Bury the Chains?

by Liberty and Power

The book review media is right now filled with ethical comments about Adam Hochschild's new book on the British Anti-Slavery movement, Bury the Chains, including a lengthy one at HNN, reprinted from Tom's Despatch.

I made the following comment there:

"While I would not deprecate the efforts of the British Anti-Slavery movement, it is worth noting that it coincided with the rise of the contract labor movement using Indians and Chinese.

Slavery had supplanted indentured servitude of whites as better terms and costs rose. Likewise, the cost of slavery, as it rose, made contract labor more attractive.

How convenient that the economic and moral motives of those benefitting from such labor, now so nicely coincided!" The economic motives for keeping Slavery were dropping greatly.

comments powered by Disqus

More Comments:

Sudha Shenoy - 2/25/2005

1. About 78% of Indian emigration went to Ceylon, Burma & Malaya. These emigrants were all free; they left from 1843 onwards. Around 22% went to the sugar colonies._All_ were indentured labourers (except for a handful of professionals, including Gandhi.) Indentured labourers were sent first to Mauritius in 1829, & then to British Guiana in 1838. Numbers sent to the West Indies picked up from 1845 onwards, & then the numbers sent to sugar plantations in other colonies, notably Natal & Fiji. (Gandhi went to Natal.)

2. The bulk of _Chinese_ emigration was free. Around half went to the US; then came SEAsia & Australia. A small proportion consisted of indentured labour for the West Indies & the sugar plantations of South America. These were brought over after 1835.

3. It was the need for labour _after_ emancipation, which led to the import of indentured labour, overwhelmingly from India.

William Marina - 2/24/2005

Sudha,
What you say is true, but you also mention the "free" Chinese and Indians coming in along with contract/indentured ones. Were they not also a factor early on?
Bill Marina

Sudha Shenoy - 2/23/2005

1. The price of slaves in Jamaica averaged just under £77 between 1808 & 1823. In 1824-27, as emancipation loomed, the price _fell_ to just under £51, a drop of one-third. Slavery was abolished in 1833.

2. It was supposed that the ex-slaves would continue to work on the sugar plantations as wage labourers. But many - most - refused to do so. Indentured labour was brought in precisely _because_ of this refusal by ex-slaves. Indian indentured labour - the overwhelming bulk of the whole - began to be taken to the various sugar colonies (both British & French)in 1835. Mauritius was the first to bring in Indian indentured labourers, followed by the West Indies, etc. Chinese indentured labour was a fraction of Indian, & also a fraction of free Chinese emigration.

3. Thus indentured labour was an _expedient_, made necessary by the unexpected decline in labour supply to the sugar plantations. Indentured labour followed _after_ slavery was abolished.