Howrah arrives as recruitment continues

On 1 July 1873 the state-supervision period ended and formerly enslaved people gained full civil rights under colonial law. During the interval after formal emancipation, adults aged 15–60 were...

The Bengal arrived on 8 July 1873 with the next recorded group of Hindostani contract workers. The colonial immigration registers assigned the arrivals serial contract numbers, connecting people to...

On 25 August 1873, the Yorkshire brought another group of contract workers from British India. The National Archives ship list associates this arrival with hundreds of contract numbers. Read together,...

The Mangalore arrived in Suriname on 8 November 1873 with a further group of Hindostani workers. Their registration numbers became an enduring administrative identity, and records continued to be...

The ship Calcutta arrived on 25 November 1873, completing five recorded ship arrivals from British India in the first year of the main migration system. The contract numbers run sequentially across...

On 24 September 1884, Hindostani laborers at the sugar plantation Zorg en Hoop protested severe tasks and low payments. A confrontation followed after an overseer judged the assigned work incomplete...

On 26 September 1884, colonial forces fired on resisting workers at Zorg en Hoop. Janey Tetary, a Hindostani woman who helped mobilize other women in the resistance, was shot and killed along with six...

On 9 August 1890, the first recorded Javanese contract workers arrived in Paramaribo aboard the Prins Alexander and Prins Willem II. The experiment placed them at Mariënburg, where they joined an...

The steamship Voorwaarts arrived on 16 June 1894 with the second major recorded Javanese cohort in the National Archives ship chronology. Recruitment from Java was still experimental, but it became...

On 28 June 1902, 137 workers at plantation Alliance—100 Hindostani and 37 Javanese—stopped work and went to Frederiksdorp to present grievances. They objected to excessive tasks, low wages, and the...