by REGINALD MASSEY
IMAGE/Amazon
Kanpur to Kolkata: Labour Recruitment for the Sugar Colonies by Basdeo Mangru (Hansib, London)
The South Asian diaspora inhabits several countries and is, in fact, the largest diaspora on the planet. Poverty and persecution forced many to migrate but in equal measure it was the spirit of enterprise that propelled people to a better life not only for themselves but for their descendants.
The abolition of slavery in the British Empire created a serious vacuum in the labour market and the white masters hit upon the idea of ‘indentured coolies’. The British-owned plantations across ‘the black waters’ (in Natal, Mauritius, the Fiji Islands, British Guiana, the Malay states, and the many Caribbean islands) were in desperate need of cheap and willing labour. South Asia, already stripped to the bone by the East India Company, therefore became the natural recruiting region for ‘indentured coolies’.
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