Description

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A study of Indian indentured labor in Mauritius, British Guiana, and Trinidad that explores the history of indenture’s normalization.
 
In this book, historian Jonathan Connolly traces the normalization of indenture from its controversial beginnings to its widespread adoption across the British Empire during the nineteenth century. Initially viewed as a covert revival of slavery, indenture caused a scandal in Britain and India. But over time, economic conflict in the colonies altered public perceptions of indenture, now increasingly viewed as a legitimate form of free labor and a means of preserving the promise of abolition. Connolly explains how the large-scale, state-sponsored migration of Indian subjects to work on sugar plantations across Mauritius, British Guiana, and Trinidad transformed both the notion of post-slavery free labor and the political economy of emancipation.
 
Excavating legal and public debates and tracing practical applications of the law, Connolly carefully reconstructs how the categories of free and unfree labor were made and remade to suit the interests of capital and empire, showing that emancipation was not simply a triumphal event but, rather, a deeply contested process. In so doing, he advances an original interpretation of how indenture changed the meaning of “freedom” in a post-abolition world.

About the Author

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Jonathan Connolly is assistant professor of history at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
 

Praise For…

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“Indenture, once seen as economically and morally a scandal, became normalized by the 1860s and was able to survive into the twentieth century across the British Empire. In tracking this process, Worthy of Freedom makes an invaluable addition to our understanding of the problematic meanings of ‘free’ after slavery.”
— Catherine Hall, University College London

“Sharply researched, clearly written, and effectively argued, Worthy of Freedom shows how and why indenture became less controversial over time and reveals the process by which the system was consolidated legally and economically. This is a fantastic book that will be of interest to any scholars of labor history, history of empire, enslavement, or South Asian history.”
— Clare Anderson, University of Leicester