Abstract
This paper focuses on the incarceration of East Indian indentured labourers in colonial British Guiana between 1838 and 1917. Presenting new data on the prison population and the expansion and strategic location of prison infrastructure, it argues that the criminalization of labour through contracts and ordinances led to the disproportionate incarceration of East Indian immigrants in earlier years. It also suggests this was undertaken so as to facilitate labour extraction from immigrants in response to the loss of access to free labour occasioned by the abolition of slavery.
Highlights
This paper focuses on the incarceration of East Indian indentured labourers in colonial British Guiana between 1838 and 1917
This paper focuses on the incarceration of indentured labourers between 1838 and 1917, the period between the abolition of slavery and the introduction and abolition of indentured immigration
The stringent enforcement of labour laws led to an increase in the population of incarcerated immigrants, which resulted in the construction of additional prison sites and nuances in material conditions of life in the prison (Moss, et al.) The rate of prosecution for labour offences was high in British Guiana, where between one-fifth and one-third of indentured workers faced prosecution annually (Hay and Craven, 2004)
Summary
This paper focuses on the incarceration of East Indian indentured labourers in colonial British Guiana between 1838 and 1917. Potential useful indicators of enforcement include the proportion of indentured labour prosecuted annually for breach of contract, the increase in the number of prisons and their strategic location along the sugar belt and the adjustments made to cater for incarcerated immigrants.
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