Arising from Bondage

This text tells of the struggle of the Indo-Caribbean people. From 1838 to 1917 over half a million indentured labourers were shipped from India to the Caribbean and settled in the former British, Dutch, French and Spanish colonies. Like their predecessors, the African slaves, they laboured on the sugar estates. In 1998 in the English-speaking Caribbean alone there are an estimated one million people of Indian descent and they form the majority in Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago. Based on official reports and papers, and unpublished material from British, Indian and Caribbean sources, this text aims to fill a gap in the history of the Caribbean, of India, Britain and other European colonial powers.