—the African indentured labourers and the immigration scheme

FOR many years, it has been well known throughout Guyana and some parts of the Caribbean, that the East Indians, Chinese and Portuguese came to Guyana as indentured labourers, after the abolition of slavery in 1834. What many remain unaware of, however, is the fact that there were African indentured labourers who toiled on the sugar plantations after slavery was abolished. In fact, the majority of persons within Guyana are still under the impression that the Africans who were brought by the Europeans were all slaves. This is not at all true, as this article aims to explore. The integration of West Africans into the Caribbean as indentured labourers, also titled the African Immigration Scheme, began in colonial Guiana, Trinidad and Grenada. The first batch of 337 “liberated Africans” were initially bound for Cuba, but arrived in Grenada in 1836 on the Portuguese ship Negrinha. The Vessel brought in another 486 in the same year, and so over 50 per cent of Grenada’s African indentured labourers arrived before the end of the Apprenticeship period in 1838. In the 1840s, African immigration to the rest of the Caribbean started. This involved the so-called ‘liberated’ Africans, as well as Africans from Sierra Leone, Liberia, Gambia, St. Helena and the Kroo Coast. After the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807, British warships had been patrolling the Atlantic Ocean, trying to stop illegal and foreign slave traders.

Africans captured in the aforementioned effort were then sent to chosen trans-shipment ports, (where goods were brought for import and export, and for collection and distribution) of St. Helena and Sierra Leone, then transported to the Caribbean, where they would either become “liberated” Africans, or be sent to the West Indies as indentured labourers. The annual number of African immigrants imported, however, was always low.
Between September and December 1841, six shipments of African immigrants arrived in Jamaica alone, a large number for just one island. There, the Africans were mainly used in the parishes of St. Thomas, St. Mary, and Westmoreland. Immigration was done under the bounty system up to 1842, after which the governments assumed direct responsibility for immigration, until the schemes were finally abolished in 1867.
Guyanese-born author, Monica Schuler, in her book, “Alas, Alas Kongo: A social History of African immigration into Jamaica 1841-1865”, explained: “Having officially forsworn slavery in 1834 and 1848 respectively, Britain and France cleverly exploited their own anti- slave trade efforts by ‘liberating’ Africans from the slave trade and requiring them to migrate to the plantation colonies as indentured labourers.” Additionally, Colonial Secretary, Lord Stanley felt that the Africans liberated from slave ships would be “improved” by a temporary sojourn on the West Indian plantations.

LIBERATED
Perhaps the most significant difference, however, between the East Indian, Portuguese, Chinese and African indentured labourers who came to British Guiana and the Caribbean during the 19th century, is that unlike the other three categories of immigrants who were citizens of countries who chose to, or were duped or cajoled into migrating, the African immigrants were persons who had been “liberated” from slave ships that were bringing them to the New World to be enslaved on plantations in Brazil and Cuba. Having been liberated, they were taken to holding stations, mainly in Sierra Leone, but also in St Helena, Rio de Janeiro and Nassau.
The purpose of acquiring indentured immigrants from all four sources was the same: to relieve the labour shortage that had come about as a result of the ex-slaves leaving the plantations at the end of apprenticeship. The planters were able to persuade the Colonial Office that without indentured immigrants the plantation economy would collapse and with it, civilisation in the colonies. Arguments similar to the ones used to justify the enslavement of Africans were now used to justify African indentures. British politician (and later, Prime Minister) Lord John Russell felt that “a regular intercourse between Africa and the West Indies would lead not only to the prosperity of the British West Indies but to the civilisation of Africa.”

How the latter was to be achieved was not made clear, but in the case of the former, it was felt that an influx of Africans working voluntarily for wages would send a positive message to the ex-slaves that working for wages on the sugar estates was not so bad after all. Ex-slaves might thus be lured into returning to work on the plantations. More importantly, the presence of the African immigrants would certainly help to bring down the daily wage rate. Either way, the planter class would benefit. Schuler, in her article, “Liberated Africans in 19th century British Guiana”, detailed that between 1840 and 1860, 52,000 voluntary and involuntary African immigrants were sent by the British and French to the Guianas, and the West Indies. However, with specific reference to Guyana, she highlighted that the approximately 13,000 African indentured immigrants who came were an insignificant 5½ per cent compared to the 250,000+ East Indian immigrants who eventually came to British Guiana.

FEW RETURNED
She further noted that more liberated Africans came to British Guiana than to either Trinidad or Jamaica and that few returned to Africa. The majority of the liberated Africans or re-captives arrived from Sierra Leone between 1841 and 1851; St Helena between 1842 and 1865; from Rio de Janeiro between 1841 and 1852 and from Nassau, New Providence between 1837 and 1846. Other Africans were recruited from the Kroo coast of Liberia between 1845 and 1853 and from the Cape Verde Islands in West Africa in the 1850s. Liberated African residents who lived in Sierra Leone and coastal Liberia were voluntary immigrants, while recent re-captives recruited from the abovementioned depots had little say in their emigration and were involuntary immigrants.
To encourage the immigration of Africans to British Guiana, bounties of $35 were offered for immigrants from Sierra Leone, St Helena and Rio de Janeiro, and $25 from other parts of Brazil. According to historian and author, Oswald Kendall, the first group of African indentured immigrants arrived in the colony on the merchant vessel Superior on May 24, 1841.

They were only sent to estates which satisfied the strict conditions specified by Governor Henry Light, which included an estate preferably near to the sea coast; the nearest of the estates to some place of worship; not more than 20 immigrants per estate, and importantly, “Regard being had to the accommodation on the estate, it would be desirable to distribute the people as extensively as possible over the colony in order that any vicious or superstitious practices to which they might be addicted might not be perpetuated by their being kept together.” They were therefore distributed as follows: Essequibo Coast ? Plantation Lima 17, Reliance 14, Hoff Van Aurich 8, Walton 8, Land of Plenty 17, Aberdeen 12 ? a total of 76. On the East Coast Demarara they were distributed as follows: Plantation Le Resouvenir 11, Helena 16, Enmore 17, Greenfield 13, Turkeyen 11, Annandale 16 and Dochfour 5 ? a total of 89. However, these first immigrants were not indentured, and had the freedom to bargain for daily, weekly or monthly work. On September 22, 1841, the Superior returned to British Guiana with 225 immigrants, who were advised by the governor to find work in the healthiest part of the colony.

Guyanese historian Anand James posited that by the middle of the 1840s, it was realised that liberated Africans would not be the answer to British Guiana’s labour problems. In the first year of the scheme, only 1,102 liberated Africans arrived in the colony, as compared to 4,297 Portuguese and 2,745 West Indians. Between 1846 and 1848, 24,848 immigrants arrived. Of that number, 11,025 were from India, and 10,036 were from Madeira; and therefore only 3,787 consisted of liberated Africans and West Indians. Additionally, six trips made by the transport ship Arabian to the colony brought only 652 liberated Africans. Afterwards, the planters turned their attention to immigration from India, which appeared to be the more abundant source. After 1850, the liberated Africans came in very small numbers. In 1852, the last set of 113 came from Rio, and 140 came from Sierra Leone. However, small shiploads continued to arrive until 1865.
The British Guianese planters were able to enact tough labour laws to control the immigrant labour force. In 1848, three-year voluntary contracts existed, but by 1854, the Colonial Office approved compulsory indentures for three years, and by 1863 there was an extension of indentureship to five years.

African indentured labourers faced the same conditions and were governed by the same laws as other indentured immigrants. As Anand James rightly concluded when the Colonial Office decided to allow the emigration of liberated Africans to the West Indies in 1841, it initiated a process that was not unfamiliar in the history of British Guiana, because the planters had once again managed to get what they wanted. (Some sections of this article are modified excerpts from a previously published article, with the permission of the author. The original article was written by Cecilia McAlmont, and was first published by Stabroek News on May 26, 2011, as part of the ‘History This Week’ series. It was later republished by Stabroek News, on August 1, 2013, under the title, “African immigrants: They arrived too”.
Much of the information for this article is drawn from a book and article by Monica Schuler and articles by Anand James and Oswald Kendall, as well as “Caribbean History for CSEC”, by Kevin Baldeosingh, and Radica Mahase)