Colonial labour migration: the case of the “coolie”

The concept of contract labour or indenture was part of British colonial history for a long time, and not limited to the context of 19th-century sugar planta­tions. As observed by David Northrup, estimates suggest that during the 17th and 18th centuries more than half of European migration to the British Ameri­cas took place under indenture.^[489] Unlike their later Asian and African counter-

Informal indenture and apprenticeships 107 parts however, European labourers under indenture travelled predominantly to the temperate climates of the northern United States, as part of developments which encouraged white settlements in the New World.^[490] However, while cer­tain similarities may be drawn, particularly as far as the motivations for entering into indenture are concerned,^[491] the experience of European labourers bore little resemblance to what the “coolies”^[492] (which is how Asian indentured labourers of the 19th century came to be known) encountered.

Until the mid- to late 1870s, Mauritius received the most Indian labourers. Beyond that period, the largest number went to the British West Indies, notably

Table 5.1 Destinations of indentured migrants from India, 1831-1920⁷

British Guiana.^[495] Then, during the first two decades of the 20th century, the largest number of indentured migrants were destined for East and South Africa.^[496] Indian indenture largely ended by the mid-1920s.

Indentured labour, on occasion also referred to as indentured servitude, is tra­ditionally considered a type of “unfree labour”, alongside other historical systems of organizing work, including slavery and serfdom.^[498] However, the dichotomy of “free” and “unfree” labour itself is problematic, and as a binary not universally accepted.^[499] The issue of how a system of labour may be determined as “free” or not will be considered in Chapter 6, which contains an analysis of state-reg­ulated indentured labour as it occurred in Mauritius from 1842 onwards. For current purposes, it will serve the discussion to conceptually distinguish inden­tured labour from other regimes traditionally deemed not free, such as debt bondage and serfdom. In theory, indentured labour was limited to a fixed-time period, under a contractual agreement. Payments to the worker were considered a wage. In contrast, debt bondage “was a form of servitude based upon an initial agreement to borrow funds and continued until the time, if ever, the debt was repaid.”^[500] Either indentured labour or debt bondage is conceptually quite remote from the notion of serfdom. Serfs, while predominantly agricultural workers like indentured labourers, were, unlike the latter, subject to a feudal agreement which involved allegiance to a “lord”. Historically, serfdom occurred as a way of social organization in many rural areas of Western Europe and Russia during medieval times, and operated to provide a level of protection for the peasantry in return for their services.^[501]

Returning to a conceptualization of indentured labour, the question whether the regime was indeed no more than “a new system of slavery”, as the title of Hugh Tinker's seminal work famously declared,^[502] continues to divide academ­ics.^[503] Indeed, Suzanne Miers posits this query as central to the work of research­ers, rivalled only by the question whether indentured labour presented an escape from poverty for those seeking a better life.^[504] Miers makes this claim after list­ing the various attributes and purposes of slavery.

The structure of Miers' argument reveals the limitations inherent in framing a discussion on indentured labour by reference to slavery, even as it seeks to advo­cate such an approach. As highlighted in the previous chapter, slavery itself lacks a commonly accepted definition, the very attribute which renders it so susceptible to be applied to diverse contexts. Miers' demarcation cited above, that freedom would connote whatever is the “norm” in any given society, simply raises further questions. How would the “norm” of freedom be determined? By which mark­ers? How does the argument apply to a society such as it existed in 19th-century Mauritius, where slaves significantly outnumbered the free population (whether white or gens de couleur), and accordingly, it was slavehood which arguably con­stituted the “norm”?

It is submitted that the perennial query, whether indentured labour amounted to no more than a new system of slavery, is fundamentally misguided, and its pur­suit as a consequence hampered by methodological shortcomings. As indicated in the introductory chapter, most scholars make the assessment one way or the other by focusing on a narrow aspect, such as legal status, working conditions or the quality of the transport across sea. The fallacy of using an approach which takes slavery as the yard stick by which to make evaluations lies in the fact that it is becomes fundamentally limited by its own parameters. As pointed out by Amit Kumar Mishra, direct comparisons to slavery fail to allow for an appraisal of all variables relevant to the indentured labour experience.^[507] Applying this methodol­ogy, the discovery of any aspect denoting an “improvement” upon the conditions experienced under slavery leads to the conclusion that indenture was not a con­tinuation of the previous system, or conversely, through the detection of a similar level of barbarity, that indeed it was.

The approach offered in this thesis presents a departure from the traditional model. Focusing on legal processes, the question it seeks to answer is not whether indentured labour was better or worse than slavery, but rather how indentured labour redistributed power in Mauritius. As Engerman notes, the ability to exploit both labour and land depended to a large degree on legislation that regu­lated the flow of labour as well as the controls placed locally, but “what remains to be discovered... is how much of the politics as distinct from the economics of the matter determined the outcome.” Focusing attention in this direction rather than towards an evaluation of indentured labour by reference to the institution of slavery, one can grasp more clearly the broader social implications of abolition and the political and economic dynamics that were unleashed in its aftermath.

5.3