The Indentured Archipelago

This book focuses on the spatial experiences of Indian indentured labourers in Mauritius and Fiji and reveals previously unexplored labour movements across the so-called Indentured Archipelago. It offers a historical geographical perspective of the lives of these labourers in Mauritius and Fiji, situating their experiences in the wider context of spatial mobility and subaltern agency. The concept of re-migration - labourers moving between these colonies, and beyond - is explored, and the scale of this facet of indentured life is revealed, in a way which has not been done to date. It brings to the fore a debate on subaltern agency, and role of geography in exploring the lives of these labourers both within and between colonies. The book also brings to light the numerous proposals for the use of Indian indentured labour across the globe, highlighting the centrality of Indian indenture to the post-abolition labour discourse.

A historical geographical comparison of the Indo-Pacific Indian indenture labour experience, revealing the hitherto unexplored movements of labourers between colonies.

Islands are not just geographical units or physical facts; their importance and significance arise from the human activities associated with them. The maritime routes of sailing ships, the victualling requirements of their sailors, and the strategic demands of seaborne empires in the age of sail - as well as their intrinsic value as sources of rare commodities - meant that islands across the globe played prominent parts in imperial consolidation and expansion. This volume examines the various ways in which islands (and groups of islands) contributed to the establishment, extension, and maintenance of the British Empire in the age of sail. Thematically related chapters explore the geographical, topographical, economic, and social diversity of the islands that comprised a large component of the British Empire in an era of rapid and significant expansion. Although many of these islands were isolated rocky outcrops, they acted as crucial nodal points, providing critical assistance for ships and men embarked on the long-distance voyages that characterised British overseas activities in the period. Intercontinental maritime trade, colonial settlement, and scientific exploration and experimentation would have been impossible without these oceanic islands. They also acted as sites of strategic competition, contestation, and conflict for rival European powers keen to outstrip each other in developing and maintaining overseas markets, plantations, and settlements. The importance of islands outstripped their physical size, the populations they sustained, or their individual economic contribution to the imperial balance sheet. Standing at the centre of maritime routes of global connectivity, islands offer historians of the British Empire fresh perspectives on the intercontinental communication, commercial connections, and territorial expansion that characterised that empire.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1853 edition. Excerpt: ...dangerous to confide in the humanity, and hopeless to resist the arms of the invader. The Spaniards landed, took possession of the place, and prepared for its permanent occupation. Ingenious devices were adopted to induce the natives to return and people the new city, whose site was already marked out. They listened to the promises of peace, yielded to the cajolements of their strange visitors, and came down with their chiefs to acknowledge the sovereignty of Spain. Viewed by the light of modern theories, these trans-Character actions appear to deserve enumeration among the poiicy. achievements of piracy. Luzon had never sent forth any marauders to attack the Spanish settlements; her inhabitants had never seized any shipping, or insulted the conqueror's flag. A force was landed, the country was declared annexed, and the people were summoned to yield up their independence without so much as the pretence of an excuse. With the navigators of those days, discovery gave the right of conquest, as power in all times appears to have given the right of oppression. The example of William Penn was among the first recognitions of a title in the savage possessors of the soill, but since that period opinions have passed through Right of a filtering process, and we apply the rules of justice to conques acts of territorial extension on the part of states, as to those of appropriation on the part of private individuals. The conquests of the Spaniards, considered from.another point of view, were beneficial to the Indian tribes. That they afterwards ceased to be so2, was because the successors of Legaspi departed from the line of policy his wisdom had traced out. He preferred peace before war, commercial treaties before the victories of the sword, and...

David Vine recounts how the British & US governments created the Diego Garcia base, making the native Chagossians homeless in the process. He details the strategic significance of this remote location & also describes recent efforts by the exiles to regain their territory.

An abridgement of the report of the Commission.

With reference to Indian indentured labour migration in the Mauritus and British Guiana.