Britain And Indian Indentured Labourers

During the crusades, Western Europeans discovered a “new spice” called sugar. After bringing it back to their homeland and discovered how good it was. The following centuries saw a major expansion of Western trade with the East, which included the exchange of sugar. Making sugar was a long extensive process, and the price was high for only a small amount. Therefore, only the wealthy would be able to afford sugar, making it a luxury found in forms of decorations or medicine. With new developments in the late 17th century, sugar became popular with the introduction of tea. This made it a product of mass consumption, allowing it to be accessible to the lower classes. Due to the high demand of sugar, the British acquired Barbados, which was the first sugar plantation they owned. Soon after they expanded to Jamaica and other sugar islands, allowing them to vastly expand trade in African slavery. The settlement in Barbados was a turning point for the British causing a rise in the sugar production, indentureship and slavery.

In the second half of the 18th century, colonial slavery increased British national income and was significant to their industrial growth with the mass production of sugar. This resulted in a need for laborers to work on the plantations. Therefore, they turned to enslaved Africans. These slaves were bought and sold as commodities. They were dehumanized and treated as objects rather humans, and this ideology was strongly accepted. This lead to many abolitionists recognizing how inhumane slaves were being treated. Therefore, they started advocating for them. The abolitionists movement grew and spread across the country, making people realize the horrendous conditions in which slaves were being treated. This made people sympathize for them. The British passed the Abolition of Slave Trade Act in 1833, attempting to end slavery by shifting from forced labor to free labor. However, this resulted only in partial freedom. As a result, the prices of slaves increased steadily but the plantation owners did not want to pay this large amount of money for their labor. If they could not find people to work on their lands for low costs the prices of sugar was have to go up, but they did not what this to happen. Therefore, they had to begin looking for an additional workforce. For example, New Guiana plantation owners began to look overseas to obtain more labours, which started to evoke the shift from slaves to indentured servants. Since the British were in search of a new labour force that was tractable, disciplined and accustomed to plantation cultivation under harsh tropical conditions of there sugar plantations.

Beginning with the recruitment of African, Portuguese and other European labourers, but they were not able to satisfy there shortage of labourers. It was India with its numerous heavily congested areas that satisfied their needs. India’s population provided the British with a ready source of cheap and mobile labourers, which allowed the price of sugar to stay low since they did not have to pay much for the Indians to work on their land. They were able to utilize this migrant labour as a means of restoring the control they had under the slave system, allowing the plantation owners to restore their control. To get the Indians to work, the British they told them only positive things, saying it would be light work, good wages, and employment for their children. The British talked highly of land telling the soon to be labourers about the wonderful climate and how nice it was going to be since they would not have to deal with the extreme heat of india, but neither was it going to be cold. They spoke well of their country saying it was abounded with fresh water, fruits, and different vegetables which flourished like no other place.

One of the best things the British said to the Indians was that there was going to be no interference with there religion, they could have free exercise of any religion of their choosing. With the high amounts of poverty in India many people saw this as a wonderful opportunity that they had to take. Once the Indians were tricked or persuaded to sign there working contracts they were taken overseas in boats to different plantations where they would spend the next five years of there life living in awful conditions. Indian indentured workers were being sent to different parts of the world, Mauritius being one of the largest receiver of this labour, since the sugar plantations were flourishing. Given the high levels of illiteracy, few workers actually understood the terms of the contract they were signing, and if a worker was so illiterate that they could not sign their name they would sign it by the putting there thumbprint.

The indentured Indians were meant to receive wages, a small amount of land and in some cases, promise of a return passage once their contract was over. In reality, this rarely ever happened, and the conditions were harsh, and their wages low. The indentured workers could not speak out, which meant they could not demand higher wages, leave the estate without permission, or refuse the work assigned to them. This lead to passive resistance, when the labours were deliberately doing sloppy work and would not complete as much work on the plantations. The servants were trying to protest non violently since they would be seriously inquired if they were caught going against their contract. This way of life went on until 1917 when the indentured system was abolished after years of campaigning, mainly by Indians and Africans in British Guiana. People across the country realized that Indentureship was just another form of enslavement.