LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 17:2 February 2017
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIALS

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2016
M. S. Thirumalai

Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
11249 Oregon Circle
Bloomington, MN 55438
USA
Custom Search

Indian Indentured Servitude in Trinidad and
the Continuation of Culture

Selvi Bunce

Abstract

Indians in Trinidad have been able to maintain a strong sense of self identity due to their response to emigration into a foreign land. Indians have not only adapted to societal change via indentured servitude and the period afterwards, but they have also managed to form a culture unique to East Indians in Trinidad that is both independent and integrated in Trinidadian culture. I will demonstrate this by illustrating the situation in which the Trinidadian Indian community was born, why the Indian traditions that remain in Trinidad do remain, and how this enabled a strong retention of Indo-Trinidadian culture.

Keywords: Trinidad, indentured Indian labour, Indo-Trinidadian culture

Indentured Servitude

Trinidad has a long history with indentured servitude. As a sugar producing island, a great workforce is needed in order to produce enough sugar to be profitable. Up until 1660 indentured servitude remained more economical than slavery for plantation owners on British islands. This changed when the Dutch helped to finance the switch from tobacco and cotton plantations to more profitable sugar plantations. Since the sugar plantations required a greater work force and could not afford land to be given to former servants, Beckles states that “only after the mid-1660s, when adverse forces affected the servant market, drastically reducing supply and pushing up costs, did enslaved African labor gain a clear cost advantage over servant labor” (2011, 209). This resulted in the near eradication of white indentured servitude.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Selvi Bunce
C/o. languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com
Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.