Indian indenture system

The Indian indenture system was a system of indentured servitude, by which more than 1.6 million workers^[1] from British India were transported to labour in European colonies as a substitute for slave labour, following the abolition of the trade in the early 19th century. The system expanded after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833,^[2] in the French colonies in 1848, and in the Dutch Empire in 1863. British Indian indentureship lasted until the 1920s. This resulted in the development of a large South Asian diaspora in the Caribbean,^[3] Natal (South Africa), Réunion, Mauritius, and Fiji, as well as the growth of Indo-South African, Indo-Caribbean, Indo-Mauritian and Indo-Fijian populations.

Sri Lanka,^[4] Malaysia,^[5] and Myanmar had a similar system, known as the Kangani system. Indo-Lankan Tamil, Indo-Malaysian, Indo-Burmese and Indo-Singaporean populations are largely descended from these Kangani labourers. Similarly, Indo-East African are descended from labourers who went primarily to work on the Kenya-Uganda Railway, although they were not part of the indentured labourer system.