Abstract
Chapter 3 examines two novels by authors writing at the time of indenture, Edward Jenkins’ Lutchmee and Dilloo and A.R.F. Webber’s Those That Be in Bondage. In both, a British man in power develops a relationship with a beautiful young Indian woman, raising her out of the degradation and harsh life of field labor and into a world of civilization and refinement. This represents the primary justification of colonization: Britain would protect its helpless colonies and civilize them. Both authors wrote their novels to suggest that the system of indenture needed corrections, but was generally beneficial to Britain, India, and the Caribbean nations involved in the system. Yet Jenkins and Webber reveal more than they perhaps intended. The tragic ending of Lutchmee and Dilloo, for example, in which a noble Indian man is turned vicious by the evils of the system, counters Jenkins’ argument that indenture benefits the Indian people. In Those That Be in Bondage, Webber, who was of African and European descent, reveals an ambivalence toward empire. Though he was an advocate of Guianese independence, the depictions of his characters suggest that he accepts the colonial notion of a racialized hierarchy of civilization, with Britain at the top.
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Notes
- 1.
See also Deepchand Beeharry’s That Others Might Live (1976), Sharlows The Promise (1995), David Dabydeen: The Counting House (1996), and Ron Ramdin’s Rama’s Voyage (2004) for other examples.
- 2.
While the novel was published in 1917, Selwyn Cudjoe suggests that it was written in 1913 or 1914 (Cudjoe 2009, 16).
- 3.
The Coolie was published less than a decade after the abolition of slavery in the United States. In his preface to the American edition of the book, Jenkins notes that his observations would prove useful should the southern states consider adopting a similar system, and argues that “we can no more disregard each other’s movements, each other’s successes, or each other’s blunders, than we can the motions of the earth or the laws of gravitation” (The Coolie 1871a, vi). While the United States did not adopt a system of labor immigration, there are certainly parallels between British Imperial indenture and the repressive policies of apprenticeship and sharecropping that followed the abolition of slavery in the United States.
- 4.
See also The Coolie: “Exaggerated statements in print, or made by the recruiters, mislead the ignorant Coolies, and lay the basis for that permanent sense of wrong, which makes for a resentful labourer, with the danger of corresponding harshness and oppression in enforcing another view of the contract” (1871a, 165). Jenkins advises, “The action of these recruiters, therefore, needs careful watching on the part of the Indian government” (1871a, 165).
- 5.
See The Coolie. Jenkins notes that the law states that laborers need only complete five tasks per week, whereas many managers forced their laborers to work five days even if they had already completed five tasks.
- 6.
Due to unrest, colonial officials in San Fernando had banned processions from entering the town. In defiance of this, on the day of Hosay, a procession of unarmed laborers marched toward the town, carrying tadjas, models of the tombs of the brothers of the prophet Mohammed. Police ordered the Indians, most of whom did not speak English, to disperse, and when they did not, fired into the crowd. Accounts vary, but between 9 and 22 Indians were killed and about 100 were injured.
- 7.
In Caribbean Visionary, Selwyn Cudjoe reports that he spoke to a cousin of Webber who suggested but would not confirm that Webber worked as an overseer.
- 8.
- 9.
After visiting London in 1926, he expressed the belief that socialism was not relevant in British Guiana, but necessary in London: “In Urban England, industrialized to the fingertips, the strong crushing the weak, and the poor gripped in unspeakable misery, the plant must flourish” (quoted in Cudjoe 2009, 74).
- 10.
Though Marjorie is depicted as having some African ancestry, there is little indication of what she has gained from it. This, in conjunction with the limited space given to Afro-Caribbean characters in the novel, might indicate that Webber views Africans’ contributions to Caribbean culture as limited.
- 11.
This ambivalence can also be seen in his journalism, especially An Innocent’s Pilgrimage, in which he describes his impressions of London. Though he is critical of Britain, he shows a certain awe for its history: “This is the London which inspired the arrogance that cost the Empire the American colonies; the London which freed the slaves; the London which has been guilty of every sin under the sun; and has been in the van of every cause of righteousness. What mighty traditions, what fatal errors lay enshrouded in its folds” (quoted in Cudjoe 2009, 72).
- 12.
This dismissal of Africans is echoed in his nonfiction works. In his historical account, Centenary History and Handbook of British Guiana, Webber feeds in to the stereotype that Africans were childlike and lazy: “There was…no effort made to engender self-reliance and industry in the Negro. He was still a child, to be induced to labour by free gifts” (Webber 1931, 197). In an article for The Daily Chronicle, he writes that it is a mistake “to confuse the higher standard of civilization and culture of the West Indies with that of the African dependencies…where you have millions of illiterate people, practically naked savages, you cannot compare them with the clothed people of British Guiana” (quoted in Cudjoe 2009, 100). He thus replicates racist and inaccurate views of Africa in order to place British Guiana higher on the hierarchy of civilized cultures.
- 13.
Vishnudat Singh points out that the second half of the novel, which spends a great deal of time following Harold and Marjorie on their explorations of the Tobago coast, has the travelogue quality of works by British authors who visited the Caribbean, like Anthony Trollope. Singh concludes, “He wants to explain Guyana to those who stay at home, the clearest indication that the novel is addressed to metropolitan readers” (Singh 1986, 49).
- 14.
Though the gender disparity appears in Lutchmee and Dilloo—there are only two female Indian characters in the entire text—it is much less central to the plot. This suggests that Jenkins saw other issues, such as the government and legal system’s partiality to the planters, as more responsible for the suffering of the workers.
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Klein, A. (2018). Tying the Knot: Early Depictions of Indenture. In: Anglophone Literature of Caribbean Indenture. New Caribbean Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99055-2_3
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