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170th anniversary of Indian arrival in Guyana
by "BK"

The Coolie "Slave Trade": a new form of slavery - looking at the first two ships - The Whitby and Hesperus

Today, May 5th 2008 marks the 170th anniversary of the arrival of the first Hindustani indentured servants from Hindustan (India) to British Guiana (Guyana). During the period of East Indian indentureship (1838-1917) about 239,000 servants were brought from the Indian sub-continent, (present day Bangladesh, India, Pakistan as well as Afghanistan and Nepal). The immigrants were mainly from the States of - Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal in the North, and Madras in the South. Nevertheless, regardless where these servants hailed from or what dialect they spoke, they all developed a common kinship and bond on the voyage across the Kala Pani (black water) to British Guiana - referring to their fellow travelers as Jahaazi (Jahaaz is an Urdu word meaning ship), which later morphed into jahajji - ja means to go and hajji is a title conferred upon a Muslim male who has completed the pilgrimage to Mecca. For many of the servants the kinship that they formed on the boats - irrespective of which caste, religion or state they were from lasted throughout their lifetime, some even span several generations and a number of the servants even got married on the ship. Upon completion of their contract (five-seven years) the servants were entitled to a free return passage to their homeland. Many of them choose to remain in the colony and serve as free labourers.

The abolition of slavery in 1834 has had a negative impact on the workforce on the sugar plantations with the newly freed Africans leaving the plantations to seek better opportunities in the towns while many pooled their resources and purchased abandoned estates (Buxton and Victoria are two such examples). The plantation owners were forced to turn to different parts of the world looking for a cheap source of labor - in Southern United States, West Africa and other islands in the Caribbean, especially Antigua and Barbados. However, these early "experiments" to replenish a steady and reliable workforce were not successful and John Gladstone, the owner of Gladstone Estates, Vreed-en-Hoop, West Coast Demerara, the initiator of the request to recruit "hill coolies, who were considered ignorant and docile" knew that in 1834 a number of East Indians were sent to Mauritius as indentured servants; and in 1836 he solicited help from the British Crown representative in India to import East Indian indentured servants to Guyana.

The stage was thus set for the commencement of a new form of slavery; one can only imagine the shock and alienation the servants felt, most of whom left their ancestral villages and birth places for the first time. Many from different castes/tribes - speaking in different dialects (such as Koshali, Braj, Koeli, Bagheli, Hundeli and Bhojpuri, the latter being the dominant language of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar), their physical characteristics also appeared foreign, while their ways of eating, mode of dress and other habits - all looked alien to their fellow jahajjis. They were forced to pick up the lingua franca at the depot in order to understand each other - "the emigrant was now immersed in a process of deculturisation, almost dehumanization right in their homeland."

The first ship to set said from Calcutta was the Whitby, it departed on Saturday, 13th of January 1838 with 267 passengers, according to the embarkation list. After 112 days at sea the Whitby dropped anchor off the shores of Berbice on Saturday 5th May 1838, a total of 181 servants were unloaded - 166 men, six women (who accompanied their husbands), two boys, five girls and two infants whose gender were not stated. This first batch of immigrants was “bounded" to two Plantations in Berbice (Highbury and Waterloo). The Whitby then sailed to Demerara where 86servants - 82 men, two women, one boy and one girl - were indentured to James Matthews, Plantation Bellevue, Property of Andrew Colville, esq., of London. Of the 82 men, Nuthaw Khaw (spelt Nertha Khan on the disembarkation list) served as a mate on board the ship. Khan understood and spoke English he was also the first East Indian servant who converted to Christianity upon his arrival in British Guiana this move worked to his advantage. He was called upon to serve as interpreter in court cases that the "drivers" brought against the servants. This trend of East Indians converting to Christianity continued throughout the years in the colony. Up until independence those East Indians who converted were given preferential treatment were considered more suitable for certain jobs both on the sugar plantations and in the Public Service over Indians who choose to follow their Hindu/Muslim religion even though in some cases they might have been as qualified or have the same training as those who converted.

The Hesperus, the second ship departed Calcutta on Monday 29th January 1838, 16 days after the Whitby with 171 servants on board. It landed later the same day as The Whitby on Saturday 5th May 1838, at Demerara with 157 servants - 141 men, 6 women, 5 boys and 5 girls (14 servants died during the voyage). Ninety-four men and 2 women were bounded to John Gladstone owner of Plantations Vreed-en-Hoop and Vriedestein, the remaining 61 servants comprising 47 males, 4 women and the 10 children were sent to John and Henry Moss Plantation at Anna Regina, Essequibo. (In 1839 The Hesperus was wrecked on the reef of Norman's Woe off Gloucester, Massachusetts, this was the "inspiration" of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow"s poem - The Wreck of the Hesperus).

Based on the passengers lists of these two ships, the largest groups were from the Dhanga or Dhangurs tribe- 148 in all landed; followed by 94 Muslims and the balance were from other scheduled castes/tribes. The early period of East Indian indentureship was extremely disorganized; one area was in the recording of the passengers" data in a systematic manner. There were tremendous discrepancies of their biographic data. Assuming that the information were recorded correctly at the point of embarkation, the British agents who were assigned the task of recording the list of those that landed in the colony made several mistakes in the compilation process. In comparing the two lists (embarkation against disembarkation) the information differs vastly. It appears as if one set of immigrants boarded the vessel and a totally different batch disembarked, the inaccuracies were worst for those that came on the Hesperus. For instance, the ages given at the time of departure were totally different from the ages shown upon their arrival in Guyana, e.g., Deeallee on leaving Calcutta his age was given as 24, height was 5" 3"; upon arrival in Demerara his age was shown as 60 years old and his height as 5" 7". In addition, there were a number of names that appeared on the disembarkation list that were not on the embarkation list. There were also three names that appeared twice on the disembarkation list where the individuals were bounded for two different plantations.

On their arrival in the colony, the East Indians were greeted with rude gibes and taunts from the Africans who were attracted to the docks by idle curiosity to gaze upon the unfortunate victims of a new slavery. Mr. R. Duff, an Immigration Agent of the colony, referred to these servants as "the advance guards of the race destined to have so great an effect on the future of British Guiana." The newly arrived servants were given lodgings in logies (communal living quarters where Hindus and Muslims lived side-by-side), in the "nigger yards", as they were referred to, that once housed the former slaves; in later years planter owners extended these "logies" (called then "bound-coolie yards") to accommodate the influx of later arrivals. They were also assigned to work in gangs without consideration of caste. Unlike the African slaves, the East Indian servants were permitted to retain most of their religious practices and cultural traditions, unfortunately over the years they lost their "mother tongue".

Working conditions under this "new form of slavery" turned out to be not much better than under slavery. Soon after their arrival in British Guiana stories of severe ill treatment of the servants, at the hands of the planters" overseers, including flogging with the cat-o-nine tail were reported to Governor Henry Light. According to one eyewitness, Elizabeth Caesar, a former house slave gave evidence that "The Coolies were locked up in the sick house, and next morning they were flogged with a cat-o'-nine-tails; the manager was in the house, and they flogged the people under his house; they were tied to the post of the gallery of the manager's house; I cannot tell how many licks; he gave them enough. I saw blood. When they were flogged at manager's house, they rubbed salt pickle on their backs."

On the 31st January 1839 Special Justice Coleman was sent by the British Crown to inspect conditions on the five plantations. He found evidence of extremely harsh treatment with many of the immigrants suffering from wounds inflicted by the overseers and drivers (some of whom were former slaves). Justice Coleman also mentioned the incident of the first two servants (Jumun and Pultun, both of them Muslims) indentured to Gladstone Plantation at Vreed-en-Hoop who were the first to rebel against the slave-like conditions under which they were forced to labor. A second convoy - Sir M. Mc Turk - was appointed by the British Court of Policy to report on the situation as well. When he visited the hospital on the Gladstone plantation he observed that - "the coolies in it were not suffering merely from sores; they had mortified ulcers, their flesh rotting on their bones, their toes dropping off and some of them were in a dangerous state from fever, and all were in the utmost despondency."

When news of their slave-like treatment reached Hindustan, the British Government suspended East Indian immigration in 1841. Following the suspension of East Indian immigration efforts were made to recruit Chinese and Portuguese they proved to be unsuitable for field work and subsequently turned to entrepreneurship. East Indian indenturedship resumed in 1845 and the planters in the colony wasted no time in employing licensed recruiters to act as their agents in the villages in India. These recruiters, however, utilized many dubious methods to snare their fellow Indians into this "new form of slavery". It was also discovered (in later years) that the kidnapping of coolies had been extensively carried out in the villages when agents failed to meet their quotas of servants. Also, in villages close to Calcutta, prisons were set ups supposedly for the security of the "wretched creatures", where they were held captives until they were shipped off to their "new home", their only crime was to trust the recruiting agents.

During the first 18 months of the servants" arrival on the plantations 67 servants died in the colony and upon expiration of their contract in 1843 a total of about 98 died. At the end of their contractual obligations a total of 236 Indians (206 men, 12 women, 14 boys and 4 girls) departed for India in two ships, the Louisa Baillie and Waterwitch, about 90 servants opted to remain in British Guiana.

Although the East Indian indenturedship system ended officially in 1917, during 1921-1922 over 400 immigrants were brought on contracts to work on the sugar plantations, several others also came as ordinary settlers. In March 1926, the Governor of British Guiana received a telegram from the Viceroy of India informing him that migration of a limited number of indentured labourers was approved on certain strict conditions. The plantation owners accepted these conditions readily since they were desperately in need of additional labourers to work in the fields. The conditions were approved by the British Guiana legislature and the Hindustan Imperial Council finally approved the proposals in March 1926. Under this new contract 173 East Indians (about 50 families) arrived in Guyana in the same year, the British Guiana Government, however found that the costs of transporting the immigrants from India to Guyana too high, and thus further migration of East Indians was discouraged. Emigration from India finally ended in 1928.

Sources:
John Scoble, Various enclosures from "Report of the Hill Coolies", Parliamentary Papers, XXXIX, No. 463, 1839.
Peter Ruhomon, Centenary History of the East Indians in British Guiana, 1838-1938, Georgetown: Daily Chronicle, Guiana Edition Series, No. 10.
Hugh Tinker, A New Form of Slavery: The Export of Indian Labour Overseas 1880-1920, London: Oxford University Press, 1974
Odeen Ishmael: The Guyana Story - From Earliest Times to Independence, Chapter 98. 2005.

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