On May 5th, 1838, the Whitby and Hesperus arrived from Kolkata with the first indentured servants in Guyana. Many were deceived, some left because of personal reasons, but one this is for sure: they were all deceived into thinking they would obtain monetary wealth. Work the on the plantations for originally 5 years, then either you can stay in Guyana with your riches, or go back to India/South Asia with wealth. What ended up happening is they were part of the new form of slavery. The overwhelmingly majority never returned home, and over time, our mother tongue was lost, and parts of our culture disappeared. However, we infused our culture with our African, Chinese, and Indigenous families, the two former also losing parts of their histories, and the later being exploited by the colonialists. We made a new beautiful language called Creolese. While thousands came from the subcontinent, millions of us still feel the effects of indentureship. They forced us to switch from ganja to rum, starting the cycle of alcoholism that persists. They used the strategy of divide and rule to separate the different races and cause the racial strife we still have today. We still hear about horrific acts of gender-based violence that mimic the past. Many of us have emigrated, but are still deceived into obtaining wealth and are exploited by the new colonialists. As @rajivmohabir says in The Taxidermist's Cut, "you are not from the subcontinent and you don't descend from first-wave doctors and lawyers, but from illiterate farmers who were once slaves in the sugarcane fields for the East India Company." PC: Postcard image of "Coolie Types, Trinidad," c. 1900. Michael Goldberg Collection, The Alma Jordan Library, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. Also, in Coolie Woman by Gaitura Bahadur. #DescendantofIndentured #Coolie #Guyana #indentureship #IndoCaribbean #Cooliewoman #Caribbeanhistory #WestIndian
