WE must never forget the SACRIFICES of our Preople who were graffed over the KALA PANI. Their SACRIFICES are PRICELESS.

God bless our foreparents.

We fought against British imperial masters and their oppressive state.

We survived an attempt by the PNC to exterminate us.

Today, many of us are worth many many millions.

We kept our distinct culture intact.

We also kept Islam and Hinduism intact despite attempts to strip us of our religious identity.

We have a stronger case that the Jews as our sufferage lasted for  much longer periods

Funny,

I was just thinking about that. 

THINK OF IT THIS WAY:

there were famines throughout Bihar and Bengal (mostly caused by greed of the Brahmin Zamindars and East India Company). UP never existed back then. Calcutta was inundated with refugees-by the hundreds of thousands. Dying was everywhere and those prolonged by the mysteries life, were mobile skeletons with just skin attached to bones.

The Demerara Slave Revolt of 1823 was put down by savagery-men heads were chopped off and stuck of poles. The news reached England. Wilberforce was determined to put an end to slavery due the savage acts of the colonist.

A decade after that, after life long struggles, African slavery was ended.

Just in time to save a few hundred thousands from the perils of India-no food, malnourishment, corrupted systems and the slavery to a caste system. 

Guyanese of India decent should reflect of the contribution and help given to them through the contact of the first group of indentured with the creoles they met in British Guiana. The creoles shared the language, the food and many more thing that evolved us into a Guyanese society. Forbes and Cheddie took it all away. And the PPP of today have no morals to even try to do a correction. 

Mr Tota like many writing history is actually embellishing it than telling it in its essence. Indians were not brought in to fill the places of freed slaves. The contemplation of their entry ( long before the end of slavery) into the colonies was a strategic move by Gladstone as a foil to Africans who once free would be seeking fair wages.

It was a potential ( and later actual) wage undercutting artifice that functioned efficiently. Note it was complimented with onerous homesteading acts and high to prevent Africans from leaving as they could have ( given Guyanese large land mass) and to under write their own dependency on the plantation.

How can apprenticeship be seen as being terminated prematurely? It was a strategy to ensure another decade of free labor. It should not have existed in the first place since slaves definitely knew how to hew and cut and fetch and carry and manage the totality of the colonial plantation. They were the only ones doing the necessary work!

You are confused as hell. The struggle of the colonized may be seen through the lens as discrtete bits but it is not a celebratory struggle by any account. It was oppressive to all involved an none can claim the be the most oppressed.

Amerinds saw their land designated tierra null and a flag was all it took to divest them of ownership. Some 50 million existed on the advent of Europeans, that are today tattered bands of culturally disintegral peoples.

Africans came, were stripped of everything, language, culture, creed...and were the sole beasts of burden for 300 years. Not even Las Cases in his famous lamentation for the destitution of the native people could matched what followed for African peoples.

What is this claim of being dispossessed like jews? That is grotesque nonsense and an insult to jews who actually were one of th most systemically persecuted people for thousands of years next to black people. Jews because of the curse of their religion and blacks because of the curse of their skin color.

How so? Vespasian drove the Jews out of Jerusalem in '73 AD and they lived on the fringe's of the know world since then. Some may say that it began some 7 centuries earlier with their slavery in Egypt and Babylon They were only able to reconstitute themselves in the last century.

I may not agree with how they did it but I disagree with you that you share even marginally, the magnitude of their oppression across time.

The Guyana Chronicle Editorial page states that "ARRIVAL Day has now become a calendar event and a national holiday in Guyana. It is celebrated annually on May 5 to commemorate the arrival of indentured immigrants of all races in the country. This is incorrect.

 The First Lady, Mrs. Deolatchmee Ramotar  says "On the 5th of May each year, a public holiday, we commemorate the arrival of the many peoples who came to our shores." This is not true.

We must always remember, and never be ashamed of it, to say that  today(May 5, 2014) commemorates the 176th Anniversary of the arrival of East Indian indentured immigrants in Guyana, the former colony of British Guiana. We should call this day for what it is "INDIAN ARRIVAL DAY".

Happy Indian Arrival Day Everyone.

Really? You have to pretend to be victim? Let me say I am greatful that my ancestors left that caste hell hole Bahir UP where 50% of the people defecate in public. Happy Arrival Day!

Yep! So you can get to drink rum and disgrace the Hindus. 

Look on the bright side, because of them yuh get Uncle Nehru visiting you every night. Butta Bing Butta bang Butta fookooo.

Such is the display of brilliance from the rank of fools!

Same thing I say. You did not progress since Bahir UP time. 

Today is a holiday in Guyana to commemorate the Dalits that left India to Guyana. Stormborn can cuss all he want, we even get a day of remembrance. We like cockroach, we don't disappear that easy for a kanta Buckman. har, har, har de har, har.

YUh on FIRE Bhai.

we have lots of people on this site should say happy collie day not indian arrival day after all the hard work their forefathers did for them to steal and to help encourage thiefing,a bunch of low life collie 

Did you distill from all I wrote that it was "cussing"! Indeed the warnings that one not argue with fools least they drag you down and bludgeon you with their ignorance is indeed wisdom.

By definition, dalits cannot exist in Guyana, physically that is. The Raison d'être for the term, casteism and its contingent protocols for untouchability, does not exist!

It can and does exist in the mind when one acts as they are still in caste conscious India. Could it be why you see buck people and not native peoples? To each its mental burdens if that is what they must have!

when u broadcast nonsense like this I have to wonder about your fitness to be a "community leader"

smFh

Stormborn,

I guess not all can handle facts, especially if it does not support a specific  position.

But we must all remember the sacrifice, struggle and resistance of our Indian ancestors

and its being shit upon now by the ppp,no more honor   

Please clarify who cannot stand to handle facts. I am clear in my statements ( I wrote many sentences to that effect) that the burden of colonialism is one shared by all and if differentially, by context and not by attributing a status of the most horrible of the lot. How can one say slaves did not have it bad? Are we to say the dispossession of native peoples and their subsequent enslavement and genocidal domination was not horrible? I am also not one to play down indenturesbip. It was denigration of a terrible category but we are all here today. We are all struggling for a place in a shared state. We cannot use our histories as a club against others in the kingdom of colonial attrition.  We need to capitalize on our collective strengths and that is grounded in our common humanity

How about the half breed Indo Guyanese Jews?

This is the entire story written by Mr Tota Mangar

Home > Features > EAST INDIAN IMMIGRATION (1838-1917)

Indians, by dint of much hard work and thrift, saved and emerged out of the abyss of misery to carve a new and prosperous destiny for their descendants

EAST INDIAN IMMIGRATION (1838-1917)

TODAY (May 5, 2014) commemorates the 176th Anniversary of the arrival of East Indian indentured immigrants in Guyana, the former colony of British Guiana. For over three-quarters of a century (1838-1917), Indian indentured labourers were imported from the sub-continent of India to the West Indian colonies, ostensibly to fill the void created as a result of the mass exodus of ex-slaves from plantation labour following the abolition of the despicable system of slavery, and moreso the premature termination of the apprenticeship scheme in 1838.

Mr Tota Mangar, one of Guyana’s leading historians

This influx into the Caribbean in the post-emancipation period of the 19th and early 20th Centuries was only one segment of a wider movement of Indian labourers to other parts of the world, including Mauritius, Ceylon, Fiji, the Strait Settlements, Natal and other parts of the African continent.

Overall, where the English-speaking Caribbean is concerned, substantial numbers of indentured Indians were imported. Based on statistical evidence, Guyana was the recipient of 238,909 East Indian immigrants up to the termination of the system in 1917; Trinidad 143,939; Jamaica 36,412; Grenada 3,033; St. Vincent 2,472; St. Lucia 4,354; and St. Kitts 337. In addition, the non-English speaking Caribbean also imported Indian Indentured labourers. Of the French colonies (now Overseas Departments), Martinique received 25,509; Guadeloupe 45,844; and French Guiana 19,276. Neighbouring Suriname, while under Dutch rule, imported a total of 35, 501 immigrants.

In the main, the system of Indentureship could be characterized as one of “struggle, sacrifice and resistance” where the Indian immigrants are concerned. The system itself was closely linked to slavery. British historian, Hugh Tinker, who did extensive work on East Indian Labour Overseas, describes it as a “New System of Slavery”.

Following the abolition of slavery in 1834, and the termination of the apprenticeship system in 1838, a state of fear, uncertainty and gloom was uppermost in the minds of the then British Guianese planters. They were very conscious that a grave labour shortage on the estates would certainly mean economic disaster to themselves and the sugar industry in general.

The mass exodus of ex-slaves from the plantations during this crucial period of ‘crisis, experimentation and change’ merely served to confirm planters’ fear and uneasiness. This movement was not entirely surprising, as several decades of slavery had resulted in the plantation being seen as the symbol of dehumanization, degradation and demoralization, and the victims, quite naturally wanted to rid themselves of white planter class, social, cultural and political domination, and to assert their economic independence. With great enthusiasm and in the face of tremendous odds they started the village movement and peasantry in the immediate post-emancipation era.

The importation of indentured labourers from the Indian sub-continent was part of the continuing search for a reliable labour force to meet the needs of the powerful plantocracy.

THE GLADSTONE EXPERIMENT
In the case of Guyana, East Indian immigrants had its origin in the ‘Gladstone Experiment’. John Gladstone, the father of British statesman, William Gladstone, was the owner of two West Demerara plantations, Vreed-en-Hoop and Vreed-en-Stein, at this juncture of the country’s history.

Our forefathers of yesteryear have certainly been inspirational in the furtherance of national development through their grit and determination. Clearly ‘Struggle, Sacrifice and Resistance’ were ‘part and parcel’ of the Indian immigrant psyche during the neo-slavery system of indentureship, 1838-1917.

As a result of the acute labour problem, Gladstone wrote the Calcutta recruiting firm, Gillanders, Arbuthnot and Company inquiring about the possibility of obtaining Indian immigrants for his estates. The firm’s prompt reply was that it envisaged no recruiting problems and that Indians were already in service in another British colony, Mauritius.

Subsequently, Gladstone obtained permission for his scheme from both the Colonial Office and the Board of Control of the East India Company. The first batches of Indian indentured labourers arrived in Guyana on board the steamships ‘Whitby’ and ‘Hesperus’ in May 1838, and these first arrivals were on a five-year contract. This initial experimentation was not confined to Gladstone’s two estates but it involved plantations Highbury and Waterloo in Berbice, Belle View, West Bank Demerara and Anna Regina on the Essequibo Coast as well.

This immigration scheme, involving Indian immigrants, commenced in 1838 with a temporary halt from July 1839 to 1845, after which it continued virtually uninterrupted to 1917 during which time 238, 909 immigrants landed in Guyana. Of this figure 75,547 returned to the land of their birth while the remainder who survived the system chose to remain here and make this country their homeland.

In the main, the system of Indentureship could be characterized as one of “struggle, sacrifice and resistance” where the Indian immigrants are concerned. The system itself was closely linked to slavery. British historian, Hugh Tinker, who did extensive work on East Indian Labour Overseas, describes it as a “New System of Slavery”.

Anthony Trallope, who visited the Caribbean in the 1850s, viewed it as “A depotism
tempered with sugar”. Chief Justice in the second half of the Nineteenth Century, Charles Beaumont, aptly describes it as “a rotten, monstrous system rooted in slavery.”

The late distinguished Guyanese historian, Dr. Walter Rodney highlighted the harshness of the Indentureship system and its “neo-slave nature”. Another Guyanese historian, Dr. Basdeo Mangru argues that slavery and indenture showed remarkable similarities in terms of control, exploitation and degradation. In any event it is reasonable to conclude that the very nature of the Indentureship system that prevailed, lent itself to struggle, sacrifice and resistance on the part of the indentured labourers.

INDENTURESHIP
From the very inception, the system was plagued with controversy. True enough there were strong “push” factors which motivated the people to leave their homeland such as high levels of unemployment, chronic poverty, indebtedness and even famine and at the same time many were disposed to respond to promises of better times and what they perceived as “greener pastures”.

Even so, professional recruiting agents, the arkatis’ in North India, and the ‘maistris’ in South India, resorted largely to deception and coercion to get supplies. Many were lured by way of glowing promises, and were assured of lucrative employment and enriched opportunities. Recruiters exploited their ignorance and simplicity, and some were hoodwinked, cajoled and lured to leave their homes under false pretences while some were even kidnapped. Indeed, fraud, deceit and coercion permeated the whole recruiting system between 1838 and 1917.

Against tremendous odds, the immigrants struggled for their very survival on board ship. Overcrowding of the emigrant ships, inadequate food, lack of fresh water, water-borne diseases such as cholera, dysentery and diarrhoea, and the long and arduous voyage, made life unbearable.

In many instances, the consequence was a high mortality rate to as much as 20 to 30 percent. Immigrants consoled themselves through singing, drumming and story telling, and of greater significance was the lasting friendship that developed among the ‘jehazis’ or shipmates.

In the colony indentured labourers had to endure the critical period of ‘seasoning’ or adjusting to their new environment. This is itself was no easy task, and some found themselves introduced to plantation labour very quickly after their arrival.

On the estates, the indentured labourers experienced the harshness of the system. It was obvious that the powerful plantocracy had effective control of the immigrant labour force. An important aspect of this control was the contract under which the immigrant was recruited. While it stipulated the obligation of the labourer and the employer, the labour laws weighted heavily against the former. As in the case of the slave laws, the plantocracy benefited immensely under the contract laws. After all, the implementation of the laws and the period of industrial residence were taking place thousands of miles from the labourer’s homeland, in a social and political environment dominated by the employer.

It was not surprising, therefore, that the laws were easily varied, and very often abused by the plantocracy to suit their ‘whims and fancies’. Of added significance was the fact that some Immigration Agent-Generals and Stipendiary Magistrates tended to side with the planter class. As a result cases of intimidation, assault and battery were often covered up.

Moreover, court trials were subjected to abuse and were, in many instances, reduced to a farce as official Interpreters aligned with the plantocracy while the labourers had little opportunity of defending themselves.

LABOUR WOES
Throughout the period of Indentureship, immigrants were faced with meagre wage rates and unrealistic task work. Weekly earnings depended on the number of tasks, the nature of the tasks, whether it was weeding, shoveling, manuring, planting or harvesting and the speed with which they were completed. In any event, it was the employer who invariably determined the wage rate and whenever there was a fall in sugar prices immigrants found their earnings minimized.

One immigration agent was baffled to know how immigrants at Plantation Bel Air existed, due to insufficient earnings to support life, while Coljar, a spokesman for immigrants, was quoted in October, 1869 as saying: “Times are hard. We cannot live on the wages we are getting: our stomachs are not being filled.”

Indian indentured labourers experienced a persistent problem surrounding the “muster roll”, which was held every morning. Non-attendance meant the penalty of a fine, which was arbitrarily deducted from their wages. The pressure of getting into the fields early in order to complete unrealistic tasks at the expense of missing the muster roll, was very great. On the other hand, if he attended the muster roll and failed to complete the day’s task, the end result was the same arbitrary deduction of wages. In effect the labourer had little choice. One way or the other, he was penalized.

The Indian immigrant often went before the courts as victims of the labour laws and the legal system in general. The planter had at his disposal several instruments of prosecution. He could prosecute for refusal to commence work, or work left unfinished, absenteeism without authority, disorderly or threatening behaviour, or even neglect. Punishment resulted in fines or imprisonment.

Moreover, an immigrant imprisoned for misconduct could have his indenture extended to include the period in jail. This meant the immigrant was effectively punished twice for the same offence. At the same time convictions of immigrants were inordinately high. Charges could be made on mere orders of managers, and for even trivialities. In 1863 for example of the 4,936 prisoners who were in the Georgetown jail, 3,148 were indentured labourers.

Moreover, The Annual Report of the Immigration Agent-Generals for 1874-1894 showed an alarmingly high figure of 65,084 convictions of immigrants for breaches of the labour contract. This development reinforced the fact that the indentured labourer was far from docile. He was struggling, sacrificing and resisting. The numerous instances of cases under the labour contract were ample proof of his restlessness and non-compliance with a harsh and oppressive system.

Throughout the period of indentureship, the immigrant suffered from a paucity of social amenities. The tenement ranges or “logies” were small and unventilated, potable water was virtually non-existent, and medical facilities and sanitation were poor. As a consequence outbreaks of diseases tended to assume epidemic proportions.

RESTRICTION OF MOVEMENT
Through vagrancy laws, immigrants had their movement restricted. This was an integral part of planter’s strategy to localize labour and to place restraints on workers’ liberty. The labourer had to get a ‘pass’ signed by the estate manager if he wanted to leave the estate of residence. This pass system exposed the labourer to indignity at the hands of colonial police who were empowered to apprehend him without a ‘pass’. Managers used it as an effective control device and also as a means of preventing workers from making comparisons of wage levels at different estates. The fear was that such knowledge could easily lead to discontent and desertion.

It was because of their powers of control over the indentured labourer that planters became increasingly arrogant. Some repeatedly and openly boasted that the labourers on their estates should be “at work, or in hospital or in goal” – during working hours, such was their attitude. One Demerara planter publicly stated, “give me my heart’s desires in Coolies and I will make you a million hogsheads of sugar”.

It was not surprising, therefore, that from the 1860s onwards, the myth of Indian docility was to be seriously challenged. Indian indentured labourers began to openly defy the system. As a consequence there was a steady deterioration of industrial relations, increasing working class protests and imperial investigation. “Struggle, Sacrifice and Resistance”manifested in numerous labour unrests.
Violent eruptions were occasioned by many specific and localized grievances, such as overbearing behaviour of managers, wage rate disputes, disagreement over tasks, sexual exploitation of women by overseers and the arbitrary deduction of wages of labourers.

UNREST
The first such disturbance took place at Plantation Leonora, West Coast Demerara in July 1869. The shovel gang complained that wages were withheld because they could not complete a job on waterlogged soil. They also demanded extra pay to do the job. A confrontation between armed police and the labourers was narrowly avoided, but the ringleaders were arrested, convicted and incarcerated at the penal settlement, Mazaruni. The following year violence erupted at Plantations Hague, Zeelugt, Vergenoegen, Uitulugt, Success and Non Pariel.

Another major disturbance took place at Plantation Devonshire Castle in 1872. The root cause of this uprising was widespread dissatisfaction with the allocation of tasks, prices offered, long hours of work, unilateral pay deductions from labourers, wages and general ill-treatment and abuse. This time there was confrontation with colonial police who opened fire and five labourers lost their lives while some were seriously injured.

Riots and disturbances continued with regularity in the 1890s and in the early years of the twentieth century. Four years before the termination of the Immigration scheme, several labourers from plantation Rose Hall lost their lives during a strike and disturbance.

Indeed, towards the end of the indentureship system, labour protest had assumed various forms including work stoppage, mass picketings, violent demonstrations, marching to the Immigration Department, assaults on managers and overseers, coupled with passive resistance such as feigning illness, malingering and deliberately performing poor work.

Indentured labourers also struggled and made tremendous sacrifice in other areas, as for example in the face of an often harsh and oppressive environment, they persisted with their religious and cultural practices. From the late 19th Century, temples and mosques began to dot the coastal landscape and their traditional languages, music, dress, food and folklore were made to prevail. In the face of language barriers, they adjusted to the needs of a Western education in order to enhance their upward social mobility. In the long run they, and their descendants, emerged in the professions to become teachers, headmasters, doctors, lawyers, accountants and civil servants.

They toiled unceasingly to ensure the survival of the sugar industry and the emergence of the rice industry. They contributed significantly in the areas of village development, cash crop cultivation, cattle-rearing, milk selling and other economic activities during the period of indentureship. From the late nineteenth century Indian immigrants displayed a high occupation profile in several off-plantation economic activities including cab- drivers, bankers, tailors, carpenters, boat-builders, charcoal makers, goldsmiths, porters, small scale manufacturers and fishermen.

In recent times their descendents have made, and continue to make tremendous strides in the social, economic cultural, education, political and trade union fields. Many of them are today leading sports personalities, entrepreneurs, educationists, politicians and trade unionists in their own right. Indeed, descendants of immigrants are actively engaged in every facet of life in Guyanese society of today.

Our forefathers of yesteryear have certainly been inspirational in the furtherance of national development through their grit and determination. Clearly ‘Struggle, Sacrifice and Resistance’ were ‘part and parcel’ of the Indian immigrant psyche during the neo-slavery system of indentureship, 1838-1917. They and their descendants have survived largely through their resilience, persistence, custom, tradition and commitment to family which invariably promotes thrift, industry and self-esteem. Let us show a greater sense of purpose and maturity and exercise more mutual respect, tolerance, appreciation and understanding of each other as we commemorate Arrival Day, May 5th. Let us remember there is strength in Diversity. Let us give true meaning to our Motto of ‘One People, One Nation, One Destiny’.

A HAPPY 176TH ANNIVERSARY OF INDIAN ARRIVAL IN GUYANA TO ONE & ALL

(By Tota C. Mangar)

Is what deh rass yuh callin D2 now.

I stand by what I said.  The Gladstone letter was a contingency strategy and not to address the potential abandonment of the plantations as he  envisioned he will have labor problems from the point of view of Africans having an edge in labor costs as they were the only available work pool . It was written before the end of the apprentice period.

what would that have to do with me? I think you need to ask Joey and Nadira since they would have real life experience. I never had anyone calling me a half-jew. Not that I would mind if I were.

I do not deny that there may be an Ashkenazi gene or two in out bloodline given the Ashkenazi came to the region and mixed with the natives earlier than even British. Many of our native peopls have Ashkenazi last names.

My grandmother's is yakobi ( spelt at times Jacobis). I do not know how she got it and that is still a mystery. However, since the Jews came and the natives met them and the natives soon had their last names, it stand to reason  we have some Jewish blood in the blood line.

Seems as though your are also a historian.

Please stay in touch with me via email VMahadeo@RichmondHillEDC.org

my interaction with others off the site is never a consequence of being on the site. If we meet in real life we will talk. 

I was not referring to D2. Perhaps he has Jewish genes. Since there was an interaction of visiting Jews with the locals. I was referring to the Jagan clan.  How do you think they see themselves  as part of this mosaic re the arrival of Indentured labour?

Islam is an imported religion nuch like Christianity, and because of Hinduism, many of you all were low caste in India, and Guyana rescued you from such a fate.

Like you took a page from stormborn book?

Iheard your birth name was Mukundu but constant ass whipping from the Whitman followed by " Your name is Stanley" cause you to believe your name is stanley.

And as proof of that Indians were taken to islands like Jamaica, Guadeloupe, Martinique, St Lucia, St Vincent, and Grenada where there is no where in hell that any one could have argued that there was ample labor.

The intent was to have  a fragmented labor force to prevent the workers from mobilizing to improve their conditions.  Contrary to the lies that are peddled the Africans in Guyana didnt abandon the estates after they were freed.  It was that both the former slaves and the former slave masters wished them off the plantations.  The former slavesd because they didnt want to be 100% dependent on their former slave masters, and the former slave masters, because they didnt want to "burden" of supporting excess labor outside of the cane cutting season(s).

In BG the 1842 strike put the planters on notice that the former slaves were able to mobilize to advance their interests.  That having been said the former slaves were also quite willing to defer their wages on certain estates hit by hardship, and there was even an estate on the Essequibo Coast where they even LOANED the estate money to ensure its survival.

The importation of foreign labor (first West Indian immigrants and indentures from Sierra Leone, Portugual, China and some from India) were used as scab workers against the local blacks.  When indentures from Africa dried up, Chinese and Portuguese were unsuitable workers, and the West Indians  either returned home frequently, or assimilated into the local Creole population, India became a favored source, thus where most of the indentures were derived from.

The bulk of the Indian immigration occurred in the 1860s, many years after slavery ended, and the industry in BG was alive and well.  So the notion that Indians "saved" sugar is a myth, often with racist connotations of the "lazy black man".  Indeed Jamaica had a LARGER sugar industry until around the 1960s!

Of course you are always determined to show how illiterate, impoverished and racist you are.

Feel free to continue.

So what if we serve to educate you.  Islam was NOT an Indian religion.  Indeed the invaders who brought it were not always so kind to the native peoples who they found in India.

Of course the existence of caste to the 21st century and the fact that tehg British did their best to keep people from the higher castes from migrating always tells you that you are from one of the LOWER castes.  Again the treatment which you ancestors recived in India, before departure, wasn't kind.

The Chronicle editorial is correct. On a national level in Guyana, the holiday is Arrival Day because it celebrates the arrival of other groups as well as Indians. In that respect, the First Lady is also correct. If you choose to celebrate the arrival of Indians only, that is okay for your purposes but it is not the official policy of the state.