Indian Indentured Migration and the Forced Labour Debate

In: Itinerario: international journal on the history of European expansion and global interaction, Band 21, Heft 1, S. 52-61

Abstract

The migrants who left India to work on colonial sugar plantations in the nineteenth century have been variously categorised as neo-slaves or as voluntary black settlers. This paper assesses some of the recent historical claims and revisionist interpretations of Indian indentured labour and takes up a number of themes based on the Mauritian case to highlight important aspects of this colonial labour diaspora.