DISEÑO DE LA ETAPA DE CONTROL Y comunicación

This section of the chapter sees the closure of immigration to Mauritius and the West Indies. The process begins soon after Gladstone’s scheme becomes known. The British Parliament, of the 1830s was an institution which exhibited increasing professionalism, and had begun to grapple with a number of important social issues. Correspondingly, it showed an appetite for intervening in the social organisation of society. The first Factory Act and the 1834 Amendment to the Poor Law Act indicate that working populations were now appropriate subjects for parliamentary examination. Under the influence of Whigs, such as Earl Grey, a measure of political reform and the abolition o f slavery had also been achieved. Both of these factors had

52. Enclosure no. 6. J. Gladstone to Gillanders etc. 10 June 1837 in J. Gladstone to Glenelg, 28 February 1838. P.P. 1837-1838. Vol. LII.

53. The Whitby immigrants comprised of 233 males, five females and six children. The Hesperus immigrants comprised of 135 males, six females and eleven children. Dwarka Nath, A History of Indians in Guvana (London 1970), p. 11.

54. Eric J. Evans, The Forging of tlie Modem State. Early Industrial Britain 1783-1870 (Longman 1983), pp. 228-231.

Corridors of power: labour, migration, and health provision in British Guiana 1838-1847

allowed the government to accrue a considerable amount of political legitimacy which they were not going to squander in blatant support for West Indian interests/^

Although slavery had been abolished in the British West Indies by 1834, this had not ended the role of the abolitionist societies in Britain. When it became clear that West Indian planters intended to continue production under the umbrella of ‘apprenticeship’, demands arose for a complete and thorough emancipation. The British Emancipator, the official journal of the Anti-slavery Society, maintained that ‘apprenticeship’ merely substituted ‘one state of slavery for another’. This was a widely held belief in the abolitionist movement, and is shown by the extraordinarily high number of anti­ apprenticeship petitions collected and sent in to parliaments^ The historian Claire Midgley has estimated that between 1837 and 1838, there were 4,175 o f these petitions, containing more than one million signatures, presented to the House of Commons.^’ Domestic issues around political reform and ‘rights’ gave these demands special pertinence. The year 1838 also saw the publication of the ‘Peoples Charter’ and the first stirrings of Chartism. Many of the individuals in these organisations were sceptical of parliamentary manoeuvring and g r a d u a l i s m. As the abolitionist Joseph Sturge later acknowledged, limiting the movement only to those who were committed to 'pacific means' was a stance 'which some of our friends feel most difficulty in adopting.

News of Gladstone’s scheme to transport labour from India to the West Indies was quickly gathered up in the groundswell of anti-apprenticeship activity. The first parliamentary indication of this was a speech by the Whig abolitionist and social reformer, Lord Brougham, to the Lords on the 6 March 1838. Recalling the lofty ideals of the British anti-slavery struggle. Brougham linked indentureship to slavery. The emotional potency of such claims was high. The 'traffic' in Indian labour at the behest of West Indian planters was, according to Brougham a 'cruel and unjustifiable trade'. It

55. Robin Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery 1776-1848 (Verso 1988), pp. 465-466.

56. Petitions against the apprenticeship system were presented to parliament in March 1838. According to the Times the petitions, '...proceeded from all classes and sects of the community, and among them were a vast number from corporate bodies and from public meetings.' Times 30 March 1838.

57. Claire Midgley, Women Against Slavery. The British Campaigns 1780-1870 (Routledge 1992), p. 67. J. Walvin, ‘The Propaganda of Anti-Slavery’, in J. Walvin (ed.). Slavery and British Society 1776-1846 (Louisiana State University Press 1982), p. 64. Betty Fladeland, ‘ 'Our cause being one and the Same': Abolitionists and Chartism’, in Walvin, Slavery p. 69-99. See also Douglas A. Lorimer, Colour Class and the Victorians. English attitudes to the Negro in the Mid-nineteenth Century (Leicester University Press 1978), p.

115.

58. The possibility of abolitionist women's demonstrations outside parliament, ratlier than tlie gentlemanly presentation of petitions inside parliament, was mooted by women's abolitionist committees. Midgley, Women p. 86.

degraded all those who participated, and, like the slave trade, was open to 'monstrous abuse.'^° Damningly, an editorial in the Times of London called it the 'New Slave Trade'."'

Slavery from Africa to the New World and the Caribbean had for a long time been associated with notorious levels of mortality in what had become known as the ‘middle passage’. It followed that if the conditions accompanying Indian emigration were comparable to those of slavery, a similarly high mortality could be expected. A detailed knowledge of the condition of immigrants on the state of their arrival, and subsequent fate on the plantation, was therefore crucial for both abolitionists, and for those in government sympathetic to free labour. Here, as elsewhere in the political world decisions hinged on the gathering, analysis and presentation of information. Lord Glenelg,"^ a renowned humanitarian and Secretary of State for the Colonies, stressed to Governor Light in May 1838 the importance of the home government being closely acquainted with labouring conditions in Guiana."^ Later, in November, Glenelg again emphasised to Light the 'great importance' of acquiring detailed information about the situation in Guiana, including the names, sexes, ages, and health of all recently introduced immigrants."'’ Light's reassuring reply, which reported upon the 'general good health of the emigrants from India', offered considerable hope that parliamentary pressure over the issue would ease.""

This was not to happen. Brougham, in the Lords, cited mortality figures for Indian emigrants travelling to Mauritius, in order to cast doubt on the ability o f shippers to transport safely labourers across the much further distance of the Indian and Atlantic oceans."" Continual doubts were raised over whether planters who had only recently defended slavery were competent to supervise or administer a system of indentured labour."’ The case for suspending the transport of labourers to the West Indies was further strengthened after a delegation from the Anti-Slavery Society visited Guiana and reported on the poor hospital facilities available in the colony. This factor is looked at in more detail later.

60. Brougham, Times 8 March 1838. 61. Times 8 March 1838.

62. For an understanding of the Colonial Office under Glenelg, see Ronald Hyam, Britain’s Imperial Century 1815-1914. A Study of Empire and Expansion (Macmillan 1976), pp. 83-84.

63. Glenelg to Light, 26 May 1838. P. P. 1839. Vol. XXXIX. 64. Glenelg to Light, 6 November 1838. Ibid.

65. Light to Glenelg, 19 November 1838. Ibid. 66. Brougham. Times 8 March 1838.

Corridors of power: labour, migration, and health provision in British Guiana 1838-1847

The response of parliament to this campaigning was, nevertheless, guarded, and in the end it preferred regulation, not abolition. As Glenelg commented to Light, 'there seems no reasonable doubt that a well conducted plan of immigration would be advantageous to the c o l o n y . I n May 1838 a Natives of India Protection Bill was put before the house. This bill limited the duration of written labour contracts to just one year and forbade West Indian planters from arranging the contracts before immigrants landed in the colony.

In India, evangelical and reformist opinion was also gathering against the transportation of labourers to the West Indies. The Calcutta Courier reported abuses in the treatment of labourers aboard Gladstone's ship, Hesperus. As with the abolitionist movement in England, the Courier recalled the imagery and conditions o f overcrowded slave boats, claiming that ruthless guards extorted payments in return for access to fresh air. Deaths on board were, ‘certainly accelerated, if not wholly caused, by the continuous confinement, in the mephitic atmosphere.”® The Friend o f India, an influential organ allied with the Baptists, associated the transportation of labour abroad with the 'horrors o f the middle p a s s a g e 'The Calcutta Christian Observer reminded its readers of the 'evils' of the apprenticeship system, alleging it to be worse than slavery. So too did the Chundrika Bengale and the Bengal Hurkaru, which drew particular attention to the harsh working conditions of plantation production in Mauritius, and its similarity with slavery.

These views and opinions sat uneasily with the paternalistic image of Company rule promoted by ambitious administrators. At this time a demonstration of 'good governance' was sought through evidence of the moral improvement of Indian society via education, land reform, changes to the ancient judicial system, and not least, the collaboration of Indians themselves. The campaigns against Thuggee, the repression of

67. British Emancipator 31 January 1838.

68. Royal Gazette letter dated 19 December 1838. No. 86. 69. Order in Council 30 July 1838. P. P. 1837-1838. Vol. LII. 70. Calcutta Courier. See British Emancipator 2 May 1838. 71. Friend of India. See British Emancipator 23 May 1838.

72. Calcutta Christian Observer. See British Emancipator 2 May 1838.

73. Chundrika Bengale. See British Emancipator 23 May 1838. Basedo Mangru, Benevolent Neutrality. Indian Govermnent Policy and Labour Migration to British Guiana 1854-1884 (Hansib 1987), pp. 5-6.

74. Eric Stokes. English Utilitarians and India (Oxford 1959), p. 45, 46, 54, 65. Thomas R. Metcalf, Ideologies o f the Raj (Cambridge University Press 1995), p. 33. Ranajit Guha, ‘Dominance Without Hegemony And Its Historiography’, Subaltern Studies VI (Oxford University Press 1989), pp. 240-249. Howard Temperley, ‘The Delegalisation of Slavery in British India,’ Slavery and Abolition Vol. 21. August 2000. pp. 168-187.

sati and internal slavery, offered opportunities for the British to maintain the moral high ground and take pride in their commitment of reforming ‘despotic’ Indian society.

The outcry in the summer of 1838 over the condition of Indian indentured labourers landed on an administration whose professed political stance favoured movements against institutional oppression. William Wilberforce Bird, an evangelical, and acting Governor of Bengal promptly responded to accounts of mistreatment of Indian labourers in Demerara. On the 11 July 1838 the Governments of Bombay, Madras, and Bengal were instructed to prevent 'coolie' emigration to the West Indies. By November 1838 the prohibition on labour was extended to Mauritius and all other colonies. Finally, a Commission of Enquiry in respect of the large numbers o f Indian labourers exported to Mauritius was convened on Bird's initiative.’^

In summary, both the Indian and British governments had therefore acted to curtail the transport of Indian labour by the autumn of 1838. As suggested earlier, an important dimension o f this abolitionist discourse also depended upon perceptions about conditions on estates. In the next section the narrative shifts back to the colony of Guiana, to the period immediately before the cessation of immigration to examine the state of hospitals and medical provision in the post-emancipation period.