The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-07-04
THE SOUTH AFRICAN sHYLOCK.
HindOOs Enacting that Part for the
Blacks OF Natal.
Poultney Bigelow, in Harper.

Poultney Bigelow, in Harper.
Though there are only about fifty thou
sand Indians from Bombay and Calcutta
that is to say, though they are no more
numerous than the whites, their numbers
seem multiplied because they live only
upon the highways of travel-about rail-
way stations. in towns and upon the
roads which the natives must take in
coming to ana from the market. My
personal observation, founded on my RAM
bles about the country, would have forced
on the conclusion that there were
blacks put together. In the whole length
of my twelve miles tramp that day to
say nothing Of other tramps in other
directions, I noticed that nearly every
hut represented d family of East Indians.
Their forbidding features haunted me
wherever 1 went. They. appeared to do
gary and Poland do for those two gen.
erous and unsuspecting nations. They
traffic with the natives by means of willy
ways which WesternerS can only emu
late at a distance. If they have not al
ready. they will soon have the blacks of
Natal in a bondage similar to that in
which the Jews to-day hold the IMPROVE
dent emancipated slaves of the United
States. 1t is the same old story. The
courages him to buy what he would not
have bought when sober, then coaXes him
into debt, and allows him credit out OF
proportion TO his capacity in ready money.
Then when the native is likely to be most
embarrassed by a demand upon him, the
Hlndoo presents his little bill, and threat
ems legal proceedings if it is not Immediate
ly paid. The trader however, does not wish
1t paid, and thus he can pretend to accom-
moGate the native who is not able to pay
it. The Natal Shylock asks only a prOmis-
sorry note or mortgage, along with a stip-
ulatiOn that his debtor shall trade with no
one excepting himself. Thus out of a little
original debt of a few Shllings the black
man has converted himself into a bond
slave of the Jew, paying to him everything
that he can possibly earn, and remaining
unto the day of his death in a. condition diff
fering only in name from slavery. Wise
D1f
no government has yet ventured to cope
with it. We have laws protecting our
there is no such protection for the negro.
who is in money matters vastly weaker
than the average boy of fourteen.
These coolies, as they are called in South
Africa, were introduced from India with
the sole object of providing a reliable sup
ply of labor in the sugar fields. The Zu-
lus were regarded as too tickle for steady
work, and the alien government threw so
many safeguards about their immigrants
that the sugar planters were easily rec
onclled. 1t was originally provided that
when these coolies had served out their
shipped to their native land, and indeed
the coolies themselves attached great i'm
portance to this provision. But as the years
ment were found to be so much more
abundant in South Africa than in Calcutta
or Bombay that, instead of going home
this ingenious race sought lucrative en-
ployment at work which the black man
could not do and the white man would not.
lOuHu lIi6SG III large num-
bers about the gold fields Of Jo-
hannesburg, carrying on most of the
petty traffic and a considerable portion of
the mechanical trades. They had wedged
themselves in between the white man and
the black. exactly. as they have in the West
Indies and British Guiana, though in that
part of the world the Chinese run them
pretty close. They are a thrifty people.
and absorb property with great rapidity.
In Natal they are coming to represent more
and more the capitalist class of the COM
munity, and to domineer over the black
after the fashion of a master. Now the
black man will stand much from a white
man, but he is not readily reconciled to
the dominion of cocoa-colOred people who
are themselves conquered race, and who
yet in Natal acquire full citizenship with
the white man, and use this citizenship to
exploit the native black. Some fine day
the papers will inform US that these gentle
Zulus have massacred a few thousand Hin
docs over night.