Economic effects

 Rising production of sugar and cocoa, particularly in British

Guiana, Trinidad and St Kitts. But they couldn't prevent
Grenada's loss of its sugar industry and the industry in
some other areas declined anyway.
 This improvement in sugar production slowed down
diversification of the economy.
 A minority of Indians became fairly wealthy through
business. Others joined the peasantry and introduced crops
such as rice, cocoa and coffee because of their knowledge of
agriculture brought with them from India.
 East Indians brought skills such as knowledge on
immigration.
 Many East Indians who finished indenture ship remained in
agriculture. They could do so because between 1885 and
1912, 37,000 hectares of crown land were given to the East
Indians. 8% worked in agriculture. Some set up villages and
grew rice and sugarcane.
 Because the population was increasing the government
improved public facilities, law enforcement and larger
markets were built.
 Chinese and Portuguese immigrants later went on to start
retail businesses or became merchants

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Account for the various schemes of migration as a solution to
the problems of labour. [Schemes of migration: Europeans,
Africans, Madeirans, Indians, Chinese].
Immigrant Recruitment Schemes
Liberated Africans
After the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, Britain signed ‘Right to
Search’ treaties at different times with the governments of other
countries, by which British vessels could intercept and search other
vessels suspected of illegally carrying slaves. Slaves found on these
vessels were taken to specially recognized ports at Sierra Leone (West
Africa), St. Helena (in the Atlantic), Havana (Cuba) and Rio de Janeiro
(Brazil). In 1836, the British government created the post of
Superintendent of Liberated Africans at Havan. The superintendent’s
task was to supervise the transshipment of liberated Africans to free
British colonies. From Havan, West Africans were moved to Trinidad or
to other British colonies expressing an interest in their services. In
subsequent years, Trinidad and British Guiana appointed agents in Rio
de Janeiro to facilitate the transshipment of liberated Africans from that
port. After 1838, they were forcibly indentured for up to five years on
British Caribbean plantations. In addition, in 1841, government-
supervised importation of Africans from Sierra Leone began. These
liberated Africans were imported because of the following reasons:
 They were landed directly in the Caribbean by the British
warships that had rescued them.
 Many planters, already used to enslaved Africans, showed
a preference for liberated Africans
 Many planters believed that Africans were stronger and
better workers than any other ethnic group.
 Missionaries and timber merchants, despite their
opposition to the immigration scheme, failed to
discourage the West Africans from migrating.
1
2. Religion - Hinduism - Hindus worshipped several gods of which
Brahma was the most important. He was the supreme god or
creator. They believed that when people die, their souls are
reborn in a new body
The Hindus had very strict divisions in their society; this was
known as the caste system. Each person belonged to a special
group or caste. The Brahmins or the religious leaders were at the
top of the society and the Hindus in the Caribbean continued to
follow them as their leaders.
Islam - Some of the Indians who came were Muslims. They
believed in one God called Allah. They followed the teachings of
the Quran.
3. Festivals - Diwali or festival of lights was celebrated by the
Hindus. They told stories, shared gifts, decorated their windows
and doors with lights and candles.
Hossain - A Muslim festival. Small temples made from paper and
bamboo were decorated and carried in a procession through the
streets accompanied by dancing to the beat of drums.
4. The Indians normally segregated themselves deliberately in the
educational institution. Oftentimes, they were unwilling to send
their children to school since they feared they could be converted
to Christianity. It was not until the late 1870s when separate
schools for Indian children were established.
This was mainly due to the Canadian Presbyterian Mission to the
Indians, which ensured that Indian children went to school and
language barriers began to crumble.
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assume that it was immigration that saved their sugar industry. For
instance, they introduced mechanization and placed more lands under
sugar cane cultivation. These other factors could have readily counted as
factors that saved their sugar industries. Barbados could be used as
another example. Up to 1848, they had seen an increase in their output
by 250 per cent. However, by the end of the 19th century this had
declined. We cannot assume that this was because Barbados was not
using immigrant labour. During the period, Barbados was plagued by
problems such and soil exhaustion and inadequate mechanization.
The overall conclusion must be that immigration did not cause
increased sugar production in the British West Indies. Many other
factors could have been responsible
Impact of immigration on society
Social effects
1. Indians were thought to be inferior, hence, they could only find work
in poorly paid jobs. They could not settle in the towns but lived in the
countryside and formed an active peasant class. The employment of
Indians mainly as field workers led to the employment of blacks in
better jobs, for example, the police force.
2. The ex-slaves despised the Indians and refused to work alongside
them in the fields. They were described as 'heathens' because of their
speech and clothing. Indians also despised the blacks because of their
alleged low moral standards.
3. Immigration led to the expansion of social services, for example,
medical facilities and a large police force.
Cultural effects
1. Family - Indians brought their firm family structure in which all
relations supported each other. The idea of extended family, which
included several generations, was very strong. All males over 16 years
were members of a family council. They made all decisions of the family,
for example, marriage, religious ceremonies and expenditure.
5 2
Africans
Liberated Africans were those individuals rescued by British warships
from slavers. They were not the only group of Africans who were used
as a source of labour in the post- emancipation period. Africans were
also recruited to work as indentured workers in the Caribbean.
 In 1841, government-supervised emigration from Sierra
Leone was organized. A government officer was
appointed at Freetown to supervise emigration
procedures and regulations were adopted to prevent
abuses. Attempts were also made to recruit in Gambia, on
the Kru Coast and in Liberia.
 The colonial government of British Guiana, Jamaica and
Trinidad sent recruiting agents to Africa. They tried to
induce West Africans with offers of high wages and free
return passages.
 The French took Congolese prisoners and shipped them to
Martinique, Guadeloupe and French Guiana. They were
freed upon landing in the colonies.
 Private ships were chartered to carry the emigrants from
Africa.
Europeans
Due to a decline in the white population planters sought European
immigrants to increase the size of the white population. It was hoped
that Europeans would set an example of industry to ex-slaves and
eventually develop into a middle class. They would settle on available
land in the interior thus forcing the blacks off the land and back to the
plantations. Jamaica imported the largest number of Europeans. They
also went to Trinidad, British Guiana and St. Kitts.
These immigrants were mainly Scots, Irish, French and Germans. They
were recruited under a bounty system. Europeans were unsatisfactory
as most died when they arrived. They died from tropical diseases, heat
stroke and many drank themselves to death. They also refused to
work alongside the blacks on the plantations. Many equated estate
labour with slavery and believed that this category of work was best
suited for blacks. Many asked to be sent home or migrated to the  Recruiters did not tell the Chinese the nature of the work
they were going to do and they made false promises about
United States. Planters also failed to supply proper food, shelter and
repatriation.
medical facilities.
 In the mid-1850s the French Caribbean started to import
Portuguese Chinese workers. About 1000 went to Martinique and 500
to Guadeloupe. The Dutch colony of Suriname also
Madeirans were paid only 3d per day in Madeira and were attracted imported over 2000 Chinese workers.
by higher wages in the Caribbean. Many went to British Guiana and
Trinidad but a few also went to the Windward Islands. They were
brought in by government bounty. Most came during the periods of Indians
famine in Madeira 1846-1847. Many Portuguese immigrants saved
their money and within three years of arrival usually left the estates. The first group of immigrant Asians in the Caribbean were the 414
Indians who arrived in British Guiana in 1838. This arrangement was
Chinese called the ‘Gladstone experiment,’ because the immigrants were
privately imported by John Gladstone a large landholder in British
Chinese workers were also recruited to fill the void created by the
Guiana, together with a company in Calcutta. The Indians were imported
flight of blacks from the plantation in the post-emancipation period.
on five-year contracts for six sugar estates. Their treatment was so poor
 Large-scale immigration began in 1852 from the Chinese and the death rate so high that the state imposed a ban on future
colony of Macao, in southern China. These immigrants were importations. The British government would later appoint a local
convicts or prisoners of war and there were no women Commission to investigate the treatment of the Indians and with
among them. recommendations the ban was lifted in 1844. In 1845, British Guiana,
 Between 1854 and 1866, about 15,000 Chinese came to Trinidad and Jamaica began again the importation of Indians.
British Guiana, 4,800 to Jamaica and 2,600 to Trinidad. Most
of them came from barracoons at Hong Kong, a small British
colony on the south coast of China. They were placed in the
barracoons after being taken prisoners in the civil war that Effect of immigration on the sugar industry
was being fought across the whole of South China. Their
British West Indian planters had turned to immigration as a tool of
captors handed them over to local indenture brokers who
reviving the sugar industry. The hope was that with the steady supply of
sold them to British immigration agents.
labour, planters could focus on increasing their output. Immigration,
 In 1860, British Guiana sent an agent to Canton to recruit
Chinese families from the rural areas of Fukien, and however, did not have its desired impact, especially in a colony as
Kwangtung. Trinidad joined the scheme and shared the cost Jamaica. In territories such as Trinidad and British Guiana, we cannot
of the agency in 1864.

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