Abstract
Under systems of indenture in the Caribbean, Europeans such as Irish, Scots and Portuguese, as well as Asians, primarily Indians, Chinese and Indonesians, were recruited, often under false pretences, and transported to the ‘New World’, where they were bound to an employer and the plantation in a state of ‘interlocking incarceration’. Indentureship not only preceded, co-existed with, and survived slavery in the Caribbean, but was distinct in law and in practice from slavery. This article argues that the conditions of Caribbean indenture can be seen to be much more analogous to those represented in contemporary discussions about human trafficking and ‘modern slavery’ than those of slavery. Caribbean histories of indenture, it is proposed, can provide more appropriate conceptual tools for thinking about unfree labour today—whether state or privately sponsored—than the concept of slavery, given the parallels between this past migrant labour system in the Caribbean and those we witness and identify today as ‘modern slavery’ or human trafficking. This article thus urges a move away from the conflation of slavery and human trafficking with all forced, bonded and migrant labour, as is commonly the case, and for greater attention for historical evidence.
Highlights
K KempadooPractically, an immigrant is in the hands of the employer to whom he is bound
This article argues that the conditions of Caribbean indenture can be seen to be much more analogous to those represented in contemporary discussions about human trafficking and ‘modern slavery’ than those of slavery
While indenture was a vicious and highly exploitative system, relying on false promises to recruit workers, and confinement, abuse and violence at the site of employment, little in the narrating of Caribbean history conflates indenture and slavery, even while a rhetoric of slavery has at times been mobilised to evoke outrage and moral indignation about the conditions of indentureship
Summary
An immigrant is in the hands of the employer to whom he is bound. He cannot leave him; he cannot live without work; he can only get such work and on such terms as the employer chooses to set him; and all those necessities are enforced, by the inevitable influence of his isolated and dependent position, but by the terrors of imprisonment and the prospect of losing both labour and wages (Beaumont 1871).[1]. Given that Irish, Chinese and Indian indenture and the enslavement of Africans were important to the making of the Caribbean and have long been discussed by Caribbeanists, it seems appropriate to delve into the region’s history and scholarship to think through such questions. I propose here that the simultaneous and serial histories of slavery and indentureship in the Caribbean, alongside centuries of observations, accounts, and analyses comparing the two systems, provide us with tools for a rethinking of current discourses of human trafficking and ‘modern slavery’. I am preoccupied with questions about how histories of slavery and bound labour[4] in areas of the world such as the Caribbean can be seen as ‘parallel lives and intertwined belongings’, which produce different knowledge and understandings,[5] and which in turn could influence current thinking about human trafficking and ‘modern slavery’. It is an effort to present an alternative to those discourses on ‘modern slavery’ and human trafficking that lack a reflexivity about slavery in the past, and which currently dominate public and policy interpretations of forced and migrant labour.[6]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
