Linking History is a new video series from Indian Link diving into the history of Australia since its colonisation, highlighting how South Asians have interacted and contributed to this history and the complex relationship we have with this unceded land.
In this episode, Lakshmi discusses the debate surrounding Indian indentured labour in Australia and the broader Indian indenture system, which persisted until the 1920s.
Resources used during this episode:
Allbrook, M (2012) ‘’A Triple Empire…United under One Dominion’: Charles Prinsep’s Schemes for Exporting Indian Labour to Australia’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 35:3, pp.648-670
Anitha, S. and Pearson, R. (2013) ‘Indentured labour from South Asia (1834-1917)’, Striking Women, Lincoln: University of Lincoln
Atkinson, A & Aveling, M (1987), ‘Chapter 4: Work’ and ‘Chapter 9: Justice’ from Australians 1838, Broadway, NSW Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates
Cullen, R (2012) Empire, Indian Indentured Labour and the Colony: The Debate Over ‘coolie’ Labour in New South Wales, 1836–1838, History Australia, vol.9 no.1, pp. 84-109
Davis, JG (2022), ‘Modern Slavery, 19th Century Slavery, and the University of Sydney’, Honi Soit, 27 February
Mackay, John & Mayo, J. R & New South Wales. Legislative Council. 1837, Indian immigration: on the introduction of Indian labourers, October 1836 Legislative Council
Mahoney, M (2020), ‘A ‘new system of slavery’? The British West Indies and the origins of Indian indenture‘, National Archives UK blog
Major, A (2017) ‘Hill Coolies’: Indian Indentured Labour and the Colonial Imagination, 1836–38. South Asian Studies, vol. 33 (1). pp. 23-36.
Mishra, S (2021), ‘Violence, Resilience and the ‘Coolie’ Identity: Life and Survival on Ships to the Caribbean, 1834–1917’, The Journal Of Imperial And Commonwealth History 2022, VOL. 50, NO. 2, 241–263
Ohlsson, T. (2011) ‘The origins of a white Australia: the coolie question 1837-43’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Royal Australian Historical Society, 97(2), pp. 203–219. Ohlsson, T. (2018) ‘Wentworth’s coolies’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Royal Australian Historical Society, 104(2), pp. 177–196.
Sharif, S (2023), ‘Historical hardship, resilience and freedom: My Indo-Fijian identity’, Indian Link, 10 October
Woolacott, A (2015) ‘Settler Men as Masters of Labour: Convicts and Non-white Workers’, Settler Society in the Australian Colonies: Self-Government and Imperial Culture, Oxford, pp. 67-97.
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