Passage From India To El Dorado

"At the instigation of William Gladstone, this challenge was met by implementing a controversial plan he had conceived, namely, the recruitment and importation of indentured workers from various places, but primarily from India, then the "jewel in the Crown" of the British Empire. This book is the story of these immigrants, who were transported from one side of the globe to another, almost exclusively in sailing ships."--BOOK JACKET.

This book traces the self-positioning of Hindostani people in the face of British and Dutch colonial practices. Originally from India and shipped to the Dutch colony of Suriname after the abolition of slavery, the Hindostani served as contract labourers to keep the plantation system afloat from 1873. Central to the book is the perspective of the Hindostani themselves. We travel alongside the Hindostani from the moment they were recruited and their movement through the depots awaiting shipment, their travel experiences, their arrival in Suriname, relocation to plantations, and their dispersal following the end of their contracts, either as city workers, or farmers. All along, the book poses the question of identification: how did Hindostani make sense of themselves, their fellow Hindostani, and Surinamese society? Stereotyped images make way for insight in lived experience of lower and higher caste, Hindus and Muslims, men and women.

South America's often overlooked English-speaking country lies far off the well-trodden tourist path. Guyana is the ideal destination for the discerning visitor seeking adventure. Within its vast interior, the Guiana Shield (one of the four pristine tropical rainforests left in the world) converges with the Amazon Basin, creating a unique geography composed of coastal waters, mangroves, marshes, savannas, mountains and tropical rainforests.Bordered by Venezuela, Brazil, Suriname and the Atlantic Ocean, the lively locals - a melting pot of East Indian and African descendants, peppered with Chinese, Europeans and Amerindians - create a culture decidedly more Caribbean than Latin.

The 1835 Nautical Magazine includes shipping news, a lurid 'journal of a privateer', and discussion of discipline on merchant ships.