The Indian Indenture System: How 2 Million Indians Replaced Slavery
After Britain abolished slavery in 1833, plantation owners in its colonies turned to a new source of cheap labour: indentured workers from India. Under the indenture system, also known as the girmitiya or "coolie" system, Indian men and women signed five-year contracts, often after being misled by recruiters, and were shipped to sugar colonies such as Mauritius, British Guiana, Trinidad, Fiji and Natal. The system lasted until 1917.
This documentary covers how indenture worked as legal slavery, how recruiters trapped workers, the voyage across the kala pani, life on the plantations, and how this history was erased.
Chapters
00:00 What replaced slavery in the British Empire?
00:57 Legal slavery: how indenture worked
02:02 The trap: how recruiters deceived Indians
03:33 The crossing: the voyage across the kala pani
05:52 The degradation: life on the plantations
08:22 The erasure: why this history is forgotten
Read the full essay
A New Name for an Old Chain: The Indian Indenture System, with full sources.
