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As has been mentioned previously, the
governments of Asian countries, however colonised or
influenced by European or American powers, could and did
take action to resist the worst abuses of the indentured
labour system by restricting further emigration of their
citizens and by acting to regulate further labour movement.
China, for example, initiated a more assertive foreign
policy in the 1870s, which included greater regulation of
emigration and the eventual abolition of indentured labour
in order to restore its national honour abroad. India had
stopped the emigration of indentured labourers to French
plantation colonies as early as the 1880s because of abuses
in the system, but it was not until the first decades of the
twentieth century that conditions within India, such as the
rise of Indian nationalism, made the complete end of
indentured labour under British rule a reality.
In spite of the many efforts at subjugation and discrimination, indentured workers were not powerless victims and had several methods of resistance open to them. A worker could refuse to sign the initial contract of indenture, or could return home once the conditions of his or her employment were explained. It is true, however, that in some cases abuses in the system and the large numbers of recruits needed often led recruiters to mislead recruits and to recruits signing contracts of labour without being fully aware of the repercussions. As was the case in the slave trade, shipboard revolts were not uncommon occurrences. The Chinese word for coolie ships translates into “floating hells”, and poor conditions often prompted violent response. Although the ships carrying indentured migrants had a generally good safety record, that safety could be compromised as a result of on-board rebellion. In October of 1858, for example, a mutiny of 850 Chinese passengers on the Flora Temple caused the ship to run onto a reef and all the Chinese workers who had been locked below deck to quell the uprising were drowned. Ships in the first decades of the indentured trade to China were commonly fitted out like slave ships with “iron gratings over hatchways, walls between crew and coolie quarters, armed guards, [and] cannons trained on hatchways". One historian catalogued 68 uprisings out of 736 voyages from China. As the trade became more regulated, shipboard conditions improved, and the abuses which caused workers to be deceived or kidnapped lessened, the instances of rebellion likewise dropped in number. Voyages from India were more uniformly governed as there was only one carrier, Britain. Indian protests on board ship were generally isolated and “not very ominous”, most likely because these individuals were generally better informed and, therefore, more resigned to their conditions. Once arrived at their destinations and set to work, resistance to the abuses of the system of indenture could be achieved in spite of repression by planters and overseers. Although many Asian workers accepted certain conditions of indenture as inevitable, such as the loss of status and the acceptance of lower pay, those wages that they did receive were fiercely protected, as money was often the only reason they had agreed to engage in a term of overseas employment. Although commonly-held stereotypes such as the Indians’ docility and capacity to endure suffering were prevalent amongst European planters, violence was not uncommon. Acts of revenge against a worker’s employer or his tools or animals was a common form of resistance, but sabotage could, and did, erupt into larger-scale resistance. Unlike the revolts of slaves, which could affect large numbers of slaves and could involve several plantations, the revolts of indentured workers had slightly different characteristics. Generally speaking, the uprisings of indentured workers were short-lived, and were usually small in scale and did not spread to other plantations, revealing the effectiveness of isolation, harsh plantation discipline, and hierarchical structures. Although similar conditions had existed under slavery, perhaps the fact that these workers had, for the most part, willingly signed contracts of labour, and felt that they lacked the leverage or justification for complaint, prevented the large-scale rebellions experienced during the era of slavery. Those revolts that did occur were often the result of workers having their existing conditions reduced in some way, such as reduced wages or direct assault of a co-worker, and did not occur in support of demands for new gains. Any protest, regardless of the underlying reason, was put down severely by plantation owners. Even if the workers were granted some or all of their demands, which was the case only through the intervention of the Immigration Department, the ringleaders would still be singled out for punishment. One of the problems preventing more effective protests was the fact that many of the work leaders, or “drivers”, were older individuals who often had a personal stake in the advantages offered them by the system. The largest plantation revolt occurred in 1913 in Demerara, later Jamaica, at the plantation known as Rose Hall. Although the conflict was ruled to be the result of broken faith and repeated failures by the manager to explain himself to his workers, when trouble began it was the Indians who were held responsible. The workers protested on their being denied the four days holiday which had been promised them at the end of the “grinding season” by refusing to go to work the next day. Although they returned to work the day after, seven of the leaders of the rebellion were summoned to court. When the police inspector tried to transfer five of the leaders, a complete stoppage of work ensued, with the indentured workers preventing those who were free from working as well. When the Inspector General arrived with a contingent to make arrests, an angry mob gathered, and a Corporal attempting to make an arrest was killed. The order to fire was given, resulting in fifteen Indians killed and another forty wounded. The revolt, though suppressed, demonstrated the potential for solidarity of indentured estate workers, potential which was especially visible in the Caribbean as well as in Fiji, in the South Pacific, and Natal, Africa. In the latter region, the efforts of Mohandras Gandhi, then a young lawyer, were instrumental in drawing attention to the oppression and exploitation suffered by Indian labourers there. Generally, the organisation and success of revolts and strikes improved with the ending of indenture, when workers became more informed of their rights and began organising the first trade unions in the 1930s. Working-class Africans in Jamaica responded to oppression and ill treatment, not with further violence, but, after a series of protests in 1859, with a spiritual and moral regeneration movement, known as the “Great Revival”. Even unindentured labourers in North America were not entirely powerless to act against the hardships which many of them continually faced. Chinese labourers on the Continental Railroad, for example, walked off the job on June 24, 1867 in demand of better working conditions. Acts of violence against Asian businesses were not uncommon as nativism increased and European immigrants, dissatisfied with big business and capitalism, turned on Asians as scapegoats. Asians, however, were not passive victims of white violence. An 1877 letter written by the Six Chinese Company to the mayor of San Francisco read "...should a riotous attack be made upon the Chinese quarter, we should have neither the power nor disposition to restrain our country men from defending themselves...". Usually, though, Chinese resistance in North America took the form of either hiring prominent white attorneys to fight unfair measures in court, or non-violent protest involving large numbers of individuals being sent to jail rather than pay fines, which caused the municipalities greater expense in processing the detainees.
Although there had been voices raised against the use of indentured servitude as a viable system of labour since its inception in the 1830s, opposition did not grow powerful enough to completely end the system until the twentieth century. The push to end indentured servitude was linked very closely to the anti-slavery campaigns from earlier in the nineteenth century, which expanded and grew to seek the abolition of all forced labour practices around the world. The movement stressed both the inhumanity of the system as well as the fact that free labour would be more efficient and more economic for employers. The attack on indentured servitude was also affected by changing perceptions and judgements on the definition of free and unfree labour. As early as the 1850s, for example, the United States, especially the non-slave states in the north, came to view indentured servitude or peonage as equivalent to slavery itself, and the Anti-Peonage Act of 1867 prohibited “voluntary or involuntary servitude” to all of the United States, and was extended to Hawaii when the islands were annexed in 1900. The Cadbury Chocolate company of England drew attention to the abuses of indenture when it boycotted cocoa produced by African labour from the Portuguese-held colony of Angola to São Tomé, and further importation of contract labour to the island was halted in 1909. Ironically, part of the reason behind the ending of the practice of indentured labour had more to do with overtly racist and expansionist ideologies than humanitarian concern. Because those who had completed their term of indenture sometimes opted to remain in the colonies and set up for themselves, they often came into competition with white labourers and businessmen, competition that increased as the numbers of emigrants from Europe increased. Idealism and racism often mixed in the policies restricting further Asian immigration. An 1892 manifesto, for example, maintained that one of the reasons that indentured labour should not be used was that the “permanent existence of a large servile population amongst us, not admitted to the franchise, is not compatible with the continuance of our free political institutions”. Asians also began to be excluded from certain occupations in an effort to prevent their further immigration, such as was the case when Pacific Islanders were banned from gaining employment in the any occupation but the sugar industry in 1880, and by 1884 were excluded from all skilled positions in Queensland, following the example of Natal’s exclusionist policies. Although actual indenture was not an issue in North America, previously mentioned exclusionist laws and attitudes were closely related to this type of ideology. Another factor encouraging the phasing out of indentured labour was the concern that governments would have to cover the expenses for indentured labourers wishing to return to their homelands after their term had expired, due to the increasing instability of certain colonial economies, such as Jamaica, whose sugar economy was faltering. British women’s groups in Britain found themselves In a position similar to that experienced during the movements for the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and they once more played a significant role in voicing moral protest, specifically against the Indian system, which was the largest system of indenture in place.
By in large, it was not the recruiters or those recruited that caused the abolition of indentured labour, nor indeed was it primarily in the hands of the British Indian government nor the receiving colonies. The momentum behind the abolition of the system was found in the Indian nationals. Their position was strengthened by the weakened position of the British imperial government during World War One, who could no longer rely as heavily on military reinforcements from London. Nationalist and anti-indenture sentiment was most popular with the Indian bourgeoisie, however itinerant sages, such as Swami Satyadev, were teaching opposition to indenture at a more local level, and popular feeling against indenture in India was growing to a point where British authorities realised that “all the government can do is to see that it does not vent itself in illegal channels”. It was not until 1914 that the Viceroy of India, Lord Hardinge, condemned indentured Indian labour as inherently bad, and brought the government of India to the same level as popular opinion. Indian members of the Legislative Council of India told the colonial government that any new system of emigration to replace indentured labour would be equally untenable, in spite of protests from West Indian planters. An Indian member of the council noted that “even the most humane planter does not succeed in lifting his Asiatic employee in the social and moral scale. So long as such a view continues to be entertained by the European planters, no Indian who has any regard for the moral well-being of his fellowmen can possibly contemplate with equanimity a continuation of such a system of service”. During January and February 1917 Ghandi spoke out against indenture more than a dozen times, pushing for a definite commitment from the governments involved to end the system by May 31st of that year. C.F. Andrews, who had worked with Ghandi in his South African campaign, also denounced the evils of indenture, stressing its immorality where Ghandi increasingly emphasised the economic exploitation and racism inherent in indenture. He noted: “if the badge of inferiority is always to be worn by them ...[Indian labourers]... any material advantage they will gain by emigrating can therefore be of no consideration.”. The response from India was clear, and efforts by British politicians to mitigate the abolition of the trade by suggesting other possibilities were refused. On the 21st of September, 1917, a dispatch from the Secretary of State Edwin Montagu stated that “indentured emigration, temporarily prohibited on account of urgent military needs, cannot be resumed.” The dispatch did, however, endorse a system of permanent settlement for labourers, and a six month “probation period” only after which freed labourers would be allowed to move, qualifications which were met with little enthusiasm either in India or Britain. The government of India did allow the continuation of the trade in Ceylon and Malaya, “owing to Imperial considerations”. Although indenture had been officially ended in 1917, many Indians still remained bound by indenture in sugar colonies, which was unacceptable to the Indian public. As well, there were pressures on the British government to find a system with which to replace indenture and so answer the need of planters for workers. Although certain colonies were reluctant to end indenture, such as was the case in Fiji, other colonies, such as British Guiana, moved much more quickly to abolish indenture. They ended all outstanding indentures in December of 1919, whereas trying to finally clear up the entire system in Fiji was much more problematic, and anyone in authority over Indians in Fiji was regarded with animosity in India. Although the Fijian government had abolished indenture by January of 1920, problems with repatriation of labourers resulted in strikes in the Fijian sugar industry and other economic problems, which made free repatriation for the government difficult. |
Interestingly, the
end of indentured labour from India was actually decided,
not due to public opinion in England, although it played a
part, but in India, with the major players being either
Indian themselves or Indo-British politicians. The two most
significant figures involved in ensuring that the plight of
indentured workers came to public attention were the British
Viceroy, 
