The Illusion of Freedom: Indentured Servitude’s Impact on Labor Reforms

Authors

  • Vanshika Jain Mt. Lebanon Senior High School

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47611/jsrhs.v13i3.7354

Keywords:

History, Labor, Economics, Indentured Servitude, Slavery, British Empire, Labor Reforms, Labor Unions

Abstract

The essay explores the origins and impacts of indentured servitude, focusing on British colonial policies implemented in India and China. The findings indicate that the servants originated in India and were contracted by British masters. Beginning with the British influence in India in the 1600s, the essay examines how economic and legal changes under British rule, such as the Permanent Settlement of Bengal and the shift to cash crop cultivation, worsened by severe droughts and famines, created a vulnerable population due to uncontrollable circumstances. Similarly, the aftermath of the Opium War in China and the economic consequences of British trade policies led to widespread poverty, pushing many towards indentured labor. These factors combined to produce a large-scale migration of Indian and Chinese laborers under harsh and exploitative conditions. Moreover, the essay compares indentured servitude to slavery, noting the differences in voluntariness and legal status but highlighting similar abuses and dehumanization. It discusses the severe working conditions, manipulation through contracts, and the socio-economic impacts on global migration patterns, with millions of Indians and Chinese forming significant diasporas. The abolition of indentured servitude, driven by labor movements and legal reforms like the Robin v. Hardaway case, marked a significant shift that promoted economic development, social mobility, and labor rights. The essay emphasizes the resilience of these laborers and their enduring struggle for justice and equality.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References or Bibliography

References

Ablavsky, G. (2010). Making Indians White: The judicial abolition of native slavery in revolutionary Virginia and its racial legacy. U. Pa. L. Rev., 159, 1457.

Ablavsky, G. (2010). Making Indians White: The judicial abolition of native slavery in revolutionary Virginia and its racial legacy. U. Pa. L. Rev., 167, 1457.

Ablavsky, G. (2010). Making Indians White: The judicial abolition of native slavery in revolutionary Virginia and its racial legacy. U. Pa. L. Rev., 163, 1457.

Allen, Richard B. “Walton Look Lai.” Indentured Labor, Caribbean Sugar: Chinese and Indian Migrants to the British West Indies”. The Historian. 582.

Anderson, C. "Convicts and coolies: Rethinking indentured labor in the nineteenth century." Slavery and Abolition 30.1 (2009): 93-109.

Anitha, S., Pearson, R. and McDowell, L. (2012) Striking lives: Multiple narratives of South Asian Women’s Employment, Identity and Protest in the UK, Ethnicities 12 (6): 654-775.

“As Chinese-Cuban Population Dwindles, Traditions Die.” Www.rutgers.edu,

cuban-population-dwindles-traditiondie#: ~:text=Although%20only%20about%20150%20native.

Basdeo, S. (1986). Indian Participation in Labor Politics In Trinidad, 1919–1939. Caribbean Quarterly, 32(3/4), 50–65. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40653664

Blyn, G. 1966. Agricultural trends in India, 1600–1861: Output, availability, and productivity. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Brereton, B. “A History of Modern Trinidad 1783-1962”. Heinemann International, 1981.

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopedia. "Key Facts of the Opium Wars." Encyclopedia Britannica, October 5, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/summary/Key-Facts-of-the-Opium-Wars.

Bulla, D. W. (2016). "Gandhi and the Indian Indentured Servants in South Africa". In Slavery Past, Present and Future. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9781848883994_

Chinese Labor and the Iron Road - Golden Spike National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service). (n.d.). Retrieved from - https://www.nps.gov/gosp/learn/historyculture/chinese-labor-and-the-iron-road.htm#:~:text=At%20the%20time%20it%20was,and%20supplies%20to%20the%20 camps.

De Caux, L. Labor radical; from the Wobblies to CIO, a personal history (1970)

Department of Geography, Cambridge » Agrarian change and rural transformations in India. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/ruraltransformations/

Desai, A., & Vahed, G. (2021). Colour, Class and Community-The Natal Indian Congress, 1971-1994. NYU Press.

Donoghue, J. (2013). Indentured servitude in the 17th century English Atlantic: A brief survey of the literature. History Compass, 11(10), 893-902.

Dow, L. “Indentured Workers and Anti-Colonial Resistance in the British Empire.” Review.gale.com, 25 May 2021, review.gale.com/2021/05/25/indentured-workers-and-anti-colonial-resistance-in-the-british-empire/.

Dowlah, C. (2020). Indentured Servitude: The Saga of the Indians and the Chinese. Cross-Border Labor Mobility: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, 119-140.

Dutt, Romesh C. The economic history of India under early British rule, from the rise of the British power in 1757 to the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956.

Feiveson, L. “Labor Unions and the U.S. Economy.” U.S. Department of the Treasury, 28 Aug. 2023, home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/labor-unions-and-the-us-economy.

Galenson, W. "British servants and the colonial indenture system in the eighteenth century." The Journal of Southern History 44.1 (1978): 41-66.

Galenson, D. “Literacy and the Social Origins of Some Early Americans.” The Historical Journal 22, no. 1 (1979): 75–91. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2639012.

Galenson, D. (1981). The market evaluation of human capital: The case of indentured servitude. Journal of Political Economy, 89(3), 446-467.

Harris, R., & Lewis, R. (2001). The geography of North American cities and suburbs, 1900-1950: A new synthesis. Journal of Urban History, 27(3). (15-17)

Hill, Christopher V. “Philosophy and Reality in Riparian South Asia: British Famine Policy and Migration in Colonial North India.” Modern Asian Studies 25.2 (1991): 263–279.

Kaarsholm, P. (2016). Indian Ocean networks and the transmutations of servitude: the protector of Indian immigrants and the administration of freed slaves and indentured labourers in Durban in the 1870s. Journal of Southern African Studies, 42(3), 443-461.

Kiley, G. “Colonial Enslavement of Native Americans Included Those Who Surrendered, Too.” Brown University, 15 Feb. 2017, www.brown.edu/news/2017-02-15/enslavement

Kowalczyk, C. Hancock, P. “Mahatma Gandhi’s Descendants Thrive in South Africa.” CNN, 25 Sept. 2015, www.cnn.com/travel/article/gandhi-descendants-durban-south-africa/index.html. Accessed 13 Apr. 2024.

Lal, Brij V. "Understanding the Indian indenture experience." South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 21.s1 (1998): 215-237.

Laurence, K.O. “A Question Of Labour: Indentured Immigration into Trinidad and British Guiana 1875-1917”. Ian Randle Publishers, 1994.

“Mahatma Gandhi’s Move for the Abolition of the Indentured Labour System – the Girmit”. Mauritius Times, 4 Nov, 2019.

www.mauritiustimes.com/mt/mahatma-gandhis-move-for-the-abolition-of-the-indentured-labour-system-the-girmit/.

Mintz, S., & McNeil, S. (2018). Contract Labor. Digital History. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=3294

Parfitt, S. Knights across the Atlantic: The Knights of Labor Liverpool University Press, 2016. Retrieved from the Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2020715048/.

Pearson, R., Anitha, S. and McDowell, L. (2010) ‘Striking Issues: From labor process to industrial dispute at Grunwick and Gate Gourmet’, Industrial Relations Journal 41(5): 415.

Pearson, R., Anitha, S. and McDowell, L. (2010) ‘Striking Issues: From labor process to industrial dispute at Grunwick and Gate Gourmet’, Industrial Relations Journal 41(5): 420-428.

Robi, et al v. Hardaway. Manuscript. RG 104, Virginia General Court 2 May 1777. State Government Records Collection.

Salinger, S. "Labor, markets, and opportunity: Indentured servitude in early America." Labor History 38.2-3 (1997): 311-338.

Sanders, H. (2006). Indentured servitude and the abolition of prostitution in postwar Japan. USJP Occasional Paper. Cambridge, MA: Program on US-Japan Relations.

San Juan Island National Historical Park, ed., "The Opium War and The Royal Marines," National Park Service, last modified Jul 7, 2022, https://www.nps.gov/places/the-second-opium-war-and-the-royal-marines.htm.

Shefveland, Kristalyn K. Indian Enslavement in Virginia. (2020, December 07). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/indian-enslavement-in-virginia.

“The Coolie Disturbances In Trinidad.” The Times, 15th April 1885, p. 11. The Times Digital Archive, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS186042511/GDCS?u=gale&sid=GDCS&xid=deec8a96

The Economist. “India’s Diaspora Is Bigger and More Influential than Any in History.” June 12, 2023 www.economist.com/international/2023/06/12/indias-diaspora-is-bigger-and-more-influential-than-any-in-history.

Union League Club & African American Pamphlet Collection. (1865) Report of the Special Committee on the passage by the House of Representatives of the constitutional amendment for the abolition of slavery, January 31st. New York. https://www.loc.gov/item/12003495/.

United States Congress. Senate. Committee On Education and Labor & Black, H. L. (1937) Fair labor standards act ... Report. [Washington, U. S. Govt. print. Off] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/37026762/. (3-4)

United States Congress. Senate. Committee On Education and Labor & Black, H. L. (1937) Fair labor standards act ... Report. [Washington, U. S. Govt. print. Off] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/37026762/. (7-8)

Wolfe, B. Indentured Servants in Colonial Virginia. (2020, December 07). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/indentured-servants-in-colonial-virginia

Yun, L. (2008). The coolie speaks: Chinese indentured laborers and African slaves in Cuba. Temple University Press.

Published

08-31-2024

How to Cite

Jain, V. (2024). The Illusion of Freedom: Indentured Servitude’s Impact on Labor Reforms. Journal of Student Research, 13(3). https://doi.org/10.47611/jsrhs.v13i3.7354

Issue

Section

HS Research Articles