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The abolition of slavery was the
catalyst for the arrival of the first Indian
indentured labourers into the sugar colonies of
Mauritius (1834), Guyana (1838) and Trinidad (1845),
followed some years later by the
inception of the system in South Africa (1860)
and Fiji (1879). By the time indenture was abolished in the British Empire
(1917-20), over one million Indians had been
contracted, the
overwhelming majority of whom never returned to
India. Today, an Indian indentured labour diaspora is
to be found in Commonwealth countries
including Belize, Kenya, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and the Seychelles.


Indenture, whereby individuals entered, or were coerced, into an
agreement to work in a colony in return for a fixed period of labour, was open to abuse from
recruitment to plantation. Hidden within this little-known system of
nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Indian migration under the British Empire are hitherto
neglected stories of workers who were both exploited and unfree. These include indentured histories
from Madeira to the Caribbean, from West Africa to the Caribbean, and from China to the Caribbean, Mauritius and
South Africa.







To mark the centenary of the abolition
of the system in the British Empire (2017-20) this volume brings together, for the first
time, new writing from across the Commonwealth. It is a unique attempt to
explore, through the medium of poetry and prose, the indentured heritage of the twenty-first century.