The West Indies And Indentured Labour Migration -The Jamaican Experience

Abstract

This chapter describes the distinctive qualities of Jamaica's involvement with indentured labour as well as the broader ethical issues which that migration implied for the British Empire. Jamaica was an important recipient of indentured labour, but unlike British Guiana or Trinidad, it could not claim that indentured labour saved its flagging sugar industry. Jamaica was the only major Caribbean colony whose sugar exports suffered steady, steep decline in the half-century following emancipation. For analytical purposes, the history of indentured labour migration to Jamaica can be divided at the mid-1860s. From the beginning of Apprenticeship, Jamaica's planters anticipated serious, if not destructive, labour shortages upon the advent of full freedom. By mid-1841 agents from Jamaica, Trinidad, and British Guiana were actively engaged in recruiting emigrants in Freetown. In Jamaica a strict regulatory system was adopted to protect Indian immigrants. Longer experience with Indian labour tempered the Jamaicans' enthusiasm.