The Survival of Sugar in Post-Emancipation British Guiana: East Indian Indentured Immigration and the Cheapening of Labor

This Paper revisits the post-emancipation changes in the labor market of British Guiana. British Guiana, Mauritius, Trinidad and Tobago, Fiji, and several other locations were spaces where East Indian Indentured Immigrants from Idia became pivotal in the economy.[1] In the decade after emancipation (1838-1848), the rise of global free trade in sugar spurred by the equalization of duties in sugar factored in the search for a cheaper and the importation of a more pliable labor force to keep the wheels of sugar turning in British Guiana. With this background in mind this paper focuses on indentured immigration of East Indians from India; and hence discusses the recruitment of this group in so far as their presence in the colony and the workforce produced the desired result – A cheaper labor force through suppression of the trade union like activism of African labor (ex-slaves). [1] Information on Indentured Immigration to Figi-Harvard Law Review, Vol 134 (5), March 2021. See also British National Archives record on Indian Indentured Laborers-This is a useful tool for researchers which is accessible online as well in the library at Kew Gardens in London. The records give details of Indian indentured Laborers who arrived from India to the following colonies and places: Mauritius, British Guiana, the West Indies, Trinidad, Jamaica, Ceylon, Fiji, South Africa (Cape Colony and Natal), St. Kitts, Windward Islands, Grenada, Kenya and Uganda.