Country: Trinidad and Tobago

Group: Indian (South Asian)

Date Finalized: 03/16/2021

Team: Vianney Mancilla (lead), Colleen Clauss, Alexa Hager, Zeenat Hammond

Content Warning: forced labor

Approximate Time Period: 1845-1917

South Asians in Trinidad and Tobago likely experienced indentured servitude, a circumscribed form of forced labor. The data quality for the evidence found would be rated a 2 due to the limited sources and details.

South Asians were also known as East Indians and were primarily Muslim or Hindu (Minority Rights Group International, 2008). After the abolition of slavery in 1833, in Trinidad and Tobago, sugar estates needed a new source of laborers (Minority Rights Group International, 2008). The British colonial empire in Trinidad and Tobago sought indentured servants in their other colony—India. Between 1845 to 1917, approximately 150,000 East Indian indentured laborers were brought to Trinidad (Minority Rights Group International, 2008). Specifically, the harsh famine and poverty in India led many East Indians to become indentured servants (The National Archives, n.d.). Under the British, the East Indians were subjected to five-year contracts to a single sugar estate (Perry, 1969). Perry states that the work environment “followed much the same pattern as that which had been established during slavery” (Perry, 1969). Moreover, Perry reports that once the East Indians finished their indenture time, they had to carry around their exemption paper(s), much like previously freed slaves (Perry, 1969).

References

  1. Minority Rights Group International. (2008). World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples – Trinidad and Tobago: East Indians. Retrieved from https://www.refworld.org/docid/49749c9a3c.html on March 16, 2021
  2. The National Archives. (n.d). Indian indentured labourers. Retrieved from https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/indian-indentured-labourers/ on March 16, 2021
  3. Perry, J.A. (1969). A History of the East Indian Indentured Plantation Worker in Trinidad, 1845-1917. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/1612 on March 16, 2021