“A Hard Strain on Imperialism”: South Asian Resistance to the British Honduras Scheme

Abstract

In the fall and winter of 1908, the Canadian government attempted to relocate South Asians living in British Columbia to British Honduras for indentured labour. Those in favour of relocation claimed that most South Asians were unemployed, were unable to survive winter, and could not adapt to Canadian society because of their religious beliefs. South Asians who opposed relocation challenged many of these claims and formed a wide network across the British Empire to foil this relocation. This study discusses the overlooked subject of the Canadian state’s attempts to remove South Asians who had already settled in the country, as well as the agency of South Asians in early-twentieth-century Canada. The documents examined throughout this article show that the British Honduras Scheme failed when South Asians could not be convinced that it served their interests and found that they possessed the necessary resources to challenge deportation.