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Indian indentured labourers were first brought over to British sugarcane plantations in the 1830s, to replace African slaves given freedom in 1834 by the abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean and full freedom in 1938 after a four-year period of 'emancipation' during which they continued to work for the British.
"Over a period of time," says Jagessar, "a million Indians were shipped to the Caribbean plantations, for all practical purposes. Slaves were forced to live in squalid conditions, starved and tortured, to replace the freed Africans."
Interestingly, Jagessar says he was met with incredulity when he met with history professors at Lucknow University. "They didn't believe a million Indians had been shipped overseas because that history is largely undocumented," he says.
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"Over time, documents have been lost, historical records haven't been kept; today, if you ask someone in the Caribbean where they are from in India, they can't tell you, they will say India but that's about it."
Stories of the conditions, though, were written about extensively in the British press, by a John Scoble of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, who reached Guyana in 1939.
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