Recruitment
The colonial government, with authority from London, engaged agents to recruit indentured labourers. The first recruiting agents were described as 'generally people of bad character'. They fully utilised the harsh economic and social conditions in India to lure the dispossessed into their trap.
The recruiters selected so-called 'hill Glossary - opens new windowcoolies', who were generally employed as labourers on indigo plantations. During the low season, they came into the towns to seek work. From 1844, certain towns in the northern provinces - Delhi, Bihar, Oudh and Bengawere - were recognised as magnets for potential recruits.
East Indian workers also came from other castes, and had a wide variety of skills. A report investigating conditions in the colonies listed arrivals as agricultural labourers, weavers, cooks, dancers, musicians, priests and scribes. Some were Indian landowners forced off their land when wealthy Britons began to buy up smallholdings for nominal rates. In desperation, Brahmans, high-caste people who rarely worked the land, also enlisted as emigrants to the colonies.
As with Africans, who were held in forts awaiting transportation, Indians were held in depots. Often deceived about the work on offer, they were hustled aboard the waiting ships, unprepared for the long and arduous four-month sea journey. William Gladstone, briefly Secretary of State for the Colonies, who also imported East Indian labourers for his estate in British Guiana, was informed by officials that 'the natives were perfectly ignorant of the place they agreed to go to, or the length of the voyage they were undertaking'. In an attempt to lessen malpractice, the Indian government insisted that agents had to be licensed.
Men and Women Recruited
Recruitment to the islands of the West Indies began in earnest in 1844. Hindu and, to a lesser extent, Muslim men were among the emigrants. With time the numbers of female indentured labourers rose. Plantation owners gradually became convinced that they could be economically productive, and the British government was keen to address the male-female ratio imbalance, to prevent disorder among the male population in the colonies.
Despite the safeguards put in place by Parliament to prevent indentured workers suffering a new form of enslavement, plantation owners continued to abuse their Indian workers. At the end of the 19th century, Mahatma Gandhi argued with the colonial government in Natal, South Africa, for Indian rights. Through Gandhi's efforts and intervention by the Indian government, the indenture scheme finally came to an end in 1917. By then, the number of East Indians shipped to British colonies around the world is estimated to have reached 2.5 million.
As migrant workers, Indians were responsible for maintaining the high profits of the bankers and merchants in London, Glasgow and Liverpool. In later years, Indian labourers also built the railways in Natal and Uganda.
Source:
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/india/forced.htm
The colonial government, with authority from London, engaged agents to recruit indentured labourers. The first recruiting agents were described as 'generally people of bad character'. They fully utilised the harsh economic and social conditions in India to lure the dispossessed into their trap.
The recruiters selected so-called 'hill Glossary - opens new windowcoolies', who were generally employed as labourers on indigo plantations. During the low season, they came into the towns to seek work. From 1844, certain towns in the northern provinces - Delhi, Bihar, Oudh and Bengawere - were recognised as magnets for potential recruits.
East Indian workers also came from other castes, and had a wide variety of skills. A report investigating conditions in the colonies listed arrivals as agricultural labourers, weavers, cooks, dancers, musicians, priests and scribes. Some were Indian landowners forced off their land when wealthy Britons began to buy up smallholdings for nominal rates. In desperation, Brahmans, high-caste people who rarely worked the land, also enlisted as emigrants to the colonies.
As with Africans, who were held in forts awaiting transportation, Indians were held in depots. Often deceived about the work on offer, they were hustled aboard the waiting ships, unprepared for the long and arduous four-month sea journey. William Gladstone, briefly Secretary of State for the Colonies, who also imported East Indian labourers for his estate in British Guiana, was informed by officials that 'the natives were perfectly ignorant of the place they agreed to go to, or the length of the voyage they were undertaking'. In an attempt to lessen malpractice, the Indian government insisted that agents had to be licensed.
Men and Women Recruited
Recruitment to the islands of the West Indies began in earnest in 1844. Hindu and, to a lesser extent, Muslim men were among the emigrants. With time the numbers of female indentured labourers rose. Plantation owners gradually became convinced that they could be economically productive, and the British government was keen to address the male-female ratio imbalance, to prevent disorder among the male population in the colonies.
Despite the safeguards put in place by Parliament to prevent indentured workers suffering a new form of enslavement, plantation owners continued to abuse their Indian workers. At the end of the 19th century, Mahatma Gandhi argued with the colonial government in Natal, South Africa, for Indian rights. Through Gandhi's efforts and intervention by the Indian government, the indenture scheme finally came to an end in 1917. By then, the number of East Indians shipped to British colonies around the world is estimated to have reached 2.5 million.
As migrant workers, Indians were responsible for maintaining the high profits of the bankers and merchants in London, Glasgow and Liverpool. In later years, Indian labourers also built the railways in Natal and Uganda.
Source:
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/india/forced.htm