# End of Indian Indentured Immigration (1917)

URL: https://allhistories.com/jamaica/timeline/1917-end-of-indian-indentured-immigration
Location: Old Harbour, St Catherine
Themes: main-event

From 1845, when the ship Blundell Hunter landed 261 workers at Old Harbour, Jamaica's planters had recruited indentured labourers from India to replace freed people who left the estates after emancipation. Recruits signed contracts, usually for five years, to work on sugar and later banana estates, with the promise of a return passage after ten years. Over seven decades about 36,000 Indians came to Jamaica, the majority from the Bhojpuri-speaking districts of northern India, with smaller numbers from the south. Conditions on the estates were harsh, with low wages, penalties under labour laws and high mortality, and roughly a third eventually returned to India. Growing opposition in India, led by nationalists such as Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Mahatma Gandhi, and reports on abuses across the colonies, led the Government of India to suspend indentured emigration in 1917; the system was formally abolished in 1920. Those who remained became the Indo-Jamaican community, now one of the island's main ethnic groups. Many became small farmers, market gardeners and shopkeepers, especially in St Mary, St Catherine, Clarendon and Westmoreland. Indian influence is visible in Jamaican food such as curry goat and roti, in festivals such as Hosay and Divali, and in the word ganja, of Indian origin. At this point in the timeline (1917), the King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions; Emperor of India was George V (6 May 1910 – 20 January 1936); the Governor of Jamaica was Sir William Henry Manning (7 March 1913 – 11 May 1918).

## Why it matters
The end of indenture closed a major chapter of migration that created the Indo-Jamaican community and enriched Jamaican culture.

Ruler at the Time: [George V](https://allhistories.com/jamaica/rulers/george-v)

Governor of Jamaica: Sir William Henry Manning

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Indo-Jamaicans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Jamaicans)
- [Wikipedia — Indian indenture system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_indenture_system)
- [Encyclopaedia Britannica — Indian indentured labour Caribbean](https://www.britannica.com/search?query=Indian+indentured+labour+Caribbean)
- [National Library of Jamaica](https://nlj.gov.jm/)
- [Wikipedia — Crown Colony (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_of_Jamaica)