1. Review:
By the 1860’s, Natal’s large commercial farms (sugar) were very labour intensive (needed lots of workers)
Zulu farmers could not be persuaded to work there - terrible conditions
Government introduced taxes - didn’t work as Zulus paid their taxes through what they produced
Result: Huge labour shortage
Farmers had to look elsewhere for work force --> indentured labourers from India
Unit 7.3: Indentured labour from India
Between 1860 - 1911, 152 almost 140,000 indentured workers came from India to work on
sugar cane fields in Natal. Most were Hindu men from Madras.
Later almost half were women. The Indians worked on sugar
cane plantations plus railways, dockyards, coalmines.
Indenture lasted for 5 years - after that:
- they could work for another 5 years
- they could stay in Natal for another 5 years, then the
government would pay their fare back to India
- they could accept a piece of land = to value of a return ticket
About half stayed - market gardeners, fishing, domestic service,
coal mines, railways, traders.
Coolie = unskilled labourer in
India, probably from the Urdu
or Hindi word Kuli, meaning
a porter. It was used in a
derogative, way in South
Africa to refer to all Indians.
An indentured labourer
agrees to work in
another country for a
set period of time, in
exchange for the fare
to that country. All
indentured labourers
signed contracts which
stated the working
conditions - these were
often ignored and
workers were often
badly treated.
Indentured Indians working
in the Natal sugarcane fields
When indentured Indians
arrived in South Africa,
they were identified
by number only.
WORKING CONDITIONS
- could be up to 17 hours a day, 7
days a week
- machinery in the mills could be
dangerous- no safety measures
- often whipped by employer
- often no pay
- even children had to work
- language - not understood
- families often split up
- often snakes in sugar cane
Although farmers needed the
Indian workers, they and the
government didn’t like them being
in Natal: segregated and discrim-
inated against them from the start.
In 1893, a 24-year-old Indian lawyer
arrived in Durban to take part in a
lawsuit in Transvaal. He booked a
first-class train ticket to Johannesburg
– and was ordered out of the train
because of his colour. He spent a cold
night in the non–European waiting-room at Pietermaritzburg
railway station. The lawyer’s name was Mahatma Gandhi. His
experience made him decide to remain in Natal and help the
growing community of Indians imported to work on the sugar
plantations. In 1894, Gandhi founded the Natal Indian Congress to
agitate for Indian rights. In 1896, Gandhi began to teach a policy of
passive resistance to, and non-cooperation with, the South African
authorities. Gandhi considered the terms passive resistance and civil
disobedience inadequate for his purposes, however, and coined
another term, Satyagraha (Sanskrit, "truth and firmness").