Colonial Emigration Nineteenth, Twentieth Centuries : Annual Reports from the Port of Calcutta to the British and Foreign Colonies, Vol. I

"In the initial stages, Indian natives were shipped to work as slaves. In the 19 century, life-terms convicts were taken to Mauritius, Australia and Ben coolies to build roads, bridges, barracks etc. for the British Government. Finally, indentured labour were sent to Mauritius from 1834 to 1839 under unregulated control, as admitted by the East India Company in their later reports. People were so poor that they must not have hesitated to change their names, castes and villages, and it is also possible that they had no surviving family members when they volunteered or were forced to emigrate to new shores. Entire villages were wiped out due to regular famines and epidemy of diseases. The Portuguese, British, French, Dutch and many others took advantage of the poverty of the Indian natives. The French took their Indian labourers from Pondicherry, Mahe, Karikal and Chandernagore; the Dutch from Bengal, from Hooghly and Chinsurah and the Danish from Srerampore in Bengal, while the Portuguese had a free hand from almost the entire coast of Western India.

The East India Company ceased to be a trading body in 1833 and the Governor General of Bengal was henceforth known as the Governor General of India. Lord Bentinck was the first Governor General of India and Bengal. It was under his rule that the first batches of indentured labourers were sent to Mauritius, from 1834.

At first, private recruiting agents were sent from Mauritius to recruit labourers. Although people from Upper Bengal, Bihar and Orissa were flocking to Calcutta for employment in John\'s Company (as the East India Company was known), it is hard to understand as to why G.C. Arbuthnot, the private agents from Mauritius, recruited 36 hill coolies, from Chota Nagpur, a belt known as Santhal Parganas, now in Jharkhand and Bihar, are till today, the most backward tribal people in India.

From 1834 to 1837, the East India Company officials paid little attention to the indentured labour emigration. It is only when much hue and cry was raised by public speeches in Calcutta and London, that the East India Company sat up, took note, declared an embargo on emigration, to Mauritius which lasted from 1838 to 1842. The Colonial Emigration Acts came on the scene in 1837 and hence proper regulation started only from 1842-43 when the embargo was lifted.

After many enquiry committee\'s reports, involving the Parliament in England, that emigration of the Indian Native changed course drastically." (jacket)