History project

Caribbean History

Grade 11

Advent Term Project

 

Complete the following for this project:

a. Describe the various schemes of immigration which Caribbean planters utilized to fill the vacuum formed from emancipation.                                                                               5pts

 

i. For each group identified state their place of origin and the year they arrived in the Caribbean.                                                                                                              10 pts

 

b. Outline the reasons why Indian Immigration was considered the most viable form of indentured labour after slavery.                                                                                     5 pts

 

c. Highlight those factors which may have led the Indians to leave their homeland      10 pts 

 

The planters believed that their most serious post-emancipation problem was the scarcity of cheap reliable estate labour caused by the flight of ex slaves from the plantations/estates after emancipation. Many of the freemen formed an independent peasantry through land ownership. The planters responded by importing indentured (an indenture was a formal legal agreement or contract) labourers from densely populated agrarian (agricultural) communities and they petitioned the colonial governments to support the various immigration schemes. Moreover, it was felt that in the longterm, immigration would lead to reduced wages for labourers when a new set of labour was established.

China and India were the first places that Europeans checked for replacement labour after slavery ended. The planters had already tried using other Europeans before the slave trade from Africa began and already knew that this plan would not work because they would have to pay high wages to white labourers. China and India seemed ideal sources of labour. Both were poor countries with large populations, which meant that there were many people who would see even the hard labour on the sugar plantations as an opportunity for a better life. The first shipment of labourers left India just before the apprenticeship period drew to a close in 1838. Of the 414 Indians who came, 18 died on board the ship and 98 died within 5 years of landing in the colony. 238 Indians later returned to the subcontinent and just 60 decided to stay in the Caribbean. Emigration from India was suspended until 1844 because of this high mortality rate, while the authorities examined the conditions of retirement and shipping. Between 1845 and 1847, Jamaica received 4,551 Indians and 507 Chinese. By 1854 though, just over 1,800 of these immigrants had died or disappeared. It is likely that many of them were killed by a cholera epidemic which swept through Jamaica in 1850. Between 1838 and 1917, Jamaica, St Lucia, St Vincent and Grenada received Indian labourers. Some people in Jamaica were against this importation of immigrants. Some churches also opposed Indian immigration worrying about the effects the Indians would have on African Christian converts. The Anti-Slavery Society in England also opposed Indian immigration, saying that it would reverse the social and moral gains made by abolition. The planters however saw immigration as the key solution to their labour and financial problems.Only in islands such as the Leewards, Barbados and Belize was there opposition to immigration schemes by the ruling whites and this was only because the labour supply was adequate. Even this situation soon changed because the freed blacks refused to work for low wages and became more independent so that by the late 19th century planters in some small islands like Antigua, St Kitts and Nevis were also calling for immigrant labour. By the end of the 19th century, the West Indies had received over 300,000 Indian labourers. Some Chinese and Portuguese labourers were also brought in but in small numbers. There were also small numbers of European and African immigrants as well as ex slaves migrating to different islands for labour.

The Madierans During 1835, a few hundred Portuguese from Madiera were sent to Trinidad and Guyana but in 1836, Madieran authorities stopped the trade. However in 1841 the immigration was revived by the help of a bounty (gift of money or bonus) and 4312 Madieran Portuguese had entered Guyana. Many suffered from Yellow Fever and Malaria and from over work and inadequate food and therefore in 1842 the bounty was withdrawn and recruitment ceased. Four years later immigration began again in Madiera and larger numbers were bought to Guyana and Trinidad while smaller numbers were bought to Grenada, St Vincent, Dominica, St Kitts, Nevis and Antigua. Between 1835 and 1851, 40,971 Madierans came to the West Indies with the largest amount going to Guyana.

The Chinese In 1843, Chinese immigrants were recommended for the British West Indies but the Chinese refused to come without contracts and due to the orders in council of 1838 contracts could only be made in colonies. After 1844 they focused on immigration from India. Chinese immigration to the British West Indies began in 1852. During 1854, Trinidad received 988 Chinese labourers, Guyana received 647 and Jamaica 100. One ship with all these labourers left from Chinese ports Namoa and Whampoa. Chinese immigration and recruitment were expensive and the mortality rate was high therefore in 1854 it was abandoned. It was started again in 1858 when two ships were sent to Guyana with 761 Chinese. In 1859 the British occupation of Canton made the trade easier therefore from Canton and Hong Kong, 11,282 Chinese were sent to Guyana and 1557 to Trinidad by 1866. After 1866, Chinese immigration to BWI (British West Indies) declined due to difficulties in recruitment, expensive transportation and competition from French and Spanish for Chinese Labour. Furthermore, many Chinese wanted emigration in order to leave to do agricultural work which we found in Java and the Philippines nearer to China.

The Africans The British government did not want to recruit African labourers since if it was approved, they believed that a form of slavery would be reproduced. Nevertheless, in December 1840, approval was granted due to pressure for more labourers from colonial planters and governors. Immigration was hence introduced with labourers brought in from Sierra Leone. In 1841, the first set of African labourers arrived in Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica by merchant ships hired by private merchants. European timber merchants in Africa feared that they would lose their best workers and Christian missionaries in Sierra Leone feared that they would lose prospective converts. Furthermore Africans showed little interest in emigration despite the efforts to persuade them by offering high wages and free return passage to Sierra Leone. Encouragement for immigration was absent in Gambia and on the Kru Coast so recruitment carried out in 1843 and 1847 was mostly successful in Sierra Leone. The majority of Africans were obtained from seizures of foreign slave ships captured by British naval patrols in the Atlantic.

East Indians A major cause of the large influx of Indian immigrants to the Caribbean is the factors in India itself. There were many people willing to leave India where there had been famines, high taxes and loss of land and where poverty was worsening under the 'raj' leadership at that time. Also, certain aspects of Indian society, such as the caste system* and the difficulty widows had in remarrying, also made many people willing to emigrate. Indian labourers were successfully recruited in villages as well as crowded cities where large numbers of unemployed Indians could be found looking for jobs. Indian emigrants left for the Caribbean from ports in the following cities; Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Lucknow, Bengal and Bihar. Indian immigration introduced new cultures and religions into the British West Indies. During the late 19th Century, the immigrants consisted of 86% Hindu and 14% Muslim. In May 1838, the ships called Whithey and Hesperas arrived in Guyana with 896 Indian immigrants. This first group was to be shared among 6 sugar plantations under 5year contracts. However, ill treatment of the Indians and diseases caused many other deaths and in 1840, Indian immigration was stopped by the British and Indian governments. Pressure from planters resulted in a second attempt at Indian immigration being made in 1845 and it lasted until 1917. During this period, approximately half a million Indian indentured labourer came to the Caribbean. They were contracted to work on the estates for 5year periods and were entitled to free passage back to India or a piece of land if they remained in the Caribbean once their contract was over. If they arrived before 1898, males were granted half of the return passage while females were granted two thirds. Their fixed wages were 1 shilling or 6 pence per day. They got free medical attention and housing. The governments of the larger colonies (Trinidad and Guyana) appointed agents to recruit workers in India who were shipped from Calcutta, Madras or Bombay. Men outnumbered the women and ships were unhygienic and overcrowded. On the estates, the living conditions were slave like. Labourers could not leave estates without a pass and they were subject to fines and imprisonment for being absent from work and for disobedience. There was much disease which led to a significant number of deaths. Those who survived claimed their return passage or acquired their own land. The poor conditions for Immigrants led to the Indian legislative council in India passing the Abolition of Indenture Act and this is why Indentureship ended in 1927.

West Indians Planters in Guyana, Trinidad and to a lesser extent Jamaica decided to attract labourers from the smaller islands with promises of work and higher wages. These islands were losing many workers and in order to prevent this their governments tried to restrict migration to other islands to work. But the British Government overruled their restrictions. The only restriction was that people from small islands could only leave to go to the larger Caribbean islands to work for 1 year. This did not stop inter-island immigration because by 1837, the number of migrants was large. From 1839 to 1849, 10,278 West Indians emigrated to Trinidad, 1,582 to Guyana and 790 to Jamaica. Barbadians went to Trinidad and Guyana while most Grenadians went to Trinidad.

The Effect of Immigration Economic Rising production of sugar and cocoa, particularly in British Guiana, Trinidad and St Kitts. But they couldn't prevent Grenada's loss of its sugar industry and the industry in some other areas declined anyway.

This improvement in sugar production slowed down diversification of the economy.

A minority of Indians became fairly wealthy through business. Others joined the peasantry and introduced crops such as rice, cocoa and coffee because of their knowledge of agriculture brought with them from India.

East Indians brought skills such as knowledge on immigration.

Many East Indians who finished indentureship remained in agriculture. They could do so because between 1885 and 1912, 37,000 hectares of crown land were given to the East Indians. 8% worked in agriculture. Some set up villages and grew rice and sugarcane.

Because the population was increasing the government improved public facilities, law enforcement and larger markets were built.

Chinese and Portuguese immigrants later went on to start retail businesses or became merchants

Social Indians were numerically the largest group of immigrants but they settled in significant numbers only in 2 colonies - British Guiana (now Guyana) and Trinidad. In other islands, Indians were so few that they were either absorbed into the wider society, kept so much to themselves that they had no social impact or migrated to the 2 colonies that already had large Indian settlements.

Caribbean societies became plural societies or multi ethnic societies. In other words, there are people in the Caribbean who are citizens of the same country, but who belong to different racial groups, different ancestral cultures, different religions or all of these.

For some time, the different groups of immigrants worked together with the local population but by 1917 they were openly hostile to each other.

Various ethnic groups have enriched Caribbean culture. For instance, the East Indians have maintained the practice of their Hindu and Muslim religions. At first, the Muslim and Hindu religion were despised by the Africans and the whites who were Christian. However, the West Indian immigrants who came to Trinidad and Guyana alongside the East Indians had no problem with the East Indians and their culture and had no conflict with them.

In the early years of immigration, the East Indians were difficult to assimilate into West Indian society. They tended to stick together and not mix with others in society. They remained separate because they had a strong bond amongst family and friends.

The different cultures of the Africans and East Indians also kept them apart. Also, the majority of Africans had adopted Christianity while most East Indians did not. The whites intentionally created separations between the Africans and East Indians to keep them apart. Also, Africans despised the East Indians because they were paid the lowest for jobs and they accepted the jobs that they saw as slavery work. The East Indians despised the Africans because they believed them to be uneducated and shifting from one job to the next.

At first there was little family life among East Indians partly because of a shortage of women. Traditional Indian families re-established in 1870 with the free villages. There was still a shortage of women for some years after this. In these Indian communities, each person had to contribute to a financial pool where the oldest member was in charge