“East Indian Immigration, 1838-1917 in Guyana”

By Tota C.Mangar

May 5, 2008 commemorates the 170th Anniversary of the arrival of East Indian indentured immigrants in Guyana the former colony of British Guiana. For over three quarters of a century (1838-1917), Indian indentured labourers were imported from the sub-continent of India to the West Indian colonies ostensibly to fill the void created as a result of the mass exodus of ex-slaves from plantation labour following the abolition of the despicable system of slavery and moreso the premature termination of the apprenticeship scheme in 1838.

This influx into the Caribbean in the post-emancipation period of the 19th and early 20* Centuries was only one segment of a wider movement of Indian labourers to other parts of the world, including Mauritius, Ceylon, Fiji, the Strait Settlements, Natal and other parts of the African continent.