question_answer

Read the following extract from the textbook and answer the questions given below:

The testimony of an indentured labourer

Extract from the testimony of Ram Narian Tewary, an indentured labourer who spent ten years on Demerara in the early twentieth century.

'... in spite of my best efforts, I could not properly do the works that were allotted to me ... In a few days I got my hands bruised all over and I could not go to work for a week for which I was prosecuted and sent to jail for 14 days. ... new emigrants find the tasks allotted to them extremely heavy and cannot complete them in day. ... Deductions are also made from wages if the work is considered to have been done unsatisfactorily. Many people cannot therefore earn their full wages and are punished in various ways. In fact, the laborers have to spend their period of indenture in great trouble...'

Source: Department of Commerce and Industry, Emigration Branch. 1916

(a) How were indentured migrants recruited?

(b) How were they treated?

 

Answer:

(a) Many migrants agreed to take up such work in order to escape poverty and oppression in their villages. Many migrants were tempted and tricked into believing a better future awaited them and given false information about their destinations and nature of work. Sometimes migrants were forcibly abducted by agents.

(b)They had to work long hours doing back breaking work and had few legal rights.