Did Indian indentures depress ex-slave wages?

Dear Editor,
As Africans celebrate emancipation from slavery and Indians commemorated the abolition of indentured servitude in March, the often repeated claim that Indian indentures were responsible for the low wages paid to freed slaves is not supported by research. Historians claim that the depressed wages issue sparked the ongoing racial rift between the Africans and Indians. (There was also racial animosity and violence between the Africans, the Portuguese and Chinese). It was recorded that more Africans than Indians came to Guyana and the Caribbean during the early period of indentureship. The bulk of Indians came after the 1860s, whereas the bulk of indentured labourers that came between 1834 and 1864 were Africans. Thus Indian labourers could not be the cause for the depressed wages for any group. But this myth was spread to create friction between Indians and the freed slaves to shift their attention away from their exploitation by the plantocracy.
The research findings regarding the social and economic ramifications of freed Africans and indentured labourers from Europe, Africa, West Indies and Asia, put the traditional interpretation (from Dr Walter Rodney, Eric Williams, and other African scholars) of depressed wages of the post-slavery period into question. It is not as yet possible to arrive at definitive conclusions on the role of indentureship on wages, as the relevant data regarding general income levels, as well as other aspects of the socio-economic life of ex-slaves have not yet been fully unearthed. But general data about the number of freed slaves who remained on the plantations, as well as the number of indentured labourers who came from West Indian islands, Africa, Brazil, Portugal and China discredits the old argument that Indians were responsible for “depressed wages” and attendant social problems experienced by the ex-slaves. It was pointed out that once the freedmen moved away from the plantations, much data was not kept on them.
What was clear, when slavery ended, the freed slaves went into factories, the civil service, accounting and book keeping for the former slave owners – positions where Indians were not qualified until the 20th century, some 65 years after slavery was abolished. The freed Africans also served as translators (between Indians and plantation managers, as Africans had increasingly learned Hindustani and the Indian culture), guards, Police, enforcers of the indentured contract, etc – jobs where there was no competition from indentured Indians. The job of disciplining and punishing the indentured labourers who violated the contract largely fell on the freed Africans who acted as enforcers. Thus, the presence of Indian labourers could not have significantly influenced the wages of Africans as there was no serious competition for the kind of labour desired by the planters.
Also, the apprenticeship period, following the Abolition Act of 1833, allowed Africans to bargain for wages after performing the mandatory hours of free labour. And the slaves were free to engage in pecuniary activities (and many in fact did by engaging in independent farming) outside of mandatory slave labour or working for their masters for pay – with wages agreed upon by employer and employee. After 1838 with “full freedom”, the ex-slaves were free to select among those employers paying the highest wages. The freed men could bargain for their wages and this happened before the introduction of indentured labourers. The going wages were largely set by the time the indentured labourers came, and even if the salary contract of indentured labourers influenced wages, it would not have been the Indians since they came after the Europeans and African indentures.
Also, it is on record that most of the ex-slaves opted not to work on the plantations, leaving for more lucrative positions or engaging in self-employment (including working on their own farms). They largely evaded plantation work under the old “massa”, and they were guided by the prevailing slogan at the time of “massa days were done”, thus not very attracted to being wage earners on the plantations. “Rising wages did not reverse the flight from the plantations,” (David Northrup, Indentured Labour in the Age of Imperialism, 1834–1922).
At any rate, the number of Indians who arrived in British Guiana in 1838 would not have impacted on wage rate; only a few hundred came to work on the plantations at a time when the demand for was for tens of thousands of estate labourers.
The demand for labour outstripped the supply from the former slave population. The labour scheme from India was suspended after the early ships arrived because of abuse faced by the indentured labourers. It resumed around 1842 and then suspended again for rights abuses and violations of the contract after a few more hundreds came.
Large scale arrival of Indians did not occur until after 1862, and by this time, most freed men had left the plantations or passed on and not available for work on plantation. Indians had to fill the void.
It should be noted that by the time the large Indian presence was registered in the colonies, British Guiana included, large numbers of indentured or free labourers (in the tens of thousands) arrived from other West Indian colonies, Portugal, Africa, Brazil, China. So if anything, these non-Indian indentures would have affected the bargaining power of wages of the ex-slaves with the White plantation management. But it is not clear that the non-Indian indentures significantly altered the bargaining power of the freed men since the ex-slaves “abandoned” plantation life.

It was noted that after emancipation, “the labour costs of Caribbean plantations reached a level at which it became attractive for the planters to hire labourers. Planters were willing to pay high prices for former slaves and migrant labourers brought in from elsewhere in the region, as well as for illegally-imported slaves … They tapped a wide variety of sources, including from Africa, the Caribbean colonies and Europe. But the supply of free Africans was minimal. Paradoxically, the Africans could have negotiated a price for their participation in international migration and on the plantations. They did not and so the planters turned to Europe and Asia” (I bid).
So by and large, by the time the Indian indentured contract was negotiated, wages for ex-slave labour was already largely set by pattern bargaining and the going labour rate. And it was these wages for the apprenticed slaves and freed slaves that influenced the wage for the contracted Indian labourers. Pattern bargaining for wages was already set in motion and institutionalized by the time the Indians arrived on the plantations. It was established that the plantation owners prized Indian labourers describing them as most “suitable” and finding them to be “most productive’ among all the available workers. And while the Indian labourers were described as the hardest working and most productive, turning around the profitability of the plantations, they were paid the lowest wages. Had the earlier indentured labourers from Africa and Europe and the freed slaves from other West Indian and South American colonies negotiated for a higher contracted wage, the Indians would have been in a good position to demand higher remuneration for their invaluable labour.
Indians and Africans need to stop trading barbs on who was responsible for whose depressed economic conditions (during colonialism) and focus instead on how they can jointly lift themselves out of their current economic malaise. The elite are fattening their bank accounts as the poor Indians and Africans fight each other.

Yours truly,
Vishnu Bisram