Dear Editor,
Marking their memory this 186th year after Indian Arrival. They were the first Girmitya women to step onshore in Guyana in Highbury and Belle Vue.
The ship Whitby sailed from Calcutta with eight women among the large number of male (237) passengers. The names of these women were Sadonee, Luckeeah/Suchea, Duchuree, Goolpie, Sheebaah, Jeebun, Jeebun, and Sookurah.
Six of the women were indentured on the Highbury Sugar Plantation located 13 miles from New Amsterdam and two were indentured at Belle Vue Sugar Plantation.
Seven were married and arrived with their husbands and children. Only Sadonee came with two children and unaccompanied by a husband.
Sadonee and Lukeeah were allotted to the Belle Vue Sugar Plantation.
Usually, historians would focus on the paucity of women in relation to the large number of men whom the planters really wanted for their labour. But let’s focus a little on the women. The women were indentured too. They had two jobs, that is working in the fields and the second job of domestic work. They worked long hours in the sun and returned home not to rest, but to domestic chores. Some of these women had children who were just infants and they probably had to take them into the fields or leave them at home for siblings to care for.
Sadonee who worked in the fields of Belle Vue estate had two daughters, one died and the other was raped on the estate. Indentured Indians suffered terrible abuses on this estate. An investigation was carried, but no one was held accountable and the daughter died as well. Sadonee returned to India taking with her $80, being her savings minus her daughters who were left in the ground of Belle Vue. We can only imagine the pain and sadness of Sadonee and the life she returned to. Did she ever return home to her village or did she remain in Calcutta like some returnees did later – eking out a living in the slums around the Hooghly River.
Sincerely,
Banmattie Ram
