Baseman posted:ksazma posted:Tola posted:ksazma posted:Anyway Tola bai. I didn’t ask a question. I made statement that the Africans didn’t want to work on the plantation anymore so the poor plantation owners were faced with a dilemma for an alternative to the loss of their African labor force. The Indians provided a much needed relief to the owners. If the Africans realize afterwards that made a terrible decision, they should just bear their chafe and not blame Indians for their mistakes.
But Ksazma bhai, some free slaves remained on the plantation and worked for a wage.
Their subdivision on the sugar estate was called Nig*er yard and the Indians subdivisions were called Bound Yard and Free Yard.
The indenture labourers bound by their five year contract stayed in Bound Yard and Free yard was those who finished their contract, but choose not to return to India.
Nig*er yard was not a pleasant name for Africans, but that was what the British named it. All sugar estates had Nig*er Yard, Bound yard and Free Yard. My family lived in Free Yard among the logies, once occupied by African slaves.
The animosity the African slaves felt for the Indenture labourers was due to the Indians bidding lower on job, thus reducing the wages of Africans, including the Indians.
If there was corporation and union, it would have benefitted everyone.
Indians can't be held responsible for what the British or Africans did. The Africans created the labor crises when many of them decided to leave the plantation. The plantation owners still had a business to operate so they did what any business owner would do, they went out and source alternative labor. Indians were not their first choice but in the end, they decided that Indians were a good fit because they were adapted to plantation activities and most of all, willing to work. So the plantation owners incurred the high cost of bringing them across the Atlantic and giving them a workable wage. The Africans could have accepted the same wage if they really wanted to compete for those jobs and the plantation owners would gladly rehire them because rehiring them had the benefit of not having to incur the high cost of transporting Indians across the Atlantic as well as not having to incur the cost of training since the Africans were already working on the plantations prior to staging their walk out. There is an old saying in Guyana that fast cents are better than slow dollars (or something like that). The Indians understood that concept a lot better than the Africans. There is a good chance the Africans didn't really want to work but were hoping to just extort the plantation owners. Their plan back firing is their loss not the innocent Indians fault.
It’s a nonsense argument. True, Afros then might have felt displaced by Indians as some Americans feel about immigrants today. However, Blacks have long moved pass that. Even burnham could not get Blacks to go back to the land in mass.
The deep seated animosity today is all about political control of the real estate.
Both groups have to seek an accommodation to ensure everyone feels included and having their fair share.
That is exactly what I am trying to tell Tola. He shouldn't fall for the Kool Aid. He is being used as a pawn and he is too innocent minded to even realize it.