On 30 May 1845, the Futtle Rozack, commonly known as the Fatel Razack, arrived in Port of Spain carrying 225 adults from India. They were contracted to work on sugar plantations after emancipation. The voyage lasted 103 days and contracts bound workers to estates for years. Colonial officials presented indenture as contracted labor, legally distinct from chattel slavery, but planters recruited workers to maintain plantation production after emancipation. The immigrants brought languages, religions, skills and family histories that shaped Trinidad for generations.
On 28 August 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act received Royal Assent. It legally set abolition in motion across British colonies, including Trinidad, but did not give most adults immediate freedom:...
On 1 August 1834, the British Slavery Abolition Act took effect in Trinidad. Children under six were freed, while most adults were placed in an apprenticeship system that compelled them to continue...
On 25 July 1838, Governor George Fitzgerald Hill recommended ending predial (field) apprenticeship, and Trinidad’s Council of Government passed an ordinance making it end on 1 August. The 1833...
On 1 August 1838, apprenticeship ended and full legal emancipation took effect in Trinidad, two years before the originally scheduled end of the longest apprenticeship terms in much of the British...
On 2 August 1838, a crowd of about 200 people, mostly women, protested in Trinidad and demanded full freedom. The colonial militia suppressed the demonstration. Their action came one day after...
👉 Fatel Razack brings the first Indian indentured workers to Trinidad
Current
30 May 1845
On 30 May 1845, the Futtle Rozack, commonly known as the Fatel Razack, arrived in Port of Spain carrying 225 adults from India. They were contracted to work on sugar plantations after emancipation....
On 4 March 1853, the ship Australia landed 432 Chinese immigrants in Trinidad. Colonial records say they were distributed among estates across several counties. The records also document workers...
On 30 October 1884, police and military forces fired on participants in the Hosay procession near San Fernando after colonial authorities restricted its route and movement into town. The procession...
On 12 March 1917, recruitment of Indian laborers for overseas indenture was suspended. Trinidad had received many thousands of Indian workers for plantation labor after emancipation. The suspension...
On 22 April 1917, the S.S. Ganges arrived at Nelson Island carrying the last group of Indian indentured immigrants to Trinidad. The National Archives’ register lists 421 arrivals, including men,...
On 1 January 1920, remaining Indian indenture contracts in the British colonies were ended, formally closing the system after recruitment had stopped and the last ship reached Trinidad in 1917....
