INDENTURED LABOUR
From Bihar to Apravasi Ghat
On 2nd November 2014, the Government of
Mauritius and the Mauritian nation will be commemorating the 180th
anniversary marking the arrival of Indentured Labourers in Mauritius.
The particular historical event which is being remembered is the first
arrival of 36 Indian workers from the Bihar provinces, to the ‘Apravasi Ghat’ in Port Louis on board the ship the Atlas, on Sunday 2nd November 1834, from Calcutta, India.
However, there is an untold story and a
little known fact, which has been reinforced by this country’s
indentured labour historiography, that between January 1826 and August
1834, before the arrival of the ship Atlas and the abolition of slavery,
hundreds of Indian indentured workers were already working and living
in our small Indian Ocean Island. In order to overcome this
“chronological mistake”, it is important to highlight that as early as
the mid-1820s, some progressive Franco-Mauritian planters had already
contemplated introducing small batches of contractual labourers from
China and India. Between 1826 and 1827, they submitted several plans and
petitions, to Governor Sir Lowry Cole, which did not receive any
support from the local British colonial administration. These
experimental importations of local planters were an evident means of
overcoming the acute shortage of labour arising in the colony. Planters
even urged the local authorities to officially import Indian labour on a
large scale. Adrien d’Epinay, for example, expressed the views of the
planters on this issue in a letter to the Colonial Government as early
as 1828.
On 18 January 1826, the Government of
the French Indian Ocean island of Réunion laid down their terms for the
introduction of Indian labourers to the colony. Each man was required to
appear before a magistrate and declare that he was going voluntarily.
The contract was for five years with pay of eight rupees ($0.14 USD) per
month and rations provided. By early 1830, 3,012 Indian labourers had
been transported from Karikal and Pondicherry. The first attempt at
importing Indian labour into Mauritius, in 1829, ended in failure, but
by 1834, with abolition throughout most of the British Empire,
transportation of Indian labour to the island gained pace. By 1838,
25,000 Indian labourers had been shipped to Mauritius. Between January
1826 and August 1834, there were an estimated 2100 Indian and some
Chinese indentured labourers who were brought to Mauritian shores to
work, on individual and group indenture contracts of five years, on the
sugar estates and some in Port Louis. These very first pioneer
indentured labourers formed part of what may be described as being the
small scale introduction of indentured workers in Mauritius prior to 2nd
November 1834.
In 1835, when the slaves’ trade was
abolished, it was at the peak of colonialism. However, colonial
administrators were hard-pressed to find alternative cheap labour from
the Indian sub-continent to meet the burgeoning cost of maintaining
their empires, particularly their colony’s vast sugar plantations. The
recruitment process was often hasty and unorthodox targeting the poverty
stricken Indian provinces, some landless and affected by food shortages
and unemployment due in part to the commercialization of the Indian
economy generated by British economic policies. Given the circumstance
many were easily lured and deceived about the work on offer, they were
hustled aboard waiting ships, unprepared for the long and arduous four
month sea journey.
The Indian indenture system was an
ongoing system of indenture, a form of debt bondage, by which over a
million Indians were transported to various colonies of European powers
to provide labour for the (mainly sugar) plantations. It started
from the end of slavery in 1833 and continued until 1920.
The first indenture
Colonial British Indian Government
Regulations of 1837 laid down specific conditions for the dispatch of
Indian labour from Calcutta. The would-be emigrant and his emigration
agent were required to appear before an officer designated by the
Colonial British Government of India with a written statement of the
terms of the contract. The length of service was to be five years,
renewable for further five-year terms. The emigrant was to be returned
at the end of his service to the port of departure. Each emigrant vessel
was required to conform to certain standards of space, diet etc. and
carry a medical officer. In 1837 this scheme was extended to Madras. As
soon as the new system of emigration of labour became known, a campaign,
similar to the anti-slavery campaign sprang up in Britain and India. On
1 August 1838, a committee was appointed to inquire into the export of
Indian labour. It heard reports of abuses of the new system.
The Ban on Indian Emigrations
On 29 May 1839, overseas manual labour
was prohibited and any person effecting such emigration was liable to a
200 Rupee fine or three months in jail. After prohibition, a few Indian
labourers continued to be sent to Mauritius via Pondicherry (a French
enclave in South India).
The Chinese Indentured Labourers
Throughout the history of Mauritius, a
number of attempts were made to introduce Chinese labourers in the
island but all of them failed.
Under the Dutch occupation, Chinese
convicts were brought in from Batavia but they were sent to the Cape
Colony when the Dutch abandoned the island in 1710.
Archival records of the French period
indicate that the slaves of Chinese origin served as carpenters and
servants at Ile de France. However, one of the earliest imports of
Chinese agricultural labourers took place in 1760, when the Comte
d’Estaing despatched some 300 men and their families from Bencoulen.
Dissatisfied with their living conditions, they refused to work and were
therefore repatriated. Later on, when Port-Louis became an important
entrepot on the trade route to Asia, Chinese labour was recruited, as
testified by Charles de Constant, a commercial agent residing in Canton
who, in 1783, embarked 132 Chinese on one ship for Ile de France.
Following the abolition of slave trading
during the British period, schemes were devised to import Chinese
labourers. In 1829, agricultural workers from Penang and Singapore
arrived in Mauritius. With the prohibition of Indian Immigration which
lasted from 1839 to 1842, planters once more had recourse to the
importation of Chinese labour. Some 3,000 Chinese contractual labourers
aged between 20 and 40 years old arrived from Singapore, Penang and
Macao, during that period. This was the biggest number of Chinese
labourers ever to be introduced to Mauritius. As with previous imports,
these Chinese could not face the hardship of the plantation regime and
soon gained a reputation of insubordination. Most of them deserted the
estates and became ‘vagrants’, causing ‘nightly depredations’ in the
capital. In order to prevent them from being a burden to the colony, the
authorities had no alternative but to repatriate them. Repatriation
started as early as 1843 when 200 Chinese labourers were sent back to
Penang on board the Eleanor. After these bad experiences, local planters
were reluctant to seek further supplies of Chinese labour
Resumption of Indian labour transportation
The planters in Mauritius and
the Caribbean worked hard to overturn the ban, while the anti-slavery
committee worked just as hard to uphold the ban. The Government of
the East India Company finally capitulated under intense pressure from
planters and their capitalist supporters: On 2 December 1842, the Indian
Government permitted emigration from Calcutta, Bombay and Madras to
Mauritius. Emigration Agents were appointed at each departure point.
There were penalties for abuse of the system. Return passage had to be
provided at any time after five years when claimed. After the lifting of
the ban, the first ship left Calcutta for Mauritius on 23 January 1843.
The Protector of Immigrants in Mauritius reported that a ship arrived
every few days with a human consignment and the large number of
immigrants was causing a backlog in processing and he asked for help.
During 1843, 30,218 male and 4,307 female indentured immigrants entered
Mauritius. The first ship from Madras arrived in Mauritius on 21 April
1843.
Attempts to stamp out abuses of the system
The existing regulations which failed to
stamp out abuses of the system continued, including recruitment by
false pretences and consequently, in 1843 the Government of Bengal, was
forced to restrict emigration from Calcutta and only permitted departure
after the signing of a certificate from the Agent and countersigned by
the Protector. The frantic rate of migration to Mauritius to meet its
labour shortages continued into the early months of 1844. The immigrants
of 1844 (9,709 males and 1,840 females) were mainly the Hill Coolies
(Dhangars) and the women were wives and daughters of the male migrants.
The repatriation of Indians who had completed indenture remained a
problem with a high death rate and investigations revealed that
regulations for the return voyages were not being satisfactorily
followed. Without enough recruits from Calcutta to satisfy the demands
of Mauritius planters, permission was granted in 1847 to reopen
emigration from Madras with the first ship leaving Madras for Mauritius
in 1850.
Indian labour transportation to West Indies
After the end of slavery, the West
Indian sugar colonies tried the use of emancipated slaves, families
from Ireland, Germany and Malta and Portuguese from Madeira. All these
efforts failed to satisfy the labour needs of the colonies due to high
mortality of the new arrivals and their reluctance to continue working
at the end of their indenture.
On 16 November 1844, the Indian
Government legalised emigration to Jamaica,
Trinidad and Demerara (Guyana). The first ship, the ‘Whitby’, sailed
from Port Calcutta for British Guyana on 13 January 1838, and arrived in
Berbice on 5 May 1838. Transportation to the West Indies stopped in
1848 due to problems in the sugar industry and resumed in Demerara and
Trinidad in 1851 and Jamaica in 1860.
Persuading labourers to prolong their indenture
The planters pressed consistently for
longer indentures. In an effort to persuade labourers to stay on, the
Mauritius Government, in 1847, offered a gratuity of £2 to each labourer
who decided to remain in Mauritius and renounce his claim of a free
passage. The Mauritius
Government also wanted to discontinue
the return passage and finally on 3 August 1852, the Government of India
agreed to change the conditions whereby if a passage was not claimed
within six months of entitlement, it would be forfeited, but with
safeguards for the sick and poor. A further change in 1852 stipulated
that labourers could return after five years (contributing $35 towards
the return passage) but would qualify for a free return passage after 10
years. This had a negative effect on recruitment as few wanted to sign
up for 10 years and a sum of $35 was prohibitive and the change was
discontinued after 1858.
Increasing proportion of women
It was also considered that if the
labourers had a family life in the colonies they would be more likely to
stay on. The proportion of women in early migration to Mauritius was
small and the first effort to correct this imbalance was when, on 18
March 1856, the Secretary for the Colonies sent a dispatch to the
Governor of Demerara that stated that for the season 1856–7 women must
form 25 percent of the total and in the following years males must not
exceed three times the number of females dispatched. It was more
difficult to induce women from North India to go overseas than those
from South India but the Colonial Office persisted and on 30 July 1868
instructions were issued that the proportion of 40 women to 100 men
should be adhered to. It remained in force for the rest of the indenture
period.
Land grants
Trinidad followed a different trend
where the Government offered the labourers a stake in the colony by
providing real inducements to settle when their indentures had expired.
From 1851 £10 was paid to all those who forfeited their return passages.
This was replaced by a land grant and in 1873 further incentives were
provided in the form of 5 acres (20,000 m2) of land plus £5
cash. Furthermore, Trinidad adopted an ordinance in 1870 by which new
immigrants were not allotted to plantations where the death rate
exceeded 7 percent.
Recruitment for the French Colonies
Recruitment to the French sugar colonies
continued via the French ports in India without knowledge of
the British authorities and by 1856 the number of labourers in Réunion
Island is estimated to have reached 37,694. It was not until 25 July
1860 that France was officially permitted by the British authorities to
recruit labour for Reunion at a rate of 6,000 annually. This was
extended on 1 July 1861 with permission to import ‘free’ labourers into
the French colonies of Martinique, Guadeloupe and French
Guyana (Cayenne). Indenture was for a period of five years (longer than
British colonies at the time), return passage was provided at the end of
indenture. (Not after ten as in British colonies) and Governor-General
was empowered to suspend emigration to any French colony if any abuse
was detected in the system
Transportation to other Colonies
Following introduction of labour laws
acceptable to the Government of India, transportation was extended to
the smaller British Caribbean islands; Grenada in 1856, St Lucia in 1858
and St Kitts and St Vincent in 1860. Emigration to Natal was approved
on 7 August 1860 and the first ship from Madras arrived in Durban on 16
November 1860, forming the basis of the India South African community.
The recruits were employed on three-year contracts. The British
Government permitted transportation to Danish colonies in 1862. There
was a high mortality rate in the one ship load sent to St Croix and
following adverse reports, from the British Consul on the treatment of
indentured labourers, further emigration was stopped. The survivors
returned to India in 1868 leaving about 80 Indians behind. Permission
was granted for emigration to Queensland in 1864 but no Indians were
transported to this Australian colony under the indenture system.
There were a lot of discrepancies
between systems used for indentured Colonial British Indian labour to
various colonies. Colonial British Government regulations of 1864 made
general provisions for recruitment of Indian labour in an attempt to
minimise abuse of the system. These included the appearance of the
recruit before a magistrate in the district of recruitment and not the
port of embarkation, licensing of recruiters and penalties to recruiters
for not observing rules for recruitment, legally defined rules for the
Protector of Emigrants, rules for the depots, payment for agents to be
by salary and not commission, the treatment of emigrants on board ships
and the proportion of females to males were set uniformly to 25 females
to 100 males. Despite this the sugar colonies were able to devise labour
laws that were disadvantageous to the immigrants. For example, in
Demerara an ordinance in 1864 made it a crime for a labourer to be
absent from work, misbehaving or not completing five tasks each week.
New labour laws in Mauritius in 1867 made it impossible for time-expired
labourers to shake free of the estate economy. They were required to
carry passes, which showed their occupation and district and anyone
found outside his district was liable to arrest and dispatched to
Immigration Depot, near the north bus terminal in Port Louis. If he was
found to be without employment he was deemed a vagrant.
Transportation to Surinam
Transportation of Indian labour
to Surinam, in the north east of South America, began under an agreement
that has been declared as Imperial. In return for Dutch rights to
recruit Indian labour, the Dutch transferred some old forts (remnants of
slave trade) in West Africa to the British and also bargained for an
end to British claims in Sumatra. Labourers were signed up for five
years and were provided with a return passage at the end of this term,
but were to be subject to Dutch law. The first ship carrying Indian
indentured labourers arrived in Surinam in June 1873 followed by six
more ships during the same year.
Between 1842 and 1870 a total of 525,482
Indians immigrated to the British and French Colonies. Of these,
351,401 went to Mauritius, 76,691 went to Demerara, 42,519 went
to Trinidad, 15,169 went to Jamaica, 6,448 went to Natal, 15,005 went
to Réunion and 16,341 went to the other French colonies. This figure
does not include the 30,000 who went to Mauritius earlier, labourers who
went to Ceylon or Malaya and illegal recruitment to the French
colonies. Thus by 1870 the indenture system, transporting Indian labour
to the colonies, was an established system of providing labour for
European colonial plantations and when, in 1879, Fiji became a recipient
of Indian labour it was this same system with a few minor
modifications.
The British Indentured Labour Contract
The following is the indenture agreement of 1912:
(a) Period of Service-Five Years from the Date of Arrival in the Colony
(b) Nature of labour-Work in connection with the Cultivation of the soil or the manufacture of the produce on any plantation.
(c) Number of days on which the Emigrant is required to labour in each Week-Everyday, except Sundays and authorized holidays.
(d) Number of hours in every day
during which he is required to labour without extra remuneration-Nine
hours on each of five consecutive days in every week commencing with the
Monday of each week, and five hours on the Saturday of each week.
(e) Monthly or Daily Wages and
Task-Work Rates-When employed at time-work every adult male Emigrant
above the age of fifteen years will be paid not less than one shilling,
which is at present equivalent to twelve annas and every adult female
Emigrant above that age not less than nine pence, which is at present
equivalent to nine annas, for every working day of nine hours; children
below that age will receive wages proportionate to the amount of work
done.
(f) When employed at task or
ticca-work every adult male Emigrant above the age of fifteen years will
be paid not less than one shilling, and every adult female Emigrant
above that age not less than nine pence for every task which shall be
performed.
(g) The law is that a man’s task shall
be as much as ordinary able-bodied adult male Emigrant can do in six
hours’ steady work, and that a woman’s task shall be three-fourths of a
man’s task. An employer is not bound to allot, nor is an Emigrant bound
to perform more than one task in each day, but by mutual agreement such
extra work may be allotted, performed and paid for.
(h) Wages are paid weekly on the Saturday of each week.
(i) Conditions as to return
passage-Emigrants may return to India at their own expense after
completing five years’ industrial residence in the Colony.
(j) After ten years’ continuous
residence every Emigrant who was above the age of twelve on introduction
to the Colony and who during that period has completed an industrial
residence of five years, shall be entitled to a free-return passage if
he claims it within two years after the completion of the ten years’
continuous residence.
(k) If the Emigrant was under twelve
years of age when he was introduced into the colony, he will be entitled
to a free return passage if he claims it before he reaches 24 years of
age and fulfils the other conditions as to residence. A child of an
Emigrant born within the colony will be entitled to a free return
passage until he reaches the age of twelve, and must be accompanied on
the voyage by his parents or guardian.
(l) Other Conditions-Emigrants will
receive rations from their employers during the first six months after
their arrival on the plantation according to the scale prescribed by the
government of Fiji at a daily cost of four pence, which is at present
equivalent to four annas, for each person of twelve years of age and
upwards.
(m) Every child between five and twelve
years of age will receive approximately half rations free of cost, and
every child, five years of age and under, nine chattacks of milk daily
free of cost, during the first year after their arrival.
(n) Suitable dwelling will be assigned
to Emigrants under indenture free of rent and will be kept in good
repair by the employers. When Emigrants under indenture are ill they
will be provided with Hospital accommodation, Medical attendance,
Medicines, Medical comforts and food free of charge.
(o) An Emigrant who has a wife still
living is not allowed to marry another wife in the Colony unless his
marriage with his wife shall have been legally dissolved; but if he is
married to more than one wife in his country he can take them all with
him to the Colony and they will then be legally registered and
acknowledged as his wives.
- Edited by Skyblue Global Ltd
- References & Acknowledgement
- le mauricien.com
- Abhimanyu Unnuth
- mgirti.org
- wikipedia
- y.w.c.a
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