Indian Indenture in the Danish West Indies, 1863-1873

This book is the first comprehensive analysis of Denmark’s solitary experiment with Indian indentured labor on St. Croix during the second half of the nineteenth century.  The book focuses on the recruitment, transportation, plantation labor, re-indenture, repatriation, remittances and abolition of Indian indentured experience on the island. In doing so, Roopnarine has produced a compelling narrative on Indian indenture. The laborers challenged and responded accordingly to their daily indentured existence using their cultural strengths to cohere and co-exist in a planter-dominated environment. Laborers had to create opportunities for themselves using their homeland customs without losing the focus that someday they would return home. Indentured Indians understood that the plantation system would not be flexible to them but rather they had to be flexible to plantation system. Roopnarine’s concise analysis has moved Indian indenture from the margin to mainstream not only in the historiography of the Danish West Indies, but also in the wider Caribbean where Indians were indentured. 

• East Indian indenture on St. Croix
• Caribbean slavery
• Danish planters on St. Croix
• Indenture on British Guiana
• plantation economics in the Caribbean

“In the story of indentured Indian immigration to the Caribbean, the Danish island of St Croix (now part of the US Virgin Islands) played a minor role. Yet the arrival of 321 indentureds from British India in 1863, Denmark’s only experiment with this labour immigration, is interesting both in itself, and for comparative analysis. Roopnarine’s study, therefore, contributes both to the history of the Indian Diaspora in the Caribbean, and to the history of the US Virgin Islands.” (Bridget Brereton, Emerita Professor of History, University of the West Indies, Trinidad & Tobago)

“Roopnarine's new book fills a long-vacant gap in the historiography of the 19th century Danish West Indies, namely a close study of the presence and influence of an immigrant Indian community after Emancipation in 1848. This work effectively traces the origins and  the impact of these migrant workers  and sets in relief the short-lived experiment with labor from India, which presented a possible alternative  to the post-slavery  Danish Islands,  in the search for new directions at the dawn of the age of free labor. Well-researched and well-written, this book deserves a place on the shelf of anyone with an interest in the Danish West Indies and the U.S. Virgin Islands.” (Arnold. R. Highfield, Emeritus Professor at the University of the Virgin Islands)

“This carefully researched book makes a valuable contribution to our knowledge of labour experiments in post-slavery St. Croix. It constructs a fascinating history about which little is known and is a welcome addition to the growing historiography on East Indian indentured migration. This detailed and well written book is recommended for students of migration and bonded labour, as well as those interested in the history of the Caribbean and of the Virgin Islands.” (Goolam Vahed, History, University of KwaZulu Natal)

“Indian Indenture in the Danish West Indies is a much-needed addition to one of the least-studied historical and geographical topics, viz., East Indian indentureship in St. Croix. Roopnarine’s two decades of archival and field research have led to heretofore unexamined primary sources on indenture, re-indenture, and remittances of “coolie” laborers in St. Croix. This book’s qualitative and multidisciplinary analyses are a valuable contribution to the field of Indo-Caribbean studies.” (Sabita Manian, Professor of International Relations at Lynchburg College)

• Jackson State University, Jackson, USA

  Lomarsh Roopnarine

Lomarsh Roopnarine is Professor of Caribbean and Latin American History at Jackson State University, USA.  He received his PhD in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from the University at Albany, USA and taught at the University of the Virgin Islands, St. Croix. He has published over three dozen articles in Caribbean history, society and environmental policy. He is currently writing a manuscript on Caribbean Indian Migration and Identity.

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