Marble, Grass, and Glass

This book, Marble, Grass and Glass, centers on the 1.2 million East Indian indentured servants who were shipped to various parts of the world to work on British sugar plantations. Although similar events occurred at their various destinations, the main focus is on the country of Guyana where some 240,000 Indian subjects were sent. The indentured process to Guyana started after slavery was abolished in 1834. The first two ships transported and delivered their surviving human cargo there in 1838. That process continued until 1917. Because the plantation owners were used to slave labor, their field supervisors called overseers and drivers maintained their ruthless domination over the new arrivals. The term driver refers to those individuals who would “drive” the workers with whips to demonstrate their power and to ensure that the quality of work met their high standards and was pleasing to the wealthy English entities. The indentured Indians, called coolies, left India for various reasons with the intention of working at the plantations for a set period of time and to return home wealthy. So they were told. Many were told that they were going to a colony to sift sugar and would be well compensated. The recruitment process evolved uglier when it became compulsory that ships must carry a specified percent of women. Women, for the most part, did not want to participate in such unknown practices, so the sly recruiting agents reverted to various form of chicanery, including kidnapping. The brutality and abuse to those people by the overseers and drivers are revealed in this narrative. The victims, who survived told their stories to descendants. Such stories were relayed to the generations that followed. The horrors started with the nefarious practices of the recruiters and the kidnappers. People were held at crowded depots in places like Calcutta. They were eventually loaded on ships, sometimes by force. Some jumped overboard and perished. Many died during the long perilous journey across the oceans. Many women were sexually abused by the ships’ personnel. The survivors who reached their final destinations were treated like chattel and assigned to the various British plantations to work as field laborers. Their housing was inadequate for human habitation. People died there from diseases unknown to them. The work was demanding and the food was inadequate. Physical and verbal abuses were standard practices. Men and women were beaten. But the worst was the sexual abuse to the women. The “authorities” assumed that they could have any woman they wanted at any time. Rejection meant severe punishments to them and to their families. Those field supervisors made it difficult for many who could not finish their scheduled daily tasks. The penalty for that was extending their bound period to the plantations indefinitely. Women who did not cooperate with the supervisors’ demands had their tasks harshly judged, resulting in being bound to the plantation for such extended time that some died there. There were murders, suicides, infanticides and other inhumane practices. Many babies died from diseases, malnutrition, inadequate parental supervision due to parents being in the fields, and for other reasons. Child abuse was standard practice resulting in low self esteem for generations to follow. This book reveals the personal experiences of my ancestors who emigrated from India to Guyana on various ships during the indentured process. Some came willingly and some did not. This is a narrative of their collective memories and stories told about their lives on the plantations and beyond. Some experiences were good and some were horrible. Even the good stories reflect the turmoil there and the determination it took to survive in a place where human dignity was compromised to its lowest level. Although the stories are reflections of members of one family, many others dealt with similar issues. For those descendants of global Indian indentured process who do not know details about their respective ancestors, this writing is universal. It is our story. It is our heritage. No matter to which part of the globe those ancestral people went, the gist of their stories is universal. They all suffered a similar fate and should be honored and praised for tolerating and surviving the re-invented and redefined slavery system. A servitude system which contracted innocent people and such contract became a life sentence for some. These little-known atrocities need to be told and the human race should consider what we are capable of when given unlimited power over others. This book is written to show the world what can happen when systems fail and money and greed supersede human dignity. Where the wisdom of divine higher powers was assigned lower seating, and chose to dwell among and to comfort the abject sufferers during their darkest moments. Today it is all history. The abusers and the abused have long departed emptyhandedly into environments unknown to mortals. But the stories survived. I am honored to share the stories with the world and to share that we, their descendants, have now evolved to reclaim our family dignity, to pay homage to ancestral sufferers and to enjoy the foundations they created for us. We stand on their shoulders and pray for their departed souls. Most of all, we live to show what is possible when opportunities present themselves and we take advantage of those opportunities. Thank you for exploring our ancestral stories in this book titled Marble, Grass and Glass.