How the French convinced Indian workers to stay on in the Caribbean despite systemic abuse
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When the Nantes-Bordeaux steamship left Indian waters and set sail for the French Caribbean in November 1888, it carried 597 men, women and children from Calcutta, Pondicherry, and Karaikal, all hoping to escape poverty by working for a few years in Guadeloupe.
The voyage quickly turned into an ordeal. After the ship broke down near Cape Guardafui, the passengers were stranded aboard at the port of Aden for a month while repairs were carried out. During the delay, many suffered from scurvy, a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency. By the time the ship reached Guadeloupe, four infants, two women and one man had died on board. Two men, apparently frustrated by the ordeal, jumped overboard.
The difficulties they faced during the voyage, however, were only part of the story.
French colonisers in the Caribbean had begun recruiting Indian indentured workers from the Madras Presidency, Pondicherry, Karaikal and Calcutta to address severe labour shortages on sugar plantations after the abolition of slavery in 1848. Many of the workers aboard the Nantes-Bordeaux had already lived in places such as Guadeloupe and Martinique and had chosen to return to the Caribbean because life in India presented its own economic and social hardships.
Cruel conditions
By 1889, there were 15,648 Indian workers in...