of the colony. Those who exercised this option numbered about 66,130 by the time Indian Immigration came to an end. This meant that 172,836 of those who came to the colony stayed on, assuming that those who died before their indenture was up had decided to stay (and had no option).

By the second decade of the 20th century, Indians comprised about 44% of the colony’s population. When this fateful century ended, 162 years after immigration began, the Indian population moved along the entire trajectory of the demographic curve – from a sprinkling to numerical dominance to decline. At the end of the century, there were 380,000 Indians, comprising 48% of the total population, below its peak of 52% in the early 1970s.

Indians were brought to the colony of British Guiana for one simple reason: experimentation demonstrated that they were the only people who could have withstood the rigors of plantation work and who could have provided an adequate, reliable and pliable labor supply. Was the venture a successful one?

By the time of Emancipation in August 1838, the sugar industry stood on the verge of collapse. It was troubled by falling prices, a credit crunch, rising costs of production, a in series of commercial crisis in Britain during 1847-48, which constrained the supply of working capital, and the repeal of the Navigation Acts in 1849, which provided British colonies with a protected market for their produce, including sugar. None of these by themselves threatened the viability, and thus survivalability, of the sugar industry. That threat came from the dire (but contrived) shortage of labor. The conundrum was solved by Indian immigration. With such a durable solution in place, sugar barons began a process of consolidation and modernization of factories to improve efficiency and push down costs.

Prosperity retuned to the sugar industry in 1854 and lasted until 1884, brought to an end by stiff competition from (i) rival, non-British colonies/countries, such as Cuba, which, in addition to using slave labor, were geographically larger, more fertile and employed “infinitely more advanced technology” (Williams, 1993:151), and (ii) countries, such as Germany, which produced beet by employing more advanced science and technology in both field and factory. The competition of Cuban cane and German beet, in combination with the incredibly selfish policy of the British Government, pushed the West Indies to the brink of collapse in 1897.

British Guiana economy was essentially a sugar enclave. Destruction of the industry would have been equivalent to destruction of the economy, which would have brought untold misery to Africans. Fortunately, this did not happen and sugar continues to exact a stranglehold on the economy to this day. Ironically, Indians gave a new lease on life to an industry in the 19th century that was used to suppress and exploit them in the 20th. Someone said that Indians were too successful for their own good.

The attempt to diversify the economy was not an official one; Indians themselves undertook it. For example, the rice industry – one of the three pillars of the Guyanese economy - owes its existence and viability to the efforts of Indians. Indians are also responsible for the coconut industry, the cattle industry and the private sector, especially manufacturing sub-sector. It was the achievements of Indians, especially in the economic field, that prompted Barbadian novelist George Lamming to observe: ““Those Indian hands—whether in British Guiana or Trinidad—have fed all of us. They are, perhaps, our only jewels of a true native thrift and industry. They have taught us by example the value of money; for they respect money as only with a high sense of communal responsibility can.” If all Indians in Guyana were to disappear suddenly, starvation, chaos and untold poverty would descend upon the land.

Aside from their economic contribution, Indians were among the first Guyanese scholars; they have contributed as medical doctors, lawyers, accountants, politicians, engineers, innovators and entrepreneurs. Some of Guyana’s most famous cricketers were (and still are) Indians. In the field of culture, the presence of Indians is ubiquitous – music, architecture, cuisine, clothing, language and landscape. Modern Guyana, its economy and society, owe much to “those Indian hands” and minds.

At the risk of oversimplification, three periods of “Indian hating” can be identified. The first period stretched right up to the early 1950s. This period was noteworthy for stereotyping and harassment of Indians. It witnessed a protracted effort by African to establish that Indians were undercutting their (Africa’s) livelihood (referred to as “dispossession” in the literature). From the beginning of the 20th century, when most Indians gave up the idea of returning to Bharat, they were at the forefront of the struggle against the saccharine monopoly. They also began an uphill struggle for recognition and economic viability. The second period commenced around the mid-1950s and ended with the defeat of the PNC in 1992. In contrast to the first period when Indian hating was not sanctioned officially, the Government itself targeted Indians during the second period. Especially after Independence in 1966, the PNC regime endeavored to destroy systematically sources of Indian livelihood (official policies sought to destroy and marginalize the rice industry, the private sector and cane farmers). The education system was nationalized and purged of Indianness: teaching of cultural issues was terminated and Indian-owned/run schools were taken over and renamed even as other schools retained their Christian names.

The education system discriminated against Indians in at least three ways. First, most of the teachers, especially the senior ones, were African; Indians could teach only if they joined the PNC and demonstrated loyalty. Even so, they were not given decision-making positions. Second, admission requirements at the University of Guyana were lowered to accommodate Africans who were, in addition, given preferential entry and sponsorship. By the mid-1980s, Africans dominated the University – the student population, the teaching staff, the administrative and other lower-level staff and the Student Association, which was but a microcosm of the PNC. A compulsory one-year stint with the Guyana National Service, introduced in 1976, was the single most effective barrier to higher education of Indian women. Most of this one-year period was spent in the interior (Kimbia and elsewhere). Indian women justifiably refused to endure the disgrace and preferred to quit. I vividly recall the predicament of three Indian women who were in my batch at UG. One quitted after studying economics for two years. With no alternative, she took up farming. She now lives in grinding poverty and looks 15 years older than her chronological age. The other two went to Kimbia and came back with many bitter memories; both are no longer in Guyana and both are still unmarried. Many stories have been told about Kimbia, including rape of, and forced sex with, Indian women. Third, international scholarships were closed to Indians even through they had fair access to them prior to independence. For Indians, educational merit no longer brought opportunities for higher studies abroad. Most of the successful Indian academics and professionals today made it on their own, without any assistance from the state.
Aside from barriers to education, there was intense discrimination as regards employment (this author felt the pangs of this discrimination) as Indians were bypassed in preference to Africans. What, then, was the purpose of an education if one could not find a job – especially when less qualified persons from another ethnic group did not have difficulties finding a job? To young Indian minds, this was a silly question. The fact that literacy rates of Indians lagged those of Africans bears testimony to this aspect of discrimination.

Besides the destruction of livelihoods and educational opportunities, Indians were also victims of the first attempt at ethnic cleansing (the Wismar Massacre), political witch-hunting, victimization, cultural degradation and a crime wave. From its birth in the 1950s (when it was used by the PNC to bring down the PPP), crime blossomed into choke-an-rob, which soon gave way to kick-down door crimes by gun-wielding African criminals, targeting Indians. To crown it all, it was the official policy to create “one people” (which led to efforts to douglarize the population) and thus destruction of culture and identity. A virulent ethnic crime wave, economic hardships, denial of opportunities and access to resources, inability to influence national decisions and the status of second-class citizens – these gave rise to the second great Indian Diaspora.

The third period began with the second coming of the PPP and is still ongoing. This period drove home a crucial lesson: the new intolerance of dictatorship brought on by the end of the Cold War, the ethnic composition of the population and the practice of ethnic politics would thwart the political ambition of Africans. Led by the PNC, resort was made to other means: large-scale violence directed at Indians and political instability. Violence, now completely homegrown and politically motivated, is the prime instrument used to catapult the PNC back to office (not power, which it already has). In response, foreign capital inflows dried up. The economy, now starved of investment, management and technology, slid into reverse gear, ending a remarkable period of growth.

The PPP is determined to create itself in the likeness of the PNC – that is, to stay in office at all cost. The Stabroek News has even carried letters about the Jagdeo dictatorship (which the PPP deems the dictatorship of the proletariat). The strategy of the PPP is characterized by the following elements: (i) massive rhetoric in the finest tradition of communists; (ii) widespread corruption and incompetence; (iii) victimization, including murder, of Indians who dare to challenge the PPP; (iv) focus on youth – only that the youths are mainly African youths (some letter writers in Stabroek News have even suggested this was just hot air); (vi) inability, or perhaps unwillingness, to defend Indians as a new and more virulent African crime wave threatens to decimate them; and (vii) appeasement of Africans in an attempt to buy their peace and votes. The result is that the PPP has scored good marks in accelerating the exodus of Indians to foreign climes.

So Indians have been living in Guyana for more than 160 years. Have they arrived? By arrival, we understand, at the minimum, equality and justice, both of which have been denied:

Brief exposure of the deplorable condition of the Hill Coolies,
in British Guiana and Mauritius, and of the nefarious means by which they were induced to resort to these Colonies

"Under the colour of a Bill for protecting the Indian labourers, it is proposed to legalize the importation of them into the colonies." ****** "Hundreds of thousands of poor helpless women and children are now to be abandoned to want, that the growth of sugar in the West Indies may not languish."

It is in vain to shut our eyes to the calamities which impend on India. It was in this manner that the Slave-trade crept in, under the shadow of Parliamentary regulation; a race was then begun between abuses and legislation, in which legislation was always found to be in the rear. AND SO IT WILL BE WITH THE COOLEY TRADE. We must tread the same circle; and, after years of the most poignant misery, come to the same result, that in the case of the new, as of the old, trade, THE ONLY PATH OF SAFETY LIES IN ABSOLUTE PROHIBITION." Friend of India, Calcutta, 3rd Aug., 1839.

LONDON: HARVEY AND DARTON, GRACECHURCH STREET. BALL, ARNOLD AND CO., 31, PATERNOSTER ROW; HATCHARD AND SON, 187, PICCADILLY; AND AT THE OFFICE OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 27, NEW BROAD STREET.
- MDCCCXL

This pamphlet was drafted by the British Foreign and Anti-Slavery Society in response to Lord John Russell's announcement that his cabinet was considering that the ban on the import of Indian laborers to Mauritius be lifted. In an attempt to dissuade this action, the pamphlet describes John Scoble's account about the abuses directed towards Indians uncovered during his trip to the West Indies for the Central Emancipation Committee. The pamphlet, written in February 1840, also attempted to display the Mauritian planter's circumvention of Crown directives concerning the importation of slaves and Indian laborers. Although Russell met with a delegation of the abolitionists, he confirmed that the government would proceed with its intention of reopening the exportation of Indian laborers. With a few exceptions, the exportation of indentured Indian labour to various British colonies lasted until January 1, 1920, when the last indentured Indians in Fiji were released from their contracts. Transportation of indentured Indians to Guyana (then British Guiana) ended in 1917.

The pamphlet was originally printed by Johnston and Barrett, Printers, 13 Mark Lane, London.

In sending the following statement to the press, my single object was to fill up the hiatus left in the papers recently presented to the House of Commons respecting the Hill Coolies in British Guiana, in return to an address moved by Mr. WILLIAM GLADSTONE on the 18th of February last. It appeared to me desirable that the country should know that a large fund of information respecting the general treatment of the Coolies in that colony existed besides the very partial, and, I have no hesitation in saying, because I am personally familiar with the facts, most unfair representations made to the Home Government on the whole subject.

Before I visited Guiana in the early part of the year, 1839, the system of concealment was adopted with admirable success: when, however, concealment was no longer possible, palliation and apology were resorted to; and to me, were it not a source of deep sorrow that the exposure of the hardships and sufferings of the wretched Coolies were treated with lightness, and that an attempt was made thereby to impose on the British public, it would be infinitely amusing to observe the attempts of Governor Light, to account for his own ignorance of the facts brought to light, the studied silence of his magistracy, and the conduct of the parties implicated in the guilty transactions to which reference is made. The ridiculous attempt of his Excellency to fasten unworthy motives on me, in the part I felt it to be my duty to take in the affair. I pass by as unworthy of observation. However much it may please the planters, it cannot injure me.

It was not my intention to have added my name to the statement, now given to the public - not judging it to be necessary; but having submitted it to the perusal of some friends after it was in type, they suggested the propriety of my doing so, and this must be my apology for the form in which it appears.

On the 4th January 1836, JOHN GLADSTONE, ESQ., addressed a letter to Messrs. GILLANDERS, ARBUTHNOT & Co., of Calcutta, in which he says: "You will probably be aware that we are very particularly situated with our negro apprentices in the West Indies, and that it is matter of doubt and uncertainty, how far they may be induced to continue their services on the plantations after their apprenticeship expires in 1840.

This, to us, is a subject of great moment and deep interest in the colonies of Demerara and Jamaica. We are, therefore, most desirous to obtain and introduce labourers from other quarters, and particularly from climates similar in their nature." After giving a most glowing account of the colony -- the lightness of the labour required, and the repose enjoyed by the people - their "schools on each estate for the education of children; and the instruction of their parents in the knowledge of their religious duties" - (there are no schools on Vreed-en-Hoop, or Vriedestein!!) he sums up all by observing, "it may be fairly said they pass their time agreeably and happily." Full of fears, however, for the future, he adds, "It is of great importance to us to endeavor to provide a portion of other labourers, whom we might use as a set-off, and, when the time for it comes, make us, as far as possible, independent of our negro population." He then gives an order for 100 Coolies - "young, active, able-bodied people," to be bound to labour "for a period not less than five years, or more than seven years," the wages not to "exceed four dollars per month," to provide themselves! To which communication Messrs. GILLANDERS & Co., gave the following "encouraging" reply, on the 6th June, 1836; "within the last two years, upwards of 2000 natives have been sent from this to the Mauritius, by several parties here, under contracts of engagements for five years. The contracts, we believe, are all of a similar nature; and we enclose a copy of one, under which we have sent 700 or 800 men to the Mauritius; and we are not aware that any greater difficulty would present itself in sending men to the West Indies, the Natives being perfectly ignorant of the place they agree to go to, or the length of the voyage they are undertaking." They then go on to state that the men selected for Mauritius, have "hardly any ideas beyond those of supplying the wants of nature;" and, therefore, we suppose, more likely to become the dupes of the cunning knaves who would entrap them into engagements, of the nature of which, they would be entirely ignorant. The "Dhangurs," they add, in a subsequent part of their letter, "are always spoken of as more akin to the monkey than the man. They have no religion, no education, and, in their present state, no wants, beyond eating, drinking and sleeping; and to procure which, they are willing to labour." Fit subjects, truly, to be made slaves, and to cultivate the estates of JOHN GLADSTONE, ESQ., in Demerara! Now what reply was made to the proposition of GILLANDERS AND Co.?

Did the wealthy planter express his indignation that the Indian labourers were to be spirited away from their native land, under the idea that they were going to the "Company's Rabustie," to be engaged in gardening?" Did he express his disgust that his agents should select such ignorant and wretched creatures as the Dhangurs to practice deceit upon? No! On the 10th March, 1837, he and his friend, JOHN MOSS, Esq., of Liverpool, gave Messrs. GILLANDERS & Co. to understand, that in the following May, they intended to forward the good ship "Hesperus to take Coolies to Demerara," to the number of 150, and that should they have children to take with them, fifteen or twenty may be sent in addition. "In Demerara," Mr. GLADSTONE adds, "the females are employed in the field as well as the men; and if the female Coolies will engage to work there, a larger proportion may be sent, say two women to three men, or, if desired, equal numbers; but if they will not engage to work there, then the proportion sent to the Isle of France, of one female to nine or ten men, for cooking and washing, is enough!" It is enough to give these quotations to show the origin of the Coolie slave-trade: and all we need add, is, that "ANDREW COLVILLE, Esq., ("a near connexion of Lord AUCKLAND'S") and Messrs. DAVIDSONS, BARKLEY & Co. of London," joined their friend Mr. GLADSTONE in a similar commission to Messrs. GILLANDERS & Co.

It became necessary, in consequence of the state of the law in British Guiana, which restricted contracts for labour to three years duration, that Mr. GLADSTONE and his friends should be accommodated with an Order in Council to sanction their contracts for a period of five years, commencing on the arrival of the Coolies in Demerara. This was complaisantly granted them by LORD GLENELG, with the concurrence of Sir JOHN HOBHOUSE, and, of course the whole of her Majesty's then ministry. Under date of the 20th May, 1837, Mr. GLADSTONE writes GILLANDERS & Co. "I have now made the necessary arrangements with the colonial department, and an Order in Council corresponding with them will be immediately published." He then increases the order for Coolies from 150 to 200, (stating the tonnage of the "Hesperus" to be 334,) but he adds, "If that number should be considered too many, do not reduce it under 150," and remember, "one-third for the Messrs. MOSS, two-thirds for me." The Order in Council was of the most objectionable kind. It gave a carte blanche to every villain in British Guiana, and every scoundrel in India to kidnap and inveigle into contracts for labour for five years, in a distant part of the world, the ignorant and inoffensive Hindoo!

The Order in Council was issued the 12th of July, 1837; but it was not until the 3rd of January, 1838, that the public in this country became aware of its existence, when it was denounced in the British Emancipator as giving birth to a new slave- trade. In May, intelligence was received through the medium of the Calcutta papers of the most painful nature, detailing the infamous conduct of the "Chokedars who were put on guard over the Coolies, shipped for Demerara on board the Hesperus." One man died "in consequence of his having been kept below;" and "the Coolies," it is added, were made to pay by the Chokedars, for the privilege of coming on deck! The same papers state that "the agent for shipping these poor unfortunate people has stated that he is authorized to ship TEN THOUSAND!"

Private letters also corroborated the fact, that the Coolies "had to be forced on board" the Hesperus - that "the hatches were bolted down," and that one man died from suffocation." It is stated also in the same communication that the Whitby found difficulty in inducing the natives to go, and that force was required to accomplish the object." These statements are made on the authority of the Rev. Mr. BOAZ, a Missionary in Calcutta. It was subsequently discovered that the trade of kidnapping Coolies had been extensively carried on, and that prison depôts had been established in the villages near Calcutta for the security of the wretched creatures, where they were most infamously treated, and guarded with the utmost jealousy and care, to prevent their escape, until the Mauritian and Demerara slavers were ready for their reception! A full account of the discovery of the kidnappers, their modes of procuring Coolie labourers, and their places of retreat was inserted in the Asiatic Journal of Calcutta, 5th of July, 1838, copied from the authenticated report of Sergeant FLOYD to the magistrates. It further appears, that through the exertions of a Mr. DIAS, a magistrate, twenty of the kidnappers were punished, and one hundred and twenty-five Coolies released from their grasp, who were described as "highly delighted" with their deliverance; and "as each group left the office, they gave three or four hearty cheers, and showered down blessings on the magistrate's head." Ought not the agents who employed these execrable kidnappers to have been punished? They most righteously deserved to have been placed by the side of the villains they employed.

According to the official account, the number of Coolies shipped from Calcutta, per Hesperus, was 155 men, five women, and ten children, in all 170 persons for Messrs. GLADSTONE and MOSS; per Whitby, they were shipped, 250 men, seven women, and ten children, in all 267 persons, to the care of JAMES MATTHEWS, Esq., attorney to ANDREW COLVILLE, Esq., and JOHN CAMERON, Esq., agent to Messrs. GILLANDERS & Co., of Calcutta. The Coolies consigned to Mr. CAMERON, were disposed of to Messrs. DAVIDSONS, BARKLEY & Co., and to JAMES BLAIR, Esq. The mortality on board the Hesperus, during her voyage, was fourteen, of which number two are represented to have been drowned (suicides?) The mortality on board the Whitby, amounted to four. There were consequently landed from both vessels 419 Coolies, which were distributed in the following manner, viz.:-

*********************************	Males	Females
Vreed-en-Hoop (John Gladstone, Esq.)	65	5
Vriedestein - - Ditto	31	0
Anna Regina, (Messrs. Moss,)	46	3
Belle Vue, (A. Colville, Esq.)	79	3
Waterloo, (James Blair, Esq.)	47	0
Highbury, (Messrs. Davidsons & Co.)	117	11
	385	22

In all 407 persons, according to the official returns of the special magistrates, printed by order of the House of Commons, 21st of February, 1840, No. 77, pp. 51, 52. This will show a difference in the numbers landed and located upon the estates, of twelve Coolies, the cause of which cannot be gathered from the papers. It is of importance, that this point should be cleared up.

On the 30th of August, 1838, GOVERNOR LIGHT, having just made the tour of the colony, writes to LORD GLENELG , as follows: - "From the reports I have received, and from my personal observation, the Coolies appear satisfied with their position, and have not disappointed their employers." In another dispatch, dated the 19th of November, 1838, his Excellency states, that "the general good health of the emigrants from India, is equal to that of any other labourer in this colony," the Creole Negro, of course not excepted; and in this view the assistant Colonial Secretary, Mr. WOLSELEY, concurs, for he appends to his general report on the state of the immigrants, "The Coolies have acclimatized well, and have suffered no disadvantage by emigrating to this colony." At a still later period, the 11th of January, 1839, Governor LIGHT, in a dispatch to LORD GLENELG, observes, "If my information be correct, the Hill Coolies were accustomed to a marshy soil, to very low wages, and precarious scanty food, and though on limited wages, in comparison with the free labourer, yet are as carefully protected from oppression, and their complaints redressed as speedily, as those of other labourers!" He adds, "the Coolies on Mr. GLADSTONE'S property, are a fine healthy body of men; they are beginning to marry or co-habit with the negresses, and take pride in their dress; the few words of English they know, added to signs common to all, prove that `Sahib' was good to them."

On the 30th day of January, 1839, Mr. Special Justice COLEMAN inspected the Coolies on plantation Vriedestein, the property of JOHN GLADSTONE, Esq.,; and gives a most favourable report of their condition. The labour required of them, only two-thirds of that expected from the late apprentices; and that "always of the lightest work going on." Their allowances, as per contract. To be sure, their houses were "not in good repair," but that is a matter of little importance in a colony where the climate is so "genial!" and where Governor LIGHT firmly believed they had "more means of enjoyment than in their own country." Vreed-en-Hoop, another property of Mr. GLADSTONE'S, was visited by Mr. Special Justice DELAFONS, on the 20th February, 1839; who reports, that the Coolies were "cheerful and contented;" but, unlike their brethren on Vriedestein, they were compelled to perform the same description of labour as the negro gang, and had one and a-half-guilder stopped out of their wages monthly, to be paid on their completing their servitude, as per agreement. The deaths on Vriedestein, in eight months, two males; on the sick list ten: and on Vreed-en-Hoop, in nine months, four males; on the sick list four.

On the 31st January, 1839, Mr. Special Justice COLEMAN inspected the Coolies on Belle-Vue, the property of Mr. COLVILLE, and reports that they were "lodged in a large logie built purposely for them," and were not required, or expected, to perform more than "two-thirds of the tariff of labour for seven hours and a-half." He states the number of deaths in eight months, to have been nine males, and one female child; on the sick list twenty. Mr. Special Justice MURE reports, the Coolies on Anna Regina, belonging to the Messrs. MOSS, to be "very cheerful and contented," and that only one death had occurred in eight months. Mr. Special Justice ROSE reports, that the Coolies on Waterloo, the property of JAMES BLAIR, Esq., "are apparently quite satisfied," and that during a period of eight months, there had been four deaths, and fifteen were on the sick list. On plantation Highbury, belonging to Messrs. DAVIDSONS & Co., visited by Mr. Special Justice MACLEOD, on the 31st of January, 1839, he reports, the Coolies "cheerful and contented," and the number of deaths fifteen males, and two females, with from ten to fifteen on the sick list. It thus appears, that the morality during a period of rather more than eight months after arrival, on 419 Coolies had been thirty-eight, viz., thirty-five males and three females, and that seventy were usually on the sick list.

Up to this period, there was not a whisper to be heard in the colony of the ill-treatment of the Coolies, although it must have been known to the special justices of the various districts in which the Coolies were located, that they were frequently in the habit of running away from the estates, on the ground of alleged ill-treatment and anxiety to return to their native land. It was known, that a large number had fled from Belle-Vue, and were found on plantation Herstelling, on the opposite side of the river, where they declared that, in consequence of the severity of the treatment they had endured from their manager, Mr. YOUNG, who accompanied them from India, they would rather die than go back, and it was only when the promise was given that the individual complained of should be discharged, that they returned to the estate. It is known also, that many fled at different times from plantation Vreed-en-Hoop, and that two "Jummun and Pulton, who left on the 11th of October, 1838," were never afterwards discovered. The bodies of two strange men were discovered about that time at Mahaica dead, in the bush; no doubt they were the missing Coolies; and the female child, about ten years old, who was reported dead in Mr. Special Justice COLEMAN'S report, perished from the dreadful effects resulting from the forcible violation of her person. An account of these things, and much more, that might be mentioned, is carefully excluded from the reports; but we must not anticipate.

The real condition of the Coolies was brought to light, in consequence of a paragraph which appeared in the columns of the British Emancipator of the 9th Jan., 1839, which had reached the colony. JAMES MATTHEWS, Esq., after allowing three weeks to elapse to put his house in order, requested the Governor to appoint a commission of inquiry into the condition of the Coolies on Belle-Vue, with the view of proving that the statements in the Emancipator were false and scandalous. It was to have been a very snug affair, but Mr. SCOBLE, being at that time in the colony, and having been privately informed of the intended investigation, determined to be present at the proceedings. The evidence taken by the Commissioners, though of the most partial and limited nature, established the general accuracy of the report which had been made, and was the means of bringing to light the hidden horrors of the system which had been pursued on Belle-Vue. To detail the whole of the iniquities practiced on the wretched Coolies on that estate would fill a volume. It will be sufficient, to say that the general manager of the estate, Mr. RUSSELL, SHARLIEB, the manager of the Coolies, and Dr. NIMMO, a relation of Mr. GLADSTONE, the medical man of the estate, as well as of Vriedestein and Vreed-en-Hoop, were all indicted and convicted of brutal assaults, before the Inferior Criminal Court of British Guiana, and either fined or imprisoned! One incident however connected with the sick-house on Belle-Vue must not be omitted; it is taken from an account given by an eye-witness of the melancholy scene. "The spectacle," he writes, "presented to the observer, in the sick-house was heart-rending! The house itself was wretchedly filthy, the persons and the clothes of the patients were filthy also; the poor sufferers had no mats nor mattresses to lie on; a dirty blanket was laid under them and their clothes wrapped together formed a kind of a pillow.

In one room where there were raised boards for the accommodation of seven persons only, eleven were confined -- four of them lying on the floor. The squalid wretchedness of their appearance, their emaciated forms, and their intense sufferings from disease and sores, were enough to make the heart bleed! In the second room were found a worse class of patients. The scene in this chamber beggars description; out of the five confined there, two were dead, and one of the remaining three cannot long survive; should the others ultimately recover, it will be by a miracle -- their bones appeared ready to protrude through their skins! (these three died shortly after.) When the magistrate inquired by signs of the miserable creature who appeared to be near death, what food he was allowed -- he pulled out some hard brown biscuit from under his head, and exhibited it!! The Coolies confined in other apartments appeared in the same state as those confined in the first chamber; in one of them was a man whose limbs have become contracted by disease since he came to the estate. In fact, you may suppose, that it must have been misery in perfection to have drawn from Mr. WOLSELEY this observation:-- "I never saw such a dreadful scene of misery in my life as is now to be seen in the sick-house. I have been in a great many hospitals on various estates for the last twenty years; but I never saw such a melancholy scene!!

But lest it should be suspected that the description is overwrought, attention is called to the remarks of Sir M. MCTURK, one of the Commissioners appointed by the Court of Policy, to visit the estates on which the Coolies were placed, and to report thereon. In his place in the Court of Policy, he said, "He would now say that, before that inquiry, it had often been his lot to witness scenes of distress, of acute bodily suffering, and deep affliction; but such unalleviated wretchedness, such hopeless misery as he beheld in that hospital, never before had he seen, nor could he have imagined that it existed in this colony. The Coolies in it were not suffering merely from sores; they had mortified ulcers, their flesh rotting on their bones, their toes dropping off. Some of them were in a dangerous state from fever, and all were in the utmost despondency." And this appalling statement was corroborated by the Commissioners in their official report. On Belle-Vue, they say, "twenty have died from diseases contracted in the colony, and twenty-nine are now in a wretched state from ulcers, many of whom, in all probability, will die; and should they survive, they will (some of them) be rendered unfit to support themselves, from the loss of their toes, and part of their feet -- the sick-house presents a spectacle pitiable to behold. These poor people are in a state of great misery, and from whatever cause it may have sprung, the effects are so appalling, that humanity calls loudly for the interference of the executive." The consequence of this appeal was, after considerable opposition from Mr. MATTHEWS, the attorney of the estate, and Dr. NIMMO, the medical attendant, they were removed to the colonial hospital, and placed under the humane care, and skilful treatment of Dr. SMITH, the physician of the establishment.

It is to be regretted that Mr. COLVILLE, to whom the government imparted the information relative to the treatment of the Coolies on his estate, instead of expressing his warm indignation against the brutal system of oppression practised there by his agents, should have sought to extenuate, if not to justify, their criminal deeds. (Vide Par. Pap. No. 463, p.98) But that gentleman should be told that when his portion of the Coolies arrived in Demerara, there was no building prepared for their reception; that the sick-house was emptied of its patients, to make room for them; and that in four rooms in that sick-house, the whole eighty-two Coolies were thrust, men, women, and children, without regard to delicacy or decency, together; and kept in that loathsome den for nearly three months, before a shed could be erected for their shelter! And let that gentleman be told also, that the whip, the bamboo, and the dungeon, were constantly resorted to, to compel labour or to gratify revenge. And further, he should know that the schoolmaster BERKLEY, who first hinted the cruelties that were practiced on miserable Coolies, after having his stock wantonly killed, has been driven from the estate, without payment of the miserable sum due to him for salary; and is now the victim of a most bitter persecution on the part of every manager in the district! Happily, however, for the cause of humanity, and probably, for the interests of Mr. COLVILLE, the atrocious conduct of his agents has been partly made known; but who shall say that similar atrocities may not again be perpetrated? There are not always to be found in the colony, men who have the courage to expose and denounce the evils which exist. The last report of the special magistrate, dated 1st November, 1839, states the mortality to have been, up to that period, twenty-two males, besides the murdered girl!

Let us now take a glance at Vreed-en-Hoop, the property of Mr. GLADSTONE. We find, that in consequence of a communication made to the Governor that the Coolies on that estate were ill-treated, an inquiry was ordered into the circumstances. The result of the first inquiry is summed up by Mr. YOUNG, the Government Secretary, in a letter, addressed, by order of his Excellency, to JAMES STUART, Esq., the attorney to the property; and is as follows:--

. A report having reached the Governor that the Coolies of Vreed-en- Hoop had been flogged, and that two of them, in consequence of ill-treatment, had fled from the estate, and had since perished in the neighbourhood of Mahaica, his Excellency directed a court of inquiry, consisting of three stipendiary magistrates, to be assembled for the purpose of ascertaining the truth of the report. I am now directed to recapitulate to you the facts elicited by the investigation; to inform you of the ultimate measures which have been determined on; and to suggest to you such a course of proceeding, on your part, towards the individuals whose conduct is implicated in these transactions, as, in his Excellency's opinion, humanity towards the Coolies, and a due regard of the reputation of the colony at large, render just and necessary.

As you were yourself present at the court of inquiry, it is not, perhaps, necessary to set forth in detail the whole of the evidence, (of which, however, you may obtain a perusal at this office, should you desire it); in the margin will be found the names of the witnesses who speak to the facts which I am now to recapitulate.

"The Coolies were locked up in the sick-house; saw them the day after they were flogged; their backs were swollen; they were in the sick-house for two days after the flogging." -- Will. Clay.

"When they run away and are stubborn, they get two or three lickings; they are flogged with a cat-o'-nine-tails; they were tied with a rope round the post, and were licked on the bare back." -- Alexander.

"They appeared to me as severely punished as my matties were, during the apprenticeship; when flogged, they were flogged with a cat, the same as was formerly in use; they brought all from the sick house together, and took them to the negro-yard to be flogged; they were tied to a post." -- Rose.

"The Coolies were locked up in the sick house, and next morning they were flogged with a cat-o'-nine-tails; the manager was in the house, and they flogged the people under his house; they were tied to the post of the gallery of the manager's house; I cannot tell how many licks; he gave them enough. I saw blood. When they were flogged at manager's house, they rubbed salt pickle on their backs."-- Elizabeth Caesar.

"I think two of the Coolies were brought into the hospital to have their backs dressed; I rubbed them with camphor and high wines; the backs were bruised. The first time seven Coolies were locked up; the second, six Coolies."-- Betsey Ann, Sick Nurse.

"Their hands were tied behind their backs; they were beaten with a rope; ten times they lick them; heard them complain to manager; Mr. Jacobs lick Modun every day. When licked, they put the breast to the post with hands stretched out; some tie the hands before, some behind. Coolies run away because they are licked." -- Narrain.

His Excellency desires me to observe, that although some of the other witnesses, as well as those whose names are mentioned in the margin, in other parts of their evidence, give a description, perhaps, somewhat less revolting than that contained in the foregoing extracts, yet the fact of flogging and confinement having been inflicted is proved beyond all dispute.

The minutes of the court have been referred to Stipendiary Justice Coleman (who was not on the commission of inquiry) in a letter, of which I annex a copy, and you will perceive that he has been instructed to adjudicate upon the cases, or to refer them, for trial, before the Supreme Court of Criminal Justice, as may be most consistent with his own judgement, and the laws in force.

His Honour the Sheriff of Berbice, who is acquainted with the Hindostanee language, has been summoned from Berbice, in order to assist in interpreting the complaints of the Coolies, and for the purpose of conveying to them an explanation of the punishment which Captain Coleman is enabled, by law, to award against any one who shall, in future, at any time, commit similar outrages on their persons. His Excellency confidently expects your entire concurrence in the above measures, for the punishment of the wrongs these strangers have hiterto sustained; and, under this expectation, I am to suggest to you, that, although a legal tribunal can visit Mr. Sanderson and Mr. Jacobs (either or both, as the evidence may appear to the court to justify such a sentence) with punishment for what the Coolies of Vreed-en-Hoop have, hitherto, wrongly suffered, yet, that the most efficient protection, for the future, can best be afforded, by your dismissal of Messrs. Sanderson and Jacobs.

Mr. Sanderson, as the resident manager, either did know, or ought to have known of these transactions; under the most charitable supposition, his ignorance must be esteemed highly culpable.

Of Mr. Jacobs' unfitness to retain any authority over the Coolies of Vreed-en-Hoop, there cannot be a doubt; and it is reported that, pending the investigation, he brutally assaulted one of them, and that he is, at this moment, on his trial, before Stipendiary Magistrate Mure, for the offence. It has also been reported to the Governor, that the wages due to the Coolies, are paid to the interpreter Jacobs, on their behalf, a practice which his Excellency considers may have been a source of discontent. I have, &c.,

(Signed) H.E.F. YOUNG,
James Stuart, Esq., Government Secretary.
Attorney of Plantation Vreed-en-Hoop.

To this communication, the attorney sent a scornful reply, and refused to accede to his Excellency's request. The investigation, however, led to the trial and conviction of JACOBS for assault on the persons of five Coolies, and the sentence of the court, was a fine of £20 sterling, and one month's imprisonment in George-town Jail. Subsequently to this, JACOBS was again tried for another assault on a Coolie, and fined 30 shillings by the Court. A third assault was proved against him, and a fine of forty shillings inflicted. These convictions were deemed sufficient by those who originated the proceedings, and to establish the fact, that as part of the regular discipline of the estate, the wretched Coolies were most cruelly whipped and injured. But this was only part of the system: JACOBS was also proved to have mulcted the Coolies of their money, which the wretched creatures paid to him instead of a threatened beating. A list of thirty-one cases is given in the report of the Commissioners, who were thus robbed of their hard earned money to the extent of 28½ dollars at various times. The amount of punishment inflicted on the Coolies first and last, must have been enormous, and yet because there was no legal evidence to prove that SANDERSON, the general manager of the estate, had personally directed the flogging, either in the house or in the field, he was retained in his situation.

To suppose that for twelve months, these things could have occurred under his own eye, and he not know it, must be to disqualify him for the situation he holds, and ought of itself to have been a sufficient reason for his immediate dismissal from office. But he is too good a manager, in the colonial sense of the term, to be lost, so he still represents his wealthy master on plantation Vreed- en-Hoop. And now what does Mr. GLADSTONE do, when put in possession of the documents, forwarded to him by the government, containing the melancholy details referred to? Why, like Mr. COLVILLE, he has not one word of commiseration to expend on the Coolies; but a great deal of indignation against Messrs. SCOBLE and ANSTIE, to whom reference no doubt is made, in the following passage: -- "The people continued cheerful and contented; but evil disposed persons have recently gone among them, and have endeavoured to create a bad and dissatisfied feeling, in which they have partially succeeded, as it is at present too generally the case in England, where similar effects are produced by the Chartists and others, among the lower classes."-- (Vide letter dated 3rd August, 1839.) Perhaps, as the letter which contains this paragraph, was addressed to the Marquess of NORMANBY, and to his noble colleague in office, Lord JOHN RUSSELL; so that Mr. SCOBLE, and his friend, Mr. ANSTIE, find themselves in grand company indeed, and, of course, will thank Mr. GLADSTONE for the honour done them!

The number reported dead on Vreed-en-Hoop, on the 1st of November, 1839, was nine, and two absent, who, no doubt, perished in the bush at Mahaica, eleven in all; and thirteen were then on the sick list. The general treatment of the Coolies on Vriedestein, has been the same as on Vreed-en-Hoop, and the mortality greater, in proportion to the number settled there, viz.: eight males, to the 1st of November, 1839, when there were five on the sick list. The original number placed the two estates, the latter end of May, 1838, was 104, and the mortality has been nineteen in a period of eighteen months, in addition to the fourteen who perished on the voyage from Calcutta, and who formed part of the original number of 170 shipped on the joint account of Messrs. GLADSTONE and MOSS.

In reviewing the foregoing facts, one cannot fail being struck, first, by the circumstance, that so much oppression, cruelty, and misery, should have escaped the attention of managers, attorneys, magistrates, and even the executive itself, for nearly twelve-months; and that it should have been left to a visitor to the colony, to expose successfully the horrid truths which are now submitted to public attention; secondly, that these things should have occurred on the estates of two men of princely wealth, who affirm that they gave their agents the most positive instructions -- that the Coolies entrusted to them should be treated with the greatest imaginable tenderness and care! Thirdly, that when the facts of the inhuman treatment of the Coolie labourers are brought to the knowledge of these gentlemen, they either affect to palliate or deny them, or to justify their agents; and to characterise those who have been providentially the means of dragging the offenders to justice, as among the most infamous men; and, fourthly, that they should have had the audacity to appeal to the Government of this country, to allow them, and others like them, to introduce, ad libitum, as many thousands of the natives of Hindostan, as will enable them effectually to coerce the labour of the negro freemen, and still further, to enrich themselves at the expense of the liberty and happiness of mankind!

On plantation Highbury, notwithstanding the favourable reports of the treatment of the Coolies there, the mortality has been very great, viz. seventeen males and one female, and twelve reported on the sick list, the 1st of November, 1839. From this estate, as well as those already mentioned, the Coolies have repeatedly run away. On one occasion, sometime in April or May last year, upwards of twenty of them cut their way, due east, for many miles through the bush, in the hope of reaching Bengal! When in the presence of those they know to be their friends, and really interested in their welfare, they give full vent to their feelings, and exhibit their real sentiments, and with tears and clasped hands, and in broken English, entreat to be sent back to their native country and to their kindred from whom they have been wantonly separated.

On plantation Anna Regina, the deaths have been two; and on plantation Waterloo, five are reported dead, and three on the sick list, on the 1st of November, 1839. Thus, then, it appears from official documents, that out of the 437 Coolies shipped at Calcutta, eighteen died on the voyage to Demerara; and that out of the 419 settled on the various estates referred to in May, 1838, sixty-four have died from various diseases, two have perished in the bush, and one has been murdered; making a total of sixty-seven deaths in eighteen months, being about one-sixth of the whole! It may be added that there is no legal provision made for the restoration of such of the Coolies as may survive the period of their Indentures to India!

In consequence of the facts brought to light in early part of the year 1838, as to the true character of the Order in Council of the 12th July, 1837, and the public indignation felt at the proceedings of the planters, in Mauritius and elsewhere, and their agents, and kidnappers in India, the Government declared its intention on the 20th July, of that year, to rescind the obnoxious Order in Council; and Sir John Hobhouse stated, in the course of last session of Parliament, that not only had Her Majesty's ministers put an end to the traffic in Coolies, but that the Governor-General of India had anticipated them, and had issued a prohibition against the further exportation of Hill Coolies. The humanity and justice of these measures were not less honourable to the Government than they were satisfactory to the public.

Notwithstanding the Order in Council of the 12th July, 1837, admitting the introduction into British Guiana of Hill Coolies, under indentures of five years, had been rescinded, the proprietary body in the early part of last year, obtained a vote by means of the financial representatives of the colony, seconded by the zealous exertions of the governor, of the enormous sum of £400,000 sterling, to be devoted exclusively to the increase of their stock of labourers; and, subsequently, passed an ordinance, similar to the Colonial Passengers' Bill, now under the consideration of the House of Commons, with the view of securing the concurrence of the Home Government, in their gigantic immigration scheme.

Their object was, not merely to draw labourers from the smaller West India colonies, and from Europe, but principally from Africa and Hindostan. Hence they had actually provided for the support of a resident agent in Calcutta, and for another on the western coast of Africa! This scheme was recommended to the acceptance of the Home Government, with all the zeal of a partizan by the executive; but it did not meet with the anticipated success. Lord NORMANBY, in a dispatch, dated 15th August, 1839, which did him honour, conveyed the intelligence to the colony, that her Majesty had been pleased to disallow the immigration ordinance, and, in reference to that part of it which proposed to import Africans and Hill Coolies, observes:-- “With regard to the introduction of labourers from India, more than enough has already passed to render her Majesty's government decidedly hostile to every such project, and the laws now in force in different presidencies would effectually prevent the execution of this part of the scheme. We are not less opposed to the plan of recruiting the negro population of the West India colonies from Africa. No precaution which has been, or which could be devised would prevent such a measure from giving a stimulus to the internal slave-trade on that continent, or from bringing discredit on the sincerity of the efforts made by this nation for the suppression of that system of guilt and misery." On what grounds then, we ask, does the government now propose to relax the prohibition on the export of Coolies in the case of Mauritius? Are the planters of that colony more worthy of the confidence than those of Guiana? Are they more honourable and humane? We assert not: then why the preference?

Departure and Arrival: An introduction to Raymond Viechweg's Abolition, Indentureship and Creoleness
By Caldwell Taylor
(Excerpt on Indian indentureship)

"From the queer-looking odds and ends disposed about the place, I made sure that I was in a temple dedicated to some mysterious rites and ceremonies, and, in fact, my guide informed me that frequently Africans, old Creoles and sometimes coolies, come here to pray and dance"
-Hesketh Bell

Bell wrote this in an 1889 book called "Obeah, Witchcraft in the West Indies". The passage is about a visit to what Bell called an " Obeah temple" in Grenada.
"A state which is incompetent to satisfy different races condemns itself;a state which labours to neutralize, to absorb, or to expel them destroys its own vitality; a state which does not include them is destitute of the chief basis of self-government".
-Lord Acton

Grenada took delivery of its first batch of Indian indentured workers in 1857. The year marked the centenary of Clive's defeat of the Indians at Plessy; it was too the year of the so-called "Sepoy Mutiny" -what Indian nationalists like to call the First War of Indian Independence. The 1857 Indian uprising "failed" and in result direct British rule was extended over much of India. The fact that 1957 marked one hundred since India rose up against British colonial rule might not have escaped Frederick Mirjah and the members of his East Indian Association of Grenada,
when they gathered at the Hermitage Government School on Wednesday, May 1, 1957 to mark the 1 Oath anniversary of Indian arrival to Grenada.
Grenada's indentured Indian scheme ran for thirty years, bringing in a little more than 3000 workers to the island. The vast majority of these Indians immigrants-roughly 90 per cent - suffered disastrous consequences owing to the introduction of the Zemindari and other land revenue systems, which placed the peasantry at the mercy of the unscrupulous landlords. Some of these areas also suffered many hardships during the course of the 1857 uprising. Recruits from Northern India embarked at Calcutta for the trip across what they called the kala pani (black water). This was the Indian Middle Passage" a trip that could take as many as 25 weeks. Crossing the kala pani was no small matter as Hindus had a strong taboo against oceanic travel.

According to Ramabai Espinet ,"the Hindu belief is that one undergoes significant pollution and loss of caste by crossing the black water"; Hindus constituted 85 per cent of Indian immigrants to the West Indies. Recruits from the south boarded ship at Madras. In Grenada and elsewhere in the Caribbean these Southerners, so-called Madrassis- were stereotyped as being vicious and intractable. Trinidad ceased to take in any Madrassis after 1872.

When I was growing up in Santopee Street an Indian subvillage -I heard many stories about these so-called "Madras coolies": "Madrass coolie doh play; they could cut you neck now for now". Both Africans and Indians indulged in these vilifications. The so-called Madrassi was often of Tamil origin and unlike the fair-skinned Aryans from the north of India, the Madrassis were dark-skinned "Dravidians". The Madrassis brought the kali mai (black mother) sect to the Caribbean . Like Shango, kali mai adherents practice ancestor veneration and spirit possession ("catching power").

But how did Grenada react on Friday, May 1, 1857, when a ship called the Maidstone disgorged nearly 300 Indians immigrants at Gouyave Bay? The 'official society' would have shown its contempt for the 'dirty, unkempt Coolie hands', for this was a time when scientific racism was in full bloom and the Grenadian ruling classes would certainly have known been conversant with the racial theories of Arthur Gobineau, Robert Knox and others.

This was a time when race 'explained' behaviour and character and everything else. There were 'good' races and 'bad" races; historical races and "non-historical" races. Significantly, scientific racism emerged in Europe, especially England and France, during the years of abolitionism.

These theories placed the European man at the top of the chain of being, giving him the right to civilize the world. Quite a bit of racist theorizing emanated from the Caribbean itself. Edward Long, the Jamaican planter-historian wrote his "History of Jamaica" in 1774, and according to historian Seymour Drescher, Long's three volume study "contained a vitriolic linkage of Negroes to the animal world".

Furthermore, says Drescher, Long "assigned blacks to an intermediate species between Europeans and Orangoutangs". In 1906, a black man from the Congo, Ota Benga, was 'an exhibit' in New York's Bronx Zoo; a placard placed next to him, read: "The Missing Link". Displays (ethnological expositions) of Blacks and other "inferior peoples" were held in London, New York,Paris, Brussels and elsewhere in the civilized work. Brussels hosted the last human zoo in 1958!

The Africans in Grenada would have reacted to the Indian with a mixture of curiosity and resentment: curiosity because the Indians were visually and culturally different, and resentment because the Africans were well aware of the fact that taxes on staple foods in Grenada had been jacked up in order to fund Indian immigration; the coming of the Indians also meant that estate workers had to take a pay cut.

But time would blunt this resentment as the two groups came to see their many religious and cultural commonalities in areas such as ancestor veneration, the use of the drum, staff (stick)fighting, sacred fires, sacred steams, rivers and other 'living bodies" of water. And the two groups found similar ways of making sense of the 'new life'. For instance, Indians who came on the same boat were family and would refer to each other as "jahaji" (shipmate). The Africans who made the trip on the same ship took to referring to one another as "malong": it was taboo for the child of one malong to marry the child of a fellow malong.

The majority of Grenada's 3000 Indians workers were assigned to plantations in St Andrew's and St Patrick's. One in five of these returned to India and the end of the contract of indenture and one hundred and fifty years later almost one in ten Grenadians is of Indian heritage.

I HAVE the honour to report to your Lordship the arrival at this island of the French ship "Nicholas Poussin," with a cargo of coolie immigrants from India, in fulfilment of the contract made by the " Compagnic Génerale Maritime," of Paris, with the French Government.

The " Nicholas Poussin " sailed from Pondicherry on the 22nd of January last, and from Karikal on the 28th of the same month, after having previously shipped at these ports 470 immigrants, viz.,

And she arrived at Fort de Fiance on the 16th ultimo, after a favourable passage of seventy-eight days, including twenty-four hours spent at St. Helena, to procure fresh provisions and water.

Several cases of small-pox having occurred among the immigrants during the voyage, it was found necessary to place the vessel, on her arrival, in quarantine at La Pointe Debout, in the Bay of Fort de France, where the immigrants were landed temporarily, and the proper sanatory measures of precaution adopted to efface the contagion.

On the 2nd instant, the ship was permitted to come into the harbour, and she then landed 455 immigrants, viz., 361 men; 62 women; 20 non-adults; and 12 children.

The number of deaths that took place among the immigrants, while on board, amounted, therefore, to 15, viz., 11 men; 1 woman; and 3 children.

Of this number, six died of the small-pox and the remainder of dysentery and other non-contagious diseases.

The immigrants brought by this ship seemed to be in good health and spirits, and able-bodied men of their class. They are almost all "parias:" but the coolies of this caste are preferred by the planters, on account of the greater facility with which they adapt themselves to the food and the customs of this country. As usual, a large proportion of the immigrants come, originally, from British India.

The registered tonnage of the "Nicholas Poussin" is 445 tons French, or about 467 tons English measurement.

The arrangements on board for the accommodation of the passengers seemed very complete, and the immigrants spoke most favourably, of the care and attention which they received from the master, and also from the surgeon in charge of the ship, who is, himself, a native of India.

It may not be out of place to mention here that it has been remarked that in the vessels entrusted to the care of properly qualified natives, the losses have been less heavy than on board of the ships which European surgeons have had charge of; a circumstance to he attributed, no doubt, to the difficulty which the latter have to communicate with the coolies.

I take the liberty to inclose herewith, for your Lordship's further information on the subject of the introduction of coolie labourers from India to this Colony, a detailed statement of the total number of vessels that have arrived here with that class of immigrants, the tonnage of these vessels, the length of their passages, the number of immigrants they conveyed, and the number of deaths that occurred on board of each ship during the voyage.

According to the terms of the engagements subscribed to by these immigrants, the length of their obligatory stay is for five years ; and your Lordship will remark that the period of the engagements of many of those first imported will, consequently, shortly expire.

With a view to induce these labourers to prolong their stay in the island, it has been decided by the Government that, to such of these persons as may be willing to subscribe to a re-engagement, of the tenour of the document inclosed herewith, a premium of 250 francs (10Z.) will be given, irrespective of the continuance of their right to a free return passage, on the expiration of the second engagement.

It remains to be seen whether the coolies will accept of these terms willingly. - I have &c.

Statement of the total Number of Coolie Immigrants introduced into Martinique from the French Possessions in India, &c.

du 13 Février, 1852, sur les engagements de travail aux Colonies, et en présence du Commissaire d'Immigration ; a comparu le nommé lequel nous a

déclaré vouloir contracter l'engagement de travail, ci-après détaillé, envers M.

effectifs et complets ; les gages ne seront dus qu'après les vingt-six jours de travail.

L'engagement ne sera réputé accompli et l'engagé ne pourra obtenir son congé d'acquit qu'autant que toutes les journées promises auront été réellement fournies.

La journée de travail ordinaire sera celle établie par les règlements en vigueur dans la Colonie. A l'époque de la manipulation, l'engagé sera tenu de travailler suivant les besoins de l'établissement où il sera employé, sans indemnité aucune pour surcroit de travail.

Art. 3. L'engagiste aura droit de céder et de transporter quand et à qui bon lui semblera, le présent engagement de travail contracté à son profit, et qui ne peut valider, à peine de nullité, que pour les travaux des exploitations agricoles.

Art. 4. L'engagé sera logé sur l'établissement où il sera employé. Il aura droit, de la part de l'engagiste, aux soins médicaux, en tout état de cause, à sa nourriture, laquelle sera conforme aux règlements et à l'usage adopté dans la Colonie pour les travailleurs du pays, et à deux rechanges par an.

Bien entendu que toute maladie contracté par un fait étranger, soit à ses travaux, soit à ses occupations à l'établissement, sera à ses frais. C'est-à-dire qu'il devra rembourser à l'engagiste la .dépense en résultant.

En cas d'invalidité quelconque de l'engagé, l'engagiste sera tenu de continuer à lui donner le logement, la nourriture, et les soins jusqu'à son rapatriement ou jusqu'à l'expiration de l'engagement.

Art. 5. L'engagé subira pour chaque jour d'absence ou cessation de travail sans motif légitime, indépendamment de la privation de salaires pour cette journée, la retenue d'une seconde journée de salaires à titre de dommages-intérêts.

Art. 6. Le salaire de l'engagé est de* par mois de vingt-six jours de travail, comme il est dit à l'Article 2. Moitié de cette somme lui sera payée fin de chaque mois, l'autre moitié le sera après la manipulation, fin de chaque année.

* 12 francs 50 centimes pour les hommes, 10 francs pour les femmes, 5 francs pour les non-adultes.

Art. 7: Après l'expiration du temps de travail stipulé à l'Article 2, l'engagé aura droit au passage de rapatriement pour lui, sa femme, et ses enfants non-adultes.

Art. 8. Tous les ans, à la fin de l'année, un congé de quatre jours sera accordé à l'Indien pour célébrer la fête du Pongol.

De tout quoi, nous avons dressé le procès-verbal, que nous avons signé avec les témoins ci-dessus nommés, dont expédition a été remise aux Parties Contractantes pour servir et valoir ce que de droit.

I HAVE the honour to inform your Lordship of the arrival of the French ship "Reaumur" from Pondichery and Karikal, with coolie immigrants, in fulfilment of the contract entered into by the "Compagnie Générale Maritime" of Paris with the French Government.

This ship took on board, before sailing from Karikal on the 10th June last, 570 immigrants, as follows :—

And she landed at Fort de France, on the 6th instant, 544 coolies, viz. :—
460 male adults ;
59 female adults ;

It follows, therefore, that the number of deaths during the voyage, which lasted 110 days, amounted to twenty-six, or very nearly 5 per cent., which is a higher ratio of mortality than had been previously observed on board of the French vessels engaged in the transport of coolie immigrants to this island.

The master of the "Réaumur" reports having experienced very unfavourable weather during the voyage, which, no doubt, increased the number of sick cases that occurred on board. The surgeon in charge of the ship is a native of India.

The coolies brought by the "Reaumur," and landed at Fort de France, appeared to be in excellent health, and are strong able-bodied men of their class. A large number of these immigrants come from the provinces of British India ; the Madras Presidency, as usual, furnishing the larger proportion.

The total number of coolies introduced into this Colony, including those brought by the "Réaumur," amounts to 5,331; and, on the 30th ultimo, a balance of 1,200,000 francs remained to the credit of the Immigration Chest of the island.

I HAVE the honour to inform your Lordship of the arrival in this island of the French ship "Nicholas Poussin," with 464 coolie emigrants from Pondichery. These immigrants are in fulfilment of the contract of the "Compagnie Generale Maritime" with the French Government.

The "Nicholas Poussin" sailed from Pondichery on the 31st of October last, and arrived at Fort de France on the 20th instant, after an ordinary passage of sixty-one days. She embarked the following immigrants at Pondichery, viz.:—

Having landed but 464 coolies, it follows that the deaths on board during the passage amount to—

The medical man in charge of these immigrants is a surgeon of the French Imperial navy.

So far as I have been able to learn, the greater portion of the coolies brought by the "Nicholas Poussin" come originally from the Provinces of British India.

From Correspondence with British Ministers and Agents in Foreign Countries and with Foreign Ministers in England Relating to the Slave Trade from 1^st April 1858 to 31^st March 1859. (London) 1859

This is a machine transcription. Consult the original for academic purposes. This work can be found here

Harvey, Thomas & Brewin, William Jamaica in 1866 – A Narrative of A Tour Through The Island, London, 1887

We would ask the attentive perusal of the following documents, preparatory to a few remarks which we propose to offer on this question. The official returns are the latest we have been able to obtain. Those of last year are in the possession of the Government, and we have reason to believe are not more favourable than the subjoined. The "Agent General of Immigration" is no humanitarian. Every expression and statement from him which condemns the system condemns his own administration of his highly-paid appointment, and deserves to be taken with emphasis.

' A Return, required under the 17th Section of the Act 22nd Victoria, Chap. 1, showing the number of East Indian and African Immigrants who have not completed their Period Industrial Residence, and the Increase and Decrease among them, to 30th Sept., 1864.

" Annual Return required under the 71st Section of the Act 22nd Victoria, Chap. 1, showing the Total Number of Immigrants of all Classes alive in the Island, on the 30th of September, 1864.

"Report Referred To In His Excellency The Governor's Message Of The 10iH January, 1865.

"Sir,—In transmitting the annual report on the present condition of East Indian and African immigrants, introduced into the island since the 1st January, 1860, I have the honour to state, for the information of his Excellency the Governor, that no immigrants have arrived here during the year ending on the 30th day of September last, nor up to the date of this report. Four thousand six hundred and thirty-five coolies, including ninety-six infants, have been imported, in the proportion of one thousand two hundred and thirty-three females to three thousand three hundred and six males; the mortality for the year cannot bo stated by me with anything like correctness, for the want of accurate annual returns, which should have been sent to this department, as required by law, not later than the 13th October last; but so far as it has been practicable for me to do so, from the returns at hand, I find that the deaths have been seven hundred and thirty-seven, or 15.900 per cent, on the original number imported; and the births have been two hundred and seventy-four. On the 30th September there were no less than four hundred and twelve deserters.

"With reference to the cause of this desertion, I beg to state that great confusion and dissatisfaction have arisen from the state of the immigration laws. These laws give the option to the immigrants to transfer their services to other employers at the end of the second and third years of service.

"In many cases the coolies have left their employers, under the privilege granted them by the Act 22nd Victoria, cap. i., to seek employment on other estates, and have thus become so unsettled that they have never either returned to their first employers or notified to the immigration agent that they had procured employment elsewhere.

"Encouragement, too, has in many instances been held out to immigrants to desert, by managers of estates giving them work without making due enquiry, or attending to the requirements of the Act in that regard; nor could the law be put in force, as the Attorney-General had given an opinion that to secure a conviction under the 48th section of the Act 22nd Victoria, cap. i., it was necessary to prove that the person charged 'knowingly' harbored and employed the people. However, this has been remedied by the Act of last session, 27th Victoria, cap. v., s. 18, which provides that 'it shall be sufficient to support a conviction, to prove that such immigrant has been employed thereon, while under the personal charge and superintendence of the person charged.'

"This, it is to be hoped, will be the means of lessening, in some degree, this evil of desertion.

"With reference to the deaths, and also to the causes which lead to desertion, I may remark that, from the experience I have had during my short tenure of office, the dissatisfaction evinced by immigrants on estates where the mortality has been greatest is, in my opinion, mainly to be attributed to the bad treatment and neglect of the managers of those estates.

"In various cases it has been brought prominently to my notice by the subagents, that the rules and regulations promulgated by the Governor in the ' Gazette by Authority' have been entirely ignored or set at defiance. That the sick have no medical aid afforded them, and that medical comforts and proper nourishment are not supplied to them. On one estate, where the immigrants have, been so treated, or rather so neglected, the wages paid average only from Is. 3d. to 2s. 6d. per week. Such a rate, it need not be said, is quite inadequate to supply the necessary wants of a labourer. The natural consequence has been that the mortality to the 30th September last had reached 37.5 per cent., and the desertions 16.666 per cent.

"On a very careful investigation of the matter, I observe that where the wages are highest, paid with regularity, and the rules and regulations issued by the Governor are faithfully adopted and carried out, the deaths and desertions are fewest, and both managers and people are contented; whilst, on the other hand, where the wages are low and irregularly paid, and the sick are neglected, they are most numerous, and dissatisfaction is shown by both employers and employed.

" Doubtless there are a number of these pariahs in their own country who never did a day's work in their lives, vagrants and beggars by profession from their infancy, who form a proportion of this class; but it is my belief that the greater part desert in consequence of bad treatment, and on account of the want of proper care and attention when they are sick.

" I would here refer to the testimony of a manager of an estate, quite opposed to the 'excessive' (as he thought) care and attention required to be bestowed upon coolies, showing the result of his acting up to the system imposed upon employers of immigrants by the orders of Government, and enforced by the remonstrances of the medical man in attendance upon the sick people. In his evidence on oath he states, ‘I have had to make complaints to the proprietors against the doctor, for the trouble he gave us in laying down rules and regulations for the proper treatment of the sick immigrants; and I have remarked to them that it looked more from the way he acted, as if he was employed and paid by the Government than by us. The doctor has told me repeatedly that 1 would be fined if I did not carry out the requirements of the law; and at last I referred him to the Act 22nd Victoria, cap. i., where there were no rules and regulations such as he wished me to comply with and adopt, when he took from his pocket a ' Gazette by Authority,' and pointed out to me an order of the Governor as to the rules and regulations for hospitals, and for the treatment of sick immigrants. Since that time I have endeavoured to carry out those rules, &c., to the best of my ability, and the -result has been so successful that there has not been half the number sick as there used to be, and at the present time there is not one sick immigrant in the hospital.'

" With reference to the health and social condition of the coolies, I have received a letter from the Hon. Richard Hill, sub-agent of immigration, of which the following is an extract:—' In regard to the Indians from Calcutta, I have stated, in my evidence before a Committee of the House of Assembly, the physiological circumstances that have rendered their condition precarious throughout the first period of their allotment. I have mentioned that their too exclusive adherence to rice food, which merely supplies the respiratory element, and not the plastic of nutrition, renders them feeble until they clothe themselves as our country people are clothed, that is by the women taking to frocks and slips in lieu of the cotton wrapper, and the men to jackets and trousers for the waist cloth. Warmth of clothing is equivalent to nutrition by a decrease in the consumption of respiratory food. With their habit of diet changed, and their tendency to irritant sores got over, the Indian coolies maintain a high average of health as soon as they are able to be constant and effective as plantation labourers, then they steadily earn wages sufficient for their support and for progressive saving under a prospect of their return to India. I visited on Thursday, the 1st instant, St. Thomas in the Vale, and I think nowhere can there be seen a finer body of people, male and female, and such an assemblage of Indian children as at Tulloch estate. The appearance of the immigrants there is, however, only an example of the result of the coolie Indian when adapted by change of habit in living and clothing to his condition as a plantation labourer.' As to the usefulness of coolies as plantation labourers, I have received authentic information, from every district in the island where they have been located, as to the successful result; and many proprietors and managers of estates have assured me that if they had not had coolies they must have abandoned their properties.

" In several districts, in the beginning of the present year, there were strikes by the native labourers for higher wages, but the planters refusing to submit to their terms, and having immigrants at the time to carry on cultivation, the creole labourers found the planters were not entirely dependent upon them, and returned to their work on the old terms.

'' If immigrants had not been thus at the planters' command, they would have had to submit to an advance of 25 per cent, in the rate of wages, and such a loss to an estate with an annual expenditure of .£2000 in wages alone, would, with the low prices of sugar and rum, have been felt as a very serious loss by the sugar planters.

" With respect to African immigrants, 1832 have been introduced into the island since 1st January, 1860, of whom 477 only were females, being 26.037 per cent, of the number imported ; of this number 95, or 5.185 per cent., have died since location. There have been 38 births, and only 27 desertions. These people have given very general satisfaction, and when I took charge of the agency I found on record applications for upwards of 6000 of them.

"This large number was applied for, doubtless, under a mistaken notion that little or nothing would have to be paid to the Government for them; but on addressing a circular letter to each applicant, requiring him to state what number he was now ready and prepared to take under the requirements of the law in force, paying in advance 80s. per annum, for each and every adult immigrant, during the term of his indenture, the applications dwindled down to 2100.

"As to the health and social condition of the Africans, there appears to be a great and marked difference between those who are fed and clothed by their employers and those getting money-wages, the former being healthy, neat and clean, whereas the latter are sickly, badly clad, and much inclined to idleness and desertion. Mr. Sub-Agent Hill reports as follows: ' Of the Africans distributed under the immigration provision I have to speak with unqualified satisfaction. I have taken pains to learn from themselves their own state of feeling and perception. They appreciate their deliverance from their condition in the slave-ship, by the value they attach to their character as a free people in a country where all are free. I could bring to you young women, in the families into which they have been distributed whose maintenance of character and conduct are a contrast to the unstaid habits of our creole peasantry.

" ' With the exception of two deaths among some 250 distributed in the district, being that of persons who came constitutionally infirm, and whose early decease was apprehended by medical opinion at their distribution, there had occurred no deaths until the recent three cases of smallpox on Dawkins Caymana's estate.'

"On the same subject Mr. Sub-Agent Jackson reports as follows: ' The Africans have, on the whole, been healthy. Between them and their employers there has been a feeling of mutual forbearance rather than perfect satisfaction, no direct complaint being made by either party.' (1)

"Various suggestions have been made to me by planters and others with respect to the very inadequate medical care and attention now bestowed upon immigrants. (2)

" The planters say that where the estates are small, and they have only twenty or thirty people, they cannot afford to pay a medical man a fair rate to attend them when sick ; nor can they afford to put up proper hospital accommodation, or give the people the necessary medical comforts and nourishment when sick.

"The most feasible plan to remedy the evil is, in the opinion of several intelligent men, to establish a central hospital in each district, where the sick people could be sent, and where proper care and attention could be paid to them, the employers paying a fixed rate for each per diem, and in the propriety of this suggestion I most fully concur.

Our next quotation is a long extract from a leader in the ' County Union,' edited by Sidney Levien. The right of this gentleman to give his testimony will appear when we state that an eminent Wesleyan missionary, who formerly resided in the same town (Montego Bay), told us he had seen the wretched coolies, by the dozen at a time, crowding in the piazza of Levien's residence, waiting for a dole of bread from that benevolent Hebrew. (3)

THB ILL-USED COOLIES.
(From the ' County Union' of December 22nd, 1863).

"We must again recur to the fearfully painful condition of the vast number of coolies that infest the town of Montego Bay, to the disgrace of the Government of the colony, and to the utter shame of Christianity. Numerous as have been, from time to time, the gangs of these poor creatures seeking shelter from the weather under the piazzas and nooks of our streets, never were they seen in sadder plight, nor so helplessly destitute as now. Our office is at all hours the scene of their piteous begging for food, and we mention this not for ostentation's sake, but to substantiate, by the several persons in our employ, the actual truth of our complaint against the broad inhumanity of official neglect to which these unhappy Asiatics are the helpless victims.

" One must see—as those in Montego Bay cannot close their eyes to—these wretched, hungry, houseless and outcast spectres picking up in the streets a chance bone or any putrid offal they may fall in with, to realize the sufferings they hourly undergo from want of sustenance. Were it not that charity stands aghast at their misery, they would die wherever they were permitted to lie down quietly. In the eyes of our immigration agent they appear to be noisome, filthy things, stinking in his nostrils as so much carrion, the calculation being that the sooner the many die the fewer will be left to look after. To the police they are of no more moment than the muck and mire in which their squalidness is enveloped. But lazar-like, as they really are, even poverty is tenacious of life—the greatest misery takes much killing. And so, crippled, nude, skeletoned before their death, they live on, no parish authority taking them in, no one heeding whether a soul— a heathen one too—goes to its account or not. Mothers hugging shrunken abortions of human nature to their parchment dugs, from which no nutriment can flow —pale, fever-stricken children for whom God in his mercy might well cancel a cruel existence,—darken our doors, and there mutely plead against the murderous enactment of a statute book that brought them here to undergo the slow torture of the death to which they are inevitably doomed. And while all this goes on our (sub-) immigration agent draws his £300 per annum, idling away his time in gossiping at our pleasant places, feasting on the fat of the land, and plotting how best he shall enjoy the next week's coming festivities.

"Now we hold it that the very helplessness of these coolies—their utter strangeness in a strange land—makes their sufferings almost sacred, appealing to the deepest sympathies of their fellow-men. They speak through us to the Government—through us, as a last resource, to their only legal protector."

The following Report we forbear to characterize. The document, with the aid of the next paper, a critique upon it by the philanthropic curate of the Trinity district of Westmoreland, whose house has often been the refuge of the destitute, sick and abused coolies, will speak for itself:—

" The following Report, from the Immigration Committee of the Assembly, was presented to the House by Mr. Harvey, the Chairman of the Committee, on Wednesday evening last:—

"Your Committee, appointed to inquire into the working of the immigration law, and the rules and regulations issued,

" That they have taken the evidence of the Agent-General of Immigration and five Sub-Agents; also of three employers of immigrants, as well as of the Rev. Henry Clarke, and of Dr. Adolphus of the parish of Westmoreland. They have also received a statement from W. M. Anderson, Esq., late Agent for Jamaica in India. (4) Your Committee find, from the evidence and statement referred to, that the present laws relating to immigration are most oppressive upon the employers of immigrants, and have operated against the introduction of East Indian immigrants, no applications having been made for any for more than twelve months pasts. Your Committee would urge upon the immediate consideration of the House the absolute necessity for the repeal of the fifteenth section of the 22nd Victoria, chapter 1, which empowers any Sub-Agent of Immigration to fine, and, in default of payment, to impose on any employer of immigrants, for any breach, not only of any portion of the law, but of any rules and regulations which the Governor may choose to originate and promulgate.

"Your Committee would refer to the evidence annexed, particularly that of Mr. Sub-Agent Hill, the Agent-General of Immigration, Mr. Sub-Agent Laidlaw, the Honourable Mr. Whitelocke, and the Honourable Mr. Hosack, which distinctly proves the many impracticable portions of the present laws relating to immigration, and the immediate necessity that exists for the introduction of an Act of a less complicated nature, which may be more satisfactory to both immigrants and employers.

" Your Committee further report that, from the evidence of the Sub-Agents of Immigration, it appears that the employers have paid every attention to the wants and comforts of the immigrants, and that the cause of such a number of diseased and infirm coolies being found wandering over the country is to be attributed principally to the wretched and diseased class of the people selected in India; and secondly to their naturally indolent and unsettled habits. This fact is shown by the evidence of Mr. W. M. Anderson.

" Your Committee must also refer to the evidence of Agent-General Ewart, which proves that a great many applicants for East India immigrants, who had applied under the terms of the Act 24th Victoria, chapter 16, refused to take them when they found the annual tax thereon, instead of twenty shillings (20s.) per head, had been increased by another Act to thirty shillings (30s.), and that no coolies have been applied for since May, 1862. This fact is of great importance when taken in connexion with a despatch of the Colonial Secretary, wherein he states that, since he had determined that the amount to be paid by the planter should be thirty shillings (30s.), he had found no cause to alter his decision, notwithstanding that the Assembly and Legislative Council had unanimously passed a bill to reduce the tax to its original amount of 20s. per head; and your Committee regret to add that such most necessary enactment did not receive the assent of His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor.

"In conclusion, your Committee recommend that a message be sent to His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, requesting that he will be pleased to instruct the members of the Executive to introduce a Bill to repeal and amend such sections of the present Immigration Acts as may be found impracticable and oppressive, and would recommend that a clause be introduced into such Bill to relieve the immigrant from the payment of any charge for medical attendance, and that all such charges be paid out of the Immigration Fund.

"Will you allow me to say a few words, through your columns, on the extraordinary Report of the Immigration Committee. It states that I, amongst others, was examined by them, and from the evidence they find that 'the present laws relating to immigration are most oppressive upon the employers of immigrants,' and 'that the employers have paid every attention to the wants and comforts of the immigrants.'

"I have not got a copy of my evidence, but I am quite certain there is not a word in it from which any but the exactly contrary inferences could be drawn. I gave them some of the particulars of a long correspondence I had on the subject with the Government more than a year ago, in which I stated that the coolies were most cruelly treated by the employers, and that I considered it in the highest degree unjust to the people of this island to apply vast sums of the public money to the purely private purpose of a few sugar-planters, the more so as the avowed object of the measure was to reduce the wages of the very people whom they compelled to pay for it. I also stated that I had not been able to ascertain that the regulations published in the 'Gazette,' for the diet, nursing, and hospital accommodation of sick immigrants, which have the force of law, had been in any instance complied with.

"I heard a portion of Dr. Adolphus's evidence, but I did not hear him say anything which could in any way justify the conclusion contained in the Report. Mr. Groves put the question to him, whether the employers provided the medical comforts which he ordered for the coolies, and on his replying in the negative, Mr. Groves said, ' Then I will withdraw that question,' and it was withdrawn accordingly.

"Seeing that the criminals themselves formed the judge and jury to try their own case, I did not expect that they would pass a very severe sentence; but I had not calculated on their having the cool assurance (to use a mild term) to put down my name as one of the witnesses on whose evidence they found 'that the present laws are most oppressive upon the employers of immigrants.'

" During the last year scarcely a day has passed on which I have not had to listen to some tale of anguish, or to look on the naked and emaciated forms of friendless strangers, lured to this country by wilful deception, and then left to perish miserably of disease and hunger; and at this moment their condition is, if possible, worse than at any previous period. The land is wet with their blood and tears; their cries have ascended into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, and as surely as there is a God that judgeth the earth, a day of woe is coining on all who have participated in this enormous crime.

It is quite obvious that " coolie immigration" stands on a very different footing in different colonies. In Ceylon and the Mauritins the system would seem to a large extent self-acting, and though some of the results may be objectionable, it does not seem to call for more than watchful supervision. In Demerara and Trinidad, from a virtual slave trade and slavery, coolie immigration has been brought by careful regulation into a shape more consonant with the claims of humanity, and the true interests of all parties. Yet even in these colonies, we believe, the scarcity of creole labour has been to no small extent artificially created by the immigrant system itself, while it is known that the coolies are procured in India by a mingling of fraud and force, which is utterly indefensible. The returning immigrants from these colonies, though often carrying back sums of money, which are to them great wealth, are never found spreading such a report of the land of their sojourn as to induce a spontaneous flow of coolie labour to these distant colonies.

In Jamaica the labouring population approaches 400,000; and of these the whole number employed upon all the large estates, sugar and coffee properties, and cattle farms, is computed not to exceed 30,000, representing a fourth of the effective labour in the island. During our recent journey we visited twenty out of the twenty-two parishes, in the midst of the sugar crop, and with an extra large yield of canes to take off and manufacture; yet we found labour everywhere in full supply, while in some places the want of employment was complained of.

In St. Thomas in the East, one of the most important sugar parishes, nearly five hundred persons of the peasant and labouring class were put to death during martial-law; one hundred more were shut up in prison; and, during our stay in the island, two batches of prime labourers, about seventy each, emigrated out of the island, from this parish. The last of these went to grow sugar in Honduras, tempted by the offer of two shillings sterling a-day. The large abstraction of labourers, in these several ways, made no perceptible difference in the supply, and that planters able to pay wages have now a larger command of labour than at any period since the abolition of the slave-trade is shown by the fact that the estates of such planters are being made to yield from a fourth to a third more sugar than they did under slave cultivation.

It is further evident that coolie labour cannot be brought into the field in Jamaica at much, if any, less than double the cost of creole labour. We have been unable to find in Minot's ' Digest of the Laws of Jamaica' any specification of the wages to he paid to indentured coolies. The planters state that they pay them the same wages as the native labourers, viz., one shilling per day of nine hours' labour to men, and ninepence to women. As the coolie certainly could not maintain himself in health aud comfort on less, we will assume this to be the amount. To this must be added the cost of their importation and of the return voyage, the loss by death, sickness and acclimatization, hospital and medical expenses, the clothing and support of the sick and ineffective, and the large expenses of the immigration establishment, including the salaries of agents abroad, and of the Agent-General and his sub-agents in the island. When all this is added to the cost of the effective labour of the coolies, which is already paid for at the full current rate, the above estimate, that coolie is double the cost of creole labour, will appear moderate. But if native labour be thus, to say the least, moderately plentiful, and if coolie labour be thus costly, why are the planters so enamoured of it? The reply is that the coolies are wanted to keep down wages, and to supply the estates with a portion at least of the labour they require in that servile condition, which is so congenial to the planting mind.

It is true that, through the control possessed by the sugar-planting interest over the legislature, much of the extra cost of coolie labour has been thrown upon the public, but this is a crying injustice. Many sugar planters, and nearly all coffee planters, do not employ coolies, yet their sugar and coffee are subject to an export duty specially imposed for immigration purposes. The export produce of the small settler is taxed in like manner, and every yard of cloth, every pound of salt-fish, every implement of labour, required by the labouring population, their breeding stock, then- carts and their riding horses, are taxed to bring into the country a competing labour, to displace and reduce the value of their own. This flagrant anomaly is sometimes defended on the plausible ground that, as immigration contributes to the general prosperity, it is fair the public should bear a part of the burden. If the premises were true, the deduction would be false. What would be thought of a proposal, by the great employers of labour at home, to bring over labourers from Belginm, at the expense either of the consolidated fund or the county or parochial rates, on the plea that the result would increase the national prosperity, or augment the sources of local revenue ? But it is far indeed from being true that in Jamaica coolie immigration contributes to the prosperity of the island, the fact being very much the reverse. The colony is burdened with a debt of nearly three quarters of a million sterling, which has been chiefly incurred for immigration. As a labour question alone no one will dare to say that any result has been obtained adequate to be set off against this enormous fiscal burden, or that, in fact, to the present time immigration has been anything but an abortive experiment. Add to this the fearful mortality and suffering among the unfortunate immigrants, not only during the last three or four years, but as the result of the successive importation of labourers of many nationalities, English, Scotch, Irish, Germans, Indian coolies, and Portuguese from Madeira and the Azores, during the past thirty years.

The last objection we have to urge to immigration in Jamaica is, that it perpetuates the degradation of labour, and in so doing retards the progress of the colony. In 1837 we heard a leading planter, the custos of a parish, boast that his "jarmans had learnt to go into the field bare-foot like the blacks."(5) In 1866 we heard an intelligent planter give utterance to the opinion that "Civilization does not pay." Our belief is that the civilization of the labourer is the only thing that in the long run will pay. If the planter would bend his energies to remove the degrading circumstances that attach at present to labour on most of the sugar estates, if he would make its conditions compatible with the decency and respectability of domestic life, if he would sternly repress not only immorality but harsh and vile language in his subordinate managers, and if he would ensure the punctual weekly payment of wages; he would not only be served more cheerfully, but would find his work eagerly sought after by a far higher grade of labourers than those who now resort to the sugar plantations.

We will only add that, as far as we observed, the christian instruction of the coolies is almost entirely neglected. A few of the children are found in the schools. The Moravian Church at New Carrael has about half-a-dozen coolie members—a very exceptional instance.

(1) The smouldering grievances of the African labourers in this district found fearful expression during the late disturbances in St. Thomas in the East.

(2) In visits to the local hospitals, at Savanna-la-Mar and other towns, we found many sick coolies who had been thrown by the estates on the resources of public charity. On inquiring of an estimable rector, who showed us over one of these institutions, whether the estates paid for their coolies, he replied, " They ought to do so, but we find it very difficult" (to get it).

(3) It will be seen that Levien, in his capacity of Editor, wields an incisive pen. He is often bitter and personal, but he is an honest opponent of public wrongs, and probably the ablest man connected with the press of the island. During martial law he was arrested, by order of Governor Eyre, at Montego Bay, more than a hundred miles away from the district proclaimed under martial law, and carried in a ship-of-war to Morant Bay, where he was consigned for trial to General Nelson. The editor of the other Montego Bay paper, George Lyons, nobly and promptly journeyed to Kingston, and caused notice of a writ of Habeas Corpus to be served on the military authorities. It was probably this measure which suggested to General Nelson a seasonable scruple, (which it had been well if it had occurred to him earlier,) whether he had the power to try by court-martial Levien, and four or five other "political prisoners " who had been brought, under similar circumstances, to Morant Bay, some from Kingston and others from remote parts of the island. They continued, however, to be kept in a degrading and cruel imprisonment for about two months, until released by the Chief Justice on writs of Habeas Corpus. These parties were afterwards separately tried for sedition before a Special Commission, and, with the aid of a carefully-struck jury and a-very doubtful chief witness, were most of them convicted and sentenced to short terms of imprisonment. Levien, for an alleged seditious libel on Governor Eyre, was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment. The same parties were afterwards tried conjointly fur conspiracy, but the prosecution failed disgracefully to the authorities that instituted it. Levien, who bore the brunt of this last attack, conducted his defence in person, with so much eloquence and intrepidity that, had it occurred on a more conspicuous stage, the trial would have become one of the causes celebres.

After serving about half his imprisonment Levien was released by Sir J. P. Grant, the new Governor, soon after his arrival, an act which it is said was recommended by Sir H. K. Storks, who had administered the Government with so much ability during the critical period following the suspension of Governor Eyre.

Had General Nelson, as was expected of him, sent these " political prisoners " before the court-martial at Morant Bay, presided over by Lieutenant Brand, who can doubt what the result would have been?