Martinique is often mistakenly seen as an island of Blacks and Whites and a mixture of the interbreeding of Africa and Europe. However, Martinique is indeed partly Indian, and our daily habits and gestures are also current proof of this heritage.
The economic conditions of Indian immigration
A cruel lack of manpower
A little historical reminder, Martinique was a land conquered by the Arawaks, then the Carib Indians, before the arrival of Europeans and colonization, which subsequently practiced the triangular trade bringing African slaves to work in the fields of coffee, cocoa, and sugar cane. When slavery ends, slaves no longer wish to work for those who once reduced them to servile labor and desert the plantations. They preferred to exploit small plots of land in the hills rather than having a paid job from their former tormentors.
The authorities took measures to force free men to return to work on the plantations:
Freedom is not the right to wander, but the right to work for yourselves [...]. My friends, be obedient to the orders of your masters to show that you know that it is not for everyone to be in charge.
But without much conviction.
The Schoelcher commission had even declared:
The negroes will have difficulty understanding that they can be both free and constrained. The Republic does not want to take back with one hand what it gave with the other; in the colonies as in the metropolises, the time for lies is over!
The same commission provided for compensation for victims of slavery, but the French government opposed, preferring to compensate the masters who had lost heavily in the abolition of slavery. The latter find themselves in front of enormous problems of workers for the work in the fields.
The choice of Indian immigration
At first, the settlers again turned to Africa, trying to bring in black African slaves who would be redeemed and brought free to the island. The “Congos” would be free workers who were offered a work contract and remuneration. The result is not convincing despite 9,090 individuals being transported to Martinique, and recruitment ceases rapidly. Moreover, this immigration was too reminiscent of slavery practices.
It is therefore to Asia that the French Government will turn. Thus, the Chinese in small numbers (978 individuals from Canton) and the Indians in large majority arrive as new immigrant labor in Martinique. It was in 1853 that the immigration of Indians to Martinique and Guadeloupe really began.
Thus, 25,509 Indian immigrants (42,967 in Guadeloupe) arrive on the island with a five-year contract (five years), a remuneration for their work, and the promise of being able to return to India for free at the end of their contract. 4,541 were repatriated. Note that the other Caribbean islands are not to be outdone. The British have also turned to India for abolition in their colonies.
They are even the initiators because slavery was abolished in 1833 in the English colonies, and Indian immigration began in 1838, while the French colonies still practiced slavery. This Indian immigration was very important in Trinidad and Tobago between 1838 and 1917.