Indian Immigration was a new form of slavery after the emancipation of the Africans in the Caribbean

Indentured servitude came about in three ways: first, one could consent to a term of indentured servitude to pay a debt; second, a judge could sentence a petty criminal to "transportation" in lieu of a prison term, or third, a judge could impose "transportation" on a debtor. Indentured servants actually had to be paid upon the completion of their term, although most never completed their terms. Indentured servants usually received a small amount of cash, some tools and a certificate that entitled them to a land claim, but most sold those claims and returned to Britain. Less than 50% decided to stay in the new world. During the, slavery and indentured servants existed side by side, and because planters had a greater financial investment in their slaves rather than their indentured servants, slaves tended to be treated better. Although indentured servants were replaced in favour of slaves, indentured servitude did continue in the US until it was outlawed by the Constitution. Slavery, as we understand it, developed throughout the through a series of legal cases that decided that slavery was lifelong and inherited. Obviously, the most important distinction is that while indentured servants led some rebellions, it was slavery that sparked one of the most defining moments of our history, the Civil War. The Indian indenture system was an ongoing system of indenture, a form of debt bondage, by which perhaps two million Indians were transported to various colonies of European powers to provide labour for the (mainly sugar) plantations. It started from the end of slavery in 1833 and continued until 1920. As soon as the new system of emigration of labour became known, a campaign, similar to the anti-slavery campaign sprang up in Britain and India. On 1 August 1838, a committee was appointed to inquire into the export of Indian labour. It heard reports of abuses of the new system. On 29 May 1839, overseas manual labour was prohibited and any person effecting such emigration was liable to a 200 Rupee fine or three months in jail. Following the emancipation of slaves in 1833 in the United Kingdom, many liberated Africans left their former masters. This created an economic chaos for British owners of sugar-cane plantations in the Caribbean region, and elsewhere. The hard work in hot, humid farms required a regular, docile and low-waged labour force. The British looked for cheap labour. Since slavery had been abolished, the British crafted a new legal system of forced labour, which in many ways resembled enslavement. Instead of calling them slaves, they were called indentured labourers. Indians, primarily began to replace Africans previously brought as slaves, under this indentured labour scheme to serve on sugarcane plantations across the British empire. The first ships carrying indentured labourers for sugar-cane plantations left India in 1838 for the Caribbean region. In fact, the first two shiploads of Indians arrived in British Guiana (now Guyana) on May 5, 1838 on board the Whitby and Hesperus. These ships had sailed from Calcutta. In the early decades of the sugar-cane-driven migrations, indentured Indians were treated as inhumanely as the enslaved Africans had been. They were confined to their estates and paid a pitiful salary. Any breach of contract brought automatic criminal penalties and imprisonment. Many of these were brought away from their homelands deceptively. Many from inland regions over a thousand kilometres from seaports were promised jobs, were not told the work they were being hired for, or that they would leave their homeland and communities. They were hustled aboard the waiting ships, unprepared for the long and arduous four-month sea journey. Charles Anderson, a special magistrate investigating these sugar-cane plantations, wrote to the British Colonial Secretary declaring that with few exceptions, the indentured labourers are treated with great and unjust severity; plantation owners enforced work in sugar-cane farms so harshly, that the decaying remains of immigrants were frequently discovered in sugar-cane fields. If labourers protested and refused to work, they were not paid or fed: they simply starved. The sugar-cane plantation-driven migrations led to ethnically significant presence of Indians in Caribbean. In some islands and countries, these Indo-Caribbean migrants now constitute a significant proportion of the population. Sugar-cane plantations and citizens of Indian origin continue to thrive in countries such as Guyana, formerly, British Guiana, Jamaica, Trinidad, Martinique, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, St. Kitts, St. Croix, Suriname and Nevis. By some estimates, over 2.5 million people in the Caribbean are of Indian origin. Many have ethnically blended with migrants from other parts of the world, creating a unique syncretic culture. Though production was centred in the Caribbean, sugar-cane production played a significant role in pre-World War II global politics and population movements. France, for example, negotiated with Britain leading to Act XLVI of 1860, whereby large numbers of Indian indentured labourers were brought for harsh sugar-cane plantation work in French colonies in the Caribbean region. The Caribbean colonies of the Netherlands too benefited from the indentured labourers from India. Due to the consistent and overwhelming degree of abuse of the indenture system many Indians were brought to North American and the Caribbean against their will, either by court order, deception or by force.