ABSTRACT
Between 1860 and 1911, a total of 152,641 Indian indentured workers arrived in the then British Colony of Natal. The first group of workers who returned home in 1871 complained of ill-treatment and abuse by employers and the Indian government refused to sanction further allotments of labourers until the Natal government investigated their com- plaints. The ensuing Coolie Commission of 1872 called for the appointment of a Protector of Indian Immigrants, as one of several recommendations. The Natal Government duly complied as the Colony was desperate for labour. Such officials were also appointed in other colonial contexts around this time. Instances of worker abuse, however, continued throughout the period of indenture in Natal, notwithstanding some observers’ claim that the appointment of a Protector was a watershed moment for bonded labour. It appears that the vastness of the area under the Protector’s jurisdiction and the enormous power of planters made it difficult for Protectors to balance the needs of workers and employers. But workers found creative ways to use the office of the Protector to resist the system; and, on occasion, the abuse was so great that the Protector was forced to intervene publicly to safeguard the rights of workers and the integrity of his office. In focusing on the Protector, this article makes a contribution to the emerging literature on empire that focuses on connections and networks across colonies and the agency and actions of ordinary people. KEYWORDS: Indenture, Coolies, Wragg Commission, Indian Diaspora, Protector, Shepstone.
I do not say abolish the office of Protector of Indian Immigrants, but I would suggest the Indian Government appointing a man to come out who understands the Indians’ ways and customs, and who would be more competent to deal with these affairs. By adopting this suggestion we would have a man who would be a quasi-consul and independent protector, so far as the Indian is concerned, and who would be beneficial to both employer and employee. —BERNARD GABRIEL1.
Bernard Gabriel, born to indentured migrants to Natal and a lawyer by pro- fession, in 1905 articulated the view of many of his fellow Indians in the coastal South African province of Natal, that the Protector of Indian Immigrants was too entangled in the system of indenture to be an independent mediator between Indian workers and their employers. Gabriel suggested that the Indian government should appoint someone familiar with the habits and customs of migrants, whose powers and status would allow him to confront employers when necessary. Gabriel’s appeal underlines the fact that even though by the mid-nineteenth century many officials and concerned humanitarians in the British Empire believed that they had a responsibility to protect those under their watch—and instituted enquiries into the conditions of indentured workers, convict workers, and indigenous peoples across the empire when stories of abuse emerged—they came under immense pressure from plantation owners and settlers and often found it difficult to enforce regulations, especially after colonies became self-governing. This paper examines the concept of protection at one colonial site, Natal—which was located on the south-eastern corner of Africa bordering the Indian Ocean and which in 1910 would become a prov- ince of the Union of South Africa, by interrogating the role of the Protector— whose appointment in some ways legitimised indenture by setting it apart from other contemporary systems of labour, such as slavery and the forced and migrant labour systems. This distinction was important to the British who had spent much of the nineteenth century trying to curb the slave trade and had justified the ‘‘scramble for Africa,’’ in part, in order to end slavery.
Indian indentured workers were subject to challenging and sometimes outright exploitative working and living conditions in nineteenth-century Natal. Many found it difficult to get redress because they lacked effective collective organisation, were divided by language, caste and regional origins, were spread everywhere across the colony, and often lacked the language and resources to take on the collective might of employers, Sirdars (Indian supervisors on plantations), overseers, and magistrates.
Complaints by Indian workers in Natal led to an investigation of the system of indenture there. This investigation coincided with similar investigations in other parts of the British Empire in the late 1860s and early 1870s. Were these investigations a ‘‘watershed in the system [of indenture] as a whole,’’ as the scholar David Northrup believes?2 One view is that in practical terms the appointment of a Protector meant little in the context of the overwhelming power of planters. As Leonard Thompson points out, the Protector’s effectiveness was curbed by the political influence of planters and fear and apathy of many magistrates ‘‘who dared not flout the interests of the prosperous sugar planters, the social lions of their districts.’’3 Sociologist Radhika Mongia also believes that Protectors were there less to ‘‘protect’’ the indentured than to project the ‘‘impartiality’’ of the state, which allowed the system to perpetuate.4 One of the issues this article examines is whether the office of the Protector was a toothless institution, as Mongia and Thompson believe, that served little purpose.
The article commences with an analysis of the reasons for the importation of labour to Natal and of the labour regime in the colony, before focusing on the appointment of a Protector and examining his role. It asks: Was the Protector instrumental in buttressing the system or challenging its abuses? How did the social class and political influence of individual Protectors shape the role of the office? Did the various investigations of indenture serve any purpose? Did Protectors intentionally disregard the exploitation of indentured workers or did they take their responsibilities seriously and play the role of ‘‘referee’’ to ensure that the terms and conditions of the contract were respected?
Over the past decade there has been a growing interest in studies of empire that move beyond the establishment of colonies and the relationship of periphery and metropole. As law professors Shaunnagh Dorsett and John McLaren point out, the ‘‘boundedness’’ of empire has given way to ‘‘networking, borrowing and transnational history, and the nature of colonial rule has been complicated by accounts of resistance, hybridity and accommodation.’’5 Geographer Miles Ogborn urges that we move from ‘‘master narratives’’ of global histories and geographies to examine the ‘‘actions of people who were part of these processes’’ and the ‘‘effects of human action, and the effects on human action’’ in order to recover the ‘‘agency’’ of those people who were involved in global processes.6 Clare Anderson likewise takes a ‘‘life-writing approach, weaving together biographical snapshots’’ of subaltern lives in the Indian Ocean World from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. As with the subjects in this study, she relies on ‘‘fragmentary traces in the archives,’’ in her case ‘‘penal inventories, petitions, and court records to construct partial biographies.’’ While partial, she believes that this ‘‘ensemble of multiple fragments,’’ can, nevertheless, ‘‘be put to work in the construction of life histories that are not usually available to us and can take on larger meanings in reference to each other.’’7
This article attempts, with limited archival material, to construct the biographies of individual Protectors in order to get a better sense of their social, economic, and political standing in colonial society and to understand the extent to which, if any, these factors influenced how they performed their roles. This micro-level analysis also allows us to go beyond assumptions about colonial officials to see how individuals carried out their duties, what simi- larities and differences there were between officials, and whether, ultimately, it made a difference to subjects ‘‘on the ground.’’ Ultimately, this approach allows us to analyse the extent to which officials in distant colonies were subject to official policies.
INDIAN INDENTURE IN NATAL
British traders established an unofficial trading station at Port Natal in 1824. Several thousand Boers—an Afrikaans word translating to farmers and referring to descendants of Dutch-speaking settlers of the Eastern Cape Frontier who migrated northwards from the Cape to escape British rule— arrived at the settlement in 1838. The British, fearing that the Boers would seek the protection of a foreign power and thus threaten her supremacy in the region, annexed Natal in 1843.8 Most Boers consequently left Natal and were replaced by British settlers who numbered close to twenty thousand in 1869.9 Sugar flourished in the coastal regions but settlers found it difficult to secure a cheap and dependable labour supply even though there was a large Zulu population. Farmers complained to the Wragg Commission of 1885–87 that Africans were not prepared to enter into lengthy labour relationships as many survived through subsistence farming.10 Others re- responded with great vigour to market incentives in locations established by colonial officials, on Protestant missions, or land rented from the government and land speculators.11
The British settlers petitioned for labour; and Sir George Grey, High Commissioner over British territories in Southern Africa who visited Natal in 1855, supported their request as he was aware of the success of Indian labour in Mauritius.12 Between 1860 and 1911, 152,641 indentured migrants arrived in Natal.13 Indentured migration to Natal was part of a new inter- national circulation of labour that evolved after the British Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, which officially put an end to slavery in most of the British Empire at midnight on July 31, 1834. This change led to a frantic search for alternative sources of cheap non-slave labour for the globalising capitalist system’s food production and mining enterprise operations for European markets.14 Chinese indentured workers were recruited to build the railway lines in California, to work on sugar plantations in Cuba and Peru, and to mine gold in South Africa, while around 1.3 million Indian contract labourers were shipped to old sugar colonies such as Mauritius, Jamaica, British Guiana, Trinidad, St. Lucia, and Granada, as well as new ones like Natal and Fiji which had never known slavery.15 The indentured migrant labour force within the British Empire averaged 150,000 per decade from 1841 to 1914.16
THE COOLIE COMMISSION OF 1872
Around 60 percent of indentured migrants were allocated to sugar estates where they formed the backbone of the labour force.17 During 1907–08, for example, Indians constituted 82 percent of Natal’s sugar workers.18 Others worked for the railways, the Durban and Pietermaritzburg municipalities, as boatmen, domestics, in the coal mines, and on wattle and tea estates.19 In 1904 there were 1,300 employers of indentured labour across the colony.20 Indentured migrants had to labour for five years for the employer to whom they were assigned. At the end of five years they could reindenture or seek work elsewhere in Natal. At the end of ten years they were eligible for a free passage home. Section 22 of Law 14, 1859, required resident magistrates, ‘‘or other person duly authorised,’’ to visit estates at least twice a year to ‘‘inspect the state and condition of all registered immigrants’’ and investigate workers’ and employers’ complaints. Section 23 stipulated that anyone obstructing the official from carrying out this duty could be fined up to ten pounds.21 Indentured Indians faced numerous abuses. CG. Henning, Ashwin Desai, and I have chronicled the appalling treatment of the indentured in Natal.22 Hugh Tinker called it ‘‘A New System of Slavery.’’23
Workers had few ways of resisting their exploitation as a series of regula- tions maintained rigid control. Formal control included draconian laws which viewed all contractual offenses as criminal acts and sanctioned legal action against Indians for laziness and desertion. Workers could be imprisoned or fined for ‘‘losing’’ the master’s property, ‘‘careless use of fire,’’ or causing injury to livestock through ‘‘negligence.’’ They could not go more than two miles from the estate without an employer’s written permission even if they wanted to lay a complaint against their employer, live off the estate, refuse any work assigned to them, demand higher wages, or leave the employer. They had to work for nine hours per day, with time off on Sunday.
Most protest was individualistic and comprised acts like absenteeism, desertion, suicide, or destruction of property.24
Indentured migration was stopped in 1866 due to an economic downturn in Natal. By this time, 6,445 Indians had arrived in the colony. The Red Riding Hood set sail for India on February 12, 1871 with passengers who had completed their ten-year residence in Natal. The Protector of Emigrants at Madras reported in early April 1871 that the returning Indians ‘‘were loud in their complaints of the manner in which they had been treated on the estates in Natal.’’ Grievances included late payment of wages, the working day extending beyond nine hours, assault, insufficient and poor quality rations, false promises about bonuses upon their return to India, abuses by Sirdars and overseers, and ‘‘ruthless neglect of the sickly.’’25
When economic conditions improved towards the end of the decade, planters again requisitioned the Natal government for labour. The Indian government, however, refused to sanction further immigration until the indentured system was fully investigated. The Natal government initially dismissed the complaints but was forced to appoint a commission on March 4, 1872 under Attorney-General Michael H. Gallwey and Major General Banastre Pryce Lloyd.26 This was one of several investigations into labour practices around the world at this time. There was a commission in British Guiana in 1871, another in Mauritius in 1875, parliamentary investigations of indentured Solomon Islanders in Queensland in 1869 and 1876, an investigation into the conditions of Chinese plantation workers in Cuba, and a special treaty between the governments of Peru and China in 1874 in view of the Chinese ‘‘suffering grievances’’ in Peru. Northrup attributes the terrible treatment of workers to poor global economic conditions and the decline of certain industries in particular.27 The success of beet sugar from Europe in the 1860s led to a steep decline in cane sugar prices, which was mainly a tropical product, and a general crisis for the industry to remain competitive due to oversupply.28
The Coolie Commission in Natal heard the evidence of thirty-six witnesses over three months. The group included thirty employers, three officials, and just three Indian witnesses. At least one of the commissioners had ‘‘expert knowledge’’ of Indians. Since the late eighteenth century, British Orientalists have studied Asian law, religion, society, and culture to become experts on these topics. One of the commissioners, Banastre Pryce Lloyd, described as a ‘‘British Officer, linguist, and civil servant,’’ was the son of Welshman Llewellyn Lloyd and Jane Falkner. His paternal uncle, Sir Edward Lloyd, was a member of the House of Commons for most of the years between 1806 and 1831. The Annotated Register of Rugby School shows that Banatre enrolled there in 1836.29 He joined the East India Company and participated in several military campaigns, including the Indian Mutiny of 1857. In 1858, he was made Major in the Bengal Native Infantry, and in January 1866 he became Lieutenant-Colonel, Bengal Staff Corps.30 Lloyd was fluent in Hindi and knew the ‘‘ways and customs’’ of Indians based on having lived in the country. Reports do not reveal when and how he came to Natal, but he had relatives in the colony. His cousin William H.C. Lloyd, an Anglican clergyman, arrived in Natal in 1849 as the first Colonial Chaplain. Banastre also held high rank in government as Acting Colonial Secretary of Natal during 1874 and 1875 and was a member of the Legislative Council.31
Lloyd’s ‘‘practical knowledge’’ of Indians was in contrast to and complemented Attorney-General Gallwey’s legal training and ‘‘objective’’ mind. Sir Michael Henry Gallwey (1826–1912) was the eldest of eleven children born to Margaret and Henry Gallwey from the south of Ireland. Gallwey graduated from Trinity College, Dublin in 1851 with a Bachelor of Arts degree and completed the King’s Inns Barrister-at-Law degree. He was a leading Member of the Munster Circuit, then-Attorney General of Natal, Chief Justice of Natal between 1890 and 1901, Deputy-Governor of Natal in 1897, and Administrator of Natal in 1898. The Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (C.M.G.) was awarded to Gallwey in 1883; and the Knight Commandership of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (K.C.M.G.) was awarded to him in 1888, the same year in which the honour of a Queen’s Counsel (Q.C.) was conferred on him. Gallwey was also well connected in colonial society through his marriage in 1862 to Frances Erskine, daughter of David Erskine, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Natal Carabiniers and one-time Colonial Secretary of Natal.32
The two commissioners did not have a high opinion of the migrants, noting in their report dated August 1872 that ‘‘for the most part the im- migrants of Natal are drawn from the lowest classes of the population of India, and consequently loose and thriftless characters might be expected from the majority of them.’’33 The Commission, while highlighting instances of ill-treatment, inadequate housing, and poor rations and medical facilities, concluded that Indian labourers were ‘‘not and have never been subject to any systematic ill-treatment or oppression by their employers.’’ It did, however, recommend the registration of births, deaths, and marriages, the introduction of more women, abolition of flogging, improved medical services, an end to the use of the term ‘‘Coolie,’’ and the appointment of a ‘‘Protector’’ because magistrates, who were required to visit estates in their districts at least twice each year, were not doing so.34 The report advocated the appointment of ‘‘an active and efficient officer…whose whole time and energies might be devoted to the duties of the office.’’ The appointee should preferably have ‘‘some experience in India, or among Coolies, and has some knowledge of Indian languages.’’35 The Commission also reported that Indians found the term Coolie ‘‘galling and a source of annoyance’’ and suggested that ‘‘Indian Immigrant’’ be the term used in place of Coolie and that ‘‘Protector of Indian Immigrants’’ replace Coolie Agent. As Bahadur notes, ‘‘coming from the lips of plantation managers and overseers, the c-word stung, a reminder of low- liness in the hierarchy of a sugar estate, a hierarchy based on race.’’36
The office of a Protector or its equivalent was established in many British colonies. Protectors were appointed in British Guiana and Mauritius; the position of ‘‘inspector’’ of Pacific Islanders was created in Queensland; indentured migrants were placed under the supervision of both government inspectors and the British consul in Surinam; and ‘‘commissioners’’ oversaw the welfare of Japanese workers in Hawai‘i.37 The concept of a Protector has a long genealogy in the British Empire. Its roots lay in the eighteenth-century idea of ‘‘amelioration,’’ which sought to improve the lives of slave women in particular in order to push up birth rates and lower death rates. This economic aim later included ‘‘civilising and Christianising slaves’’ and became codified in the Code Noir of 1824, which applied to Trinidad and saw the creation of an Office of the Protector of Slaves which served as magistrate, adjudicated disputes between slaves and masters, and generally supported slaves in whatever capacity.38 In Australia, the office of Chief Protector was established in 1838 while one was created in New Zealand two years later. The Protectors appointed a few decades later to oversee workers were to fulfil a similar mediating role between master and servant. The Aborigines’ Protection Society (APS) played a crucial role from the 1830s in shaping a policy of ‘‘humanitarian imperialism’’ that saw the British take control of more and more native lands, ostensibly to ‘‘protect’’ the natives from settlers but which invariably resulted in Britain’s imperial expansion. Native peoples were seen as savage and therefore needing to be brought under control; however, they were simultaneously seen as weak and in need of protection.39
A Protector was not an entirely new concept in Natal. When indenture commenced in 1860, a ‘‘Coolie Agent’’ was appointed in terms of Section 2 of Law 14, 1859 with similar responsibilities as those outlined by the 1872 Commission. Neither of the first two Agents had any knowledge of Indians. Edmund Tatham, the first Coolie Agent, who held the post from November 1860 to July 1864, was born in London in 1822 and worked for the Royal Mint. He was part of the original Byrne settlers and arrived in Natal in March 1850 with his wife Letitia and their four children. Tatham joined the Natal government as a surveyor; then joined the Colonial Secretary’s Office as Chief Clerk from 1855; and during 1859 and 1860 was Secretary and Resident Engineer of the Natal Railway Company, which constructed the railway line between the Point and the city. 40
In a letter to the Colonial Secretary on February 4, 1864, Tatham ex- explained that he had started the entire system at short notice. He had to assign workers, understanding the ‘‘habits, customs and requirements’’ of the indentured, see to their ‘‘welfare and interests,’’ receive and disburse funds, and be both ‘‘Protector of Coolies as well as that to some extent of the employer.’’ Tatham saw to 2,500 indentured workers distributed over fifty-seven estates ranging from Umhlali in the North to Ifafa in the South, a distance of 153 kilometres. The indentured population was estimated to increase to five thousand by the end of 1864. Each migrant had to be ‘‘separately cared for, accounted for and all his movements registered by me besides which he has to be visited twice in every year and his complaints heard whenever he presses them.’’41 Tatham’s workload meant that he could not visit plantations. Ta- tham requested a salary increase and, when this was refused, resigned. Shortly after he suffered a stroke and moved to Ladysmith, where he died in 1880.42
Henrique Charles Shepstone (1840–1917), the Coolie Agent from July 1864 to June 1870, was also overworked as he also held the posts of Second Clerk, Magistrate’s Office, Durban; Registrar of Births, Marriages, and Deaths; Excise Warehouse Keeper; and Registrar of Meteorological Observations. He visited estates, he said, to reassign coolies, never to entertain complaints. Shepstone spoke of his ‘‘anomalous and unpleasant position’’ when workers complained as they regarded him as ‘‘their protector, and think that any complaints made to him must be righted at once; whereas he has no power whatever, and can only recommend them to go to the magistrate, which they are averse to do, as they have not confidence in the interpreters.’’43 Shepstone was the son of Sir Theophilus Shepstone whose family had arrived in the Cape in 1820. In 1845, Theophilus relocated to Natal and as Secretary for Native Affairs from 1853 to 1875 devised a policy of reserves for the Zulu which aimed to control this group of unconquered people while also ‘‘protecting’’ them from encroaching white settlers by guaranteeing them land on reserves and by ruling them through loyal chiefs. His policy was later applied to colonial regimes as ‘‘indirect rule.’’44 H.C. Shepstone would become Secretary for Native Affairs from 1877.
The Coolie Commission was one of many inquiries instituted in Natal. There was the Shire Commission (1862), the Wragg Commission (1885– 1887), the Reynolds Commission (1906), the Clayton Commission (1909), and the Solomon Commission (1914). Mongia, reflecting more generally at commissions in the colonial era, describes ‘‘the inquiry’’ as a key instrument to produce a ‘‘regime of truth’’ based on the ‘‘liberal notion of ‘impartiality,’’’ which allowed indenture to persist for so many decades:
Even though the eventual outcome of each inquiry was the same—
a continuation of the system—it appeared as if the system had been evaluated afresh and the best course of action pursued. . . . Indenture thus continued not in spite of the numerous inquiries, but because of them. The inquiry as a mechanism for ‘impartial’ truth procurement continued to sustain a [system] wherein, the scandal [was] that there [was] no scandal.45
The 1872 commission achieved the key objective of employers and officials in that it facilitated the importation of more indentured workers. The task of the Protector was always going to be very difficult as he had to balance various interests. Then Colonial Secretary H. Bulwer wrote to Governor Mitchell in 1883 that it was the duty of the Protector to ‘‘guard the interests of the employer against the misconduct of the Indians employed; it is equally his duty to guard the interests of the Indians which he was specially appointed to do.’’ Mitchell agreed and added that ‘‘there can be no doubt that the post of Protector is a very difficult one to fill and one requiring much tact and judgement.’’46 The office of the Protector raises some key questions. Did the Protector provide checks on abuses? Did the social class and political influence of respective Protectors determine how effective they were? While it was difficult for Protectors to do their work as freely and effectively as they may have wished, were some Indians able to use the office to get redress for their difficulties?
THE PROTECTOR
In terms of Law 12 of 1872, the Protector was responsible for indentured Indians, Indians who had completed their five years of indentured service but were still in the Colony, Indians who chose to make Natal home, and Indians born in the Colony.47 The powers of the Protector included investigating cases of adultery and civil cases between Indians, administering the estates of the dead, and adjudicating cases under the Master and Servants Ordinance.48 The Protector was given judicial power, meaning that he had the same authority as resident magistrates in cases involving Indians. Planters, through the Labour League, petitioned the government on October 7, 1872 that this brought into question the Protector’s neutrality.49 Instead, the Protector’s judicial power was extended by Law 19 of 1874 which stated that where the Protector and resident magistrate had ‘‘a difference of opinion, the decision of the said Protector shall prevail’’ and that in cases where the resident magistrate alone adjudicated a case, the Protector could reverse or alter the decision ‘‘but not so as to increase any punishment awarded.’’ The Protector could subpoena any witness to his court; failure to appear was considered ‘‘contempt of court’’ and liable to a fine of ten pounds.50 The Protector was also represented on the Indian Immigration Trust Board (IITB), which was established in 1874 and initially comprised the colonial secretary, the Protector, and one other official, usually an employer of indentured labour. The Board’s responsibilities primarily concerned funding connected to indentured labour.51 The composition of the IITB was changed in 1880 to include two additional non-governmental members, who were usually employers of indentured labour.52
Lloyd was the first Protector, holding the post from November 1872 to the end of 1875. He was replaced by Captain Murdock McLeod. McLeod, in turn, was replaced by Major S. Graves in October 1877; and in July 1883, Graves was replaced by Louis H. Mason, who held the position until 1903. Mason’s replacement, J.A. Polkinghorne, was Protector when indentured migration ended in 1911. In the Natal Archives Repository (NAB), there are 196 volumes of documents related to the Protector’s office. These volumes include reports on the arrival of ships, medical reports, complaints by workers, correspondence from employers, and the Protector’s annual reports. The Commission recommended that the appointee should have some experience of living in India and knowledge of Indian languages, which neither of the Coolie Agents possessed. Lloyd, who was instrumental in revising the laws pertaining to indenture to the satisfaction of the Indian government, was appointed Protector in November 1872.53 He fitted the bill perfectly, having lived in India and being fluent in Indian languages. In his Annual Report for 1875, Lloyd described how he gathered information from the indentured:
I was able to dispense entirely with an interpreter, and my visits were made alone, and frequently without any warning of my approach. I had thus the best opportunity of ascertaining the true condition of the people under my charge. In crossing the country, too, from one state to another, I had frequent conversations with Indians whom I met accidentally; and thus learned from independent sources many circumstances connected with them, which I should otherwise never have heard of.54
Lloyd left his position about a year after the resumption of indenture. On December 1, 1875, he was listed in the Bengal Staff Corps as Lieutenant-Colonel and Brevet Colonel.55 Lloyd focused on farming and owned a large estate called Plastyrion in Zwaartkop Valley, Pietermaritzburg. He had married Anna Maria Grimes in India and they had eight children. Lloyd died at the military hospital in Pietermaritzburg on November 21, 1882.56 From the little we know, it is apparent that Lloyd had vast experience with India and Indians, which made his relationship with Indians different from that of employers themselves who had mostly come directly from England and had little knowledge of Indians. Lloyd’s Indian experience was to his advantage as he was able to interact with the indentured outside the purview of employers. Lloyd likely accumulated capital over the years that allowed him to retire and go into farming. This made him independent of the planter class and he did not have to bend to their will.
McLeod, who replaced Lloyd as Protector, was appointed by the Natal government as a Special Agent for India to recruit labour when indenture resumed. He negotiated for an Emigration Agent to act for Natal in Calcutta, but in view of the difficulties of obtaining labour in Madras, did not appoint an agent there. McLeod accompanied the immigrants from Calcutta on the S.S. Blenheim, which arrived on July 26, 1874, the first shipload of immigrants since the resumption of indenture.57 We know little about McLeod, who did not hold the position for long, as he was charged with culpable homicide in January 1877.58 Attorney-General Gallwey prosecuted and Harry Escombe, future prime minister of Natal, defended McLeod at the trial which took place on February 16 and 17, 1877. Late on the evening of January 5, 1877, while returning from Verulam, McLeod drank a bottle of ale at Stone’s Roadside Inn. The court heard that after the drink Mcleod went outside with Richard Stone, took a gun out of his pocket, and fired it into the road to see if his horse ‘‘could stand fire,’’ reloaded the gun, put it back into his pocket and rode off. At Red Hill, some five miles away, he stopped at a store forty feet from the roadside and fenced off. In the store were the owner Vencatapah, his wife Vencatamah, and patrons Narsimaloo, Seekhunder, Moonsamy, and Parsooraman.
Narsimloo told the court that McLeod arrived at the store around 9:00 pm and called out in Hindustani, ‘‘Coolie, Coolie, give me a woman.’’ The owner told McLeod that he should not come in as the place was not a can-teen. McLeod struck Narsimloo twice with a sjambok (a heavy leather whip, often made of rhinoceros hide) and then hit Vencatapah. When McLeod took his gun out, Narsimloo ran for assistance and when he returned with Seekundhur and Pursooramon, they found Vencatapah lying dead on the ground. Vencatamah, the widow, said that she was in the store when McLeod arrived but shut the front door because her husband told her that the white man wanted a woman. McLeod kicked at the door but she refused to open it. When McLeod tried to leave, the men got hold of him and tied him to a post. They testified that McLeod smelt of liquor. When Dr J.J. Seaton, the local Medical Officer, and D.F. Buchanan, special constable for Victoria County, arrived, they freed McLeod whose defence was that he had lost his way to town and had stopped to ask directions. He called for a woman because he thought the men were drunk. Vencatapah refused to help him and during their altercation he shot Vencatapah in self-defence.
In summing up, Gallwey pointed out that McLeod had committed an illegal act by trying to forcibly enter the premises, that he could not have been lost as he was in the middle of the High Road which led to the city, that he had never told the Indians that he was the Protector and that his pistol was cocked and ready and he had threatened the Indians that he would shoot them. Escombe, on the other hand, put it to the jury, consisting of local white citizens, that they had to weigh the evidence of ‘‘a soldier, a man of honour’’ against that of ‘‘an Indian’’ and he hoped that the jury would ‘‘restore him [McLeod] to society and to his high position.’’ With regard to the rough treatment of McLeod after the killing, the Chief Justice conceded that ‘‘more civilized persons might have been more humane.’’ The jury found McLeod not guilty.59
In forwarding the notes of the trial to the Colonial Secretary on February 28, 1877, Gallwey wrote that ‘‘it was the province of the jury to return a verdict, and they returned a verdict of not guilty, but I do not concur in the verdict.’’60 Gallwey moved to have McLeod dismissed for being drunk and neglecting his duty. McLeod wrote to the Lieutenant-Governor of Natal, H.E. Bulwer, on March 16, 1877 that he would like his views included in the submission that the Natal Government was making to the Secretary of State for the Colonies. He pointed out that the jury’s verdict was unanimous and he therefore was ‘‘entitled to the full benefit as regards any alleged culpability or carelessness on my part.’’ He felt ‘‘harshly dealt with in having been committed for trial on a charge of murder on the affidavit of a single Indian Coolie, the servant of a Coolie.’’ The magistrate had acted illegally by refusing to let him lay assault charges against the Indians ‘‘of assaulting me when on duty. That I have been cruelly assaulted and received no redress.’’ With regard to his use of the pistol, he said that he had carried one at all times because he faced many dangers. McLeod concluded that he had shown fitness for the post and hoped that ‘‘His Lordship with all the facts before him, viewing the matter calmly from a distance, may come to a different conclusion than it would appear from our conversation your Excellency has done.’’61 McLeod’s appeal was in vain. The last trace of him is on June 12, 1878 when he sent a letter to the Colonial Secretary for a position in the civil service.62 McLeod then disappears from the archives; presumably, he returned to Britain.
McLeod’s story is intriguing on several levels. On the one, it raises the question of whether his behaviour was an indication of how he treated the indigenous peoples in India during his time there. More important for the arguments made here is that McLeod’s treatment demonstrates that while fellow white settlers in Natal were willing to overlook his behaviour, and likely that of others like him, some colonial officials were aware of the wider imperatives of empire and the need to control the excesses of officials and were willing to be punitive to bring such individuals in line.
We know even less about McLeod’s successor, Major S. Graves, who took over in October 1877. During the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, Graves was Officer in Command of the 2nd Regiment, Natal Native Contingent. This war was fought between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom when Sir Bartle Frere, British High Commissioner in South Africa, invaded Zululand. The war is notable in Zulu folklore for the Battle of Isandlwana where the Zulu forces defeated the British. Graves took nine months’ leave of absence due to ill health in April 1882 and Louis H. Mason became Acting Protector, with F. Colepeper becoming Acting Protector and J.A. Polkinghorne, who was a junior clerk in the department, becoming Accountant and Acting Secretary to the Trust Board.63 Graves resigned on January 1, 1883, and in June 1883 Mason was appointed Protector with Polkinghorne as his Assistant.64
LOUIS MASON AND THE WRAGG COMMISSION
Louis Mason (1844–1921) served as Protector from 1883 to 1903. He was born in St. Helena to William and Mary Mason and served as Assistant Protector before replacing Graves. He married Mary Louden and they had eight children. Unlike some of the other Protectors, he had no Indian experience and seems to have been the archetypal civil servant in that he did not come with wealth or political connections, and at the time of his death in 1921, his total estate, including his home in Musgrave Road, Durban, pension and insurance policies, was worth just £3,000.65
It was during Mason’s time that the Protectorate faced several crises and a major restructuring. Mason’s first challenge was to respond to George Burgess, a junior clerk in his office, who wrote a memorandum critical of indenture and the Protector’s role in buttressing the system. Burgess pointed out that workers’ depositions were always sent to the employer ‘‘for his information and for any remarks he may wish to make.’’ Employers’ version of events was ‘‘almost invariably’’ accepted and ‘‘there the matter ends.’’ Interpreters were so poor that the complainant’s testimony was incomplete and their case usually collapsed. On one occasion, in the case of Verasamy who worked for Cheron of Virginia Estate, when Mason visited the estate in October 1883 and personally investigated the matter, the employer was successfully prosecuted. Most indentured workers were ‘‘afraid to make complaints, even they have grievances which undoubtedly need redress.’’’ Burgess outlined several instances and asked, ‘‘What has the effect of the neglect of the Protector to redress the wrongs of those Indians been? Will not the Indians, who have already lost faith in the ability or willingness of the Protector to protect them, have come to the conclusion that it is useless to complain to anyone?’’ The Protector seemed to think that legal proceedings against employers should be instituted ‘‘reluctantly.’’66
Mason called the allegations a ‘‘tissue of falsehoods.’’ He revealed his own biases when he wrote that ‘‘one has only to say to an Indian ‘have you any complaint to make against your Master?’ and he will concoct one on the spot.’’ Mason felt that the ‘‘most worthless characters’’ were the first to complain and complained ‘‘the loudest.’’ Some migrants ‘‘had never worked in India and do not intend doing so here.’’ Lazy workers left their workplace ‘‘at the first opportunity’’ and survived by begging until they were arrested and prosecuted for being without a pass. At that ‘‘point he tries to excuse himself by making a complaint against his Master and it is in dealing with such cases that my notebook is almost filled.’’67 It is difficult to weigh the evidence of Mason against Burgess; the latter may well have been a disgruntled employee, on the other hand, he went on to become an influential figure in local business circles. Archival records show that Burgess became Secretary to the Land and Immigration Board. Then he became an agent for the ‘‘Hammond’’ typewriter and from around 1896 he was Secretary, of the Durban Chamber of Commerce.
Another important change was the appointment of a Deputy Protector, a post filled by Charles Manning in November 1882, to oversee the ‘‘up-country’’ districts which extended beyond Pietermaritzburg to the northern boundary of Natal. Manning had great experience with Indians. He had spent three years in India, was an employer of Indians in Natal for almost ten years, spoke Hindi fluently, served on the IITB for two years, was a member of the Licensing Board for Inanda, and was Chairman of the Victoria Planters Association.68 He subsequently applied for the position of Protector on March 24, 1883, which was given to Mason. In his application, Mason wrote that as a result of his ‘‘intimate knowledge of the Hindustani language,’’ experience in managing Indians, and ‘‘thorough’’ knowledge of farming, as Deputy Protector he had ‘‘succeeded in securing, with very little friction, exact compliance with the law throughout large districts in which there have been no previous attempt at visitation or control.’’ Aside from inspection he also exercised magisterial and judicial functions and had ‘‘acquire[d] a thorough knowledge of all the laws relating to Indian Immigrants.’’69 In his first Annual Report, Manning recorded that he had been ‘‘welcomed by the employers. Many of them have never seen the law and know nothing of its provisions, and welcomed its availability. . . They were glad to be informed of their rights and of their duties . . . and they have often said that though they had been employees of Coolies for years they had never been visited by anyone representing the Government.’’70
Manning tried civil cases involving Indians. This was a delicate situation for Protectors. As Manning pointed out in 1883, he was ‘‘reluctant to resort to legal proceedings because of the danger of its creating hostility between master and servant and causing a general dislike of the Indians’ unless it was ‘‘manifestly necessary.’’71 When it was suggested that Manning was overworked, he wrote to Mason on September 14, 1885 that taking away his judicial powers: would have a disastrous effect on the efficiency of my supervision of the Indians. I have never before had so much trouble in securing the punctual payment of wages as at the present time. It requires all the prestige of judicial powers as well as determination and tact to secure any approach to punctual payments. Even now there is occasionally a disposition to resist my investigations which would certainly increase if it were supposed that I was powerless to act. . . . This prestige of office would vanish if the powers are withdrawn or abridged.72
Most of the planters, however, complained to the Wragg Commission of the Protector’s judicial powers. James Turner of Allerthope said, ‘‘I do not think it is desirable that the Protector should sit on the bench as a magistrate in coolie cases.’’73 William Tipping Woods found it ‘‘a most iniquitous proceeding and one-sided. The complaints of coolies should be dealt with by the Magistrate of the county.’’74 Alfred Dumat was of the opinion that ‘‘in a country which respects itself, such a country as that we have here, the Protector sitting with the magistrate should not be allowed.’’75 S.F. Bening- field considered it ‘‘undesirable that the Protector should sit as a magistrate with the resident magistrate in coolie cases. . . . I think that the Protector’s opinion would be biased.’’76 A.E. Titren, the resident magistrate of Verulam, was adamant that the Protector ‘‘should have no judicial power whatever.’’77
The Wragg Commission agreed. It pointed out that when the Coolie Commission sat, there were fewer than five thousand Indians in Natal; this number had increased to thirty thousand by the end of June 1886. More importantly, while Lloyd was a ‘‘specialist’’ with ‘‘considerable judicial experience in India and the ability to communicate with Indians without an interpreter,’’ subsequent Protectors lacked judicial knowledge, experience of Indian customs and habits, or ‘‘the merest conversational knowledge of any Indian language’’ and relied on untrustworthy interpreters. The Protector was stripped of his judicial authority.78 This change removed an important check on the power of employers because resident magistrates ‘‘on the ground’’ lived in areas where planters wielded enormous social and economic power. In 1885, for example, of forty-three cases brought before magistrates, thirty-six were discharged.79 Robert Morrell and Duncan Du Bois, amongst others, have written extensively on the social and economic status of planters and the power and influence they wielded.80
Manning left his position as Deputy Protector in 1887 and became res- ident magistrate of Newcastle. He died in 1888.81 Many of the employers also tried to get the Protector removed from the IITB. By 1885, the Protector was head of the IITB, which employed seventeen officials, including a Deputy Protector, Assistant Protector, and clerks, interpreters, constables, and mes- sengers. The Commission, however, left the Protector on the Board.82
Mason learnt early on of the power wielded by planters and the political forces he was up against. Aside from Burgess’s complaint, when Mason visited Reynolds Estate in Umzinto on July 13, 1886, he asked Charles Reynolds and the overseers to excuse themselves so that he could speak to the workers privately. They refused to leave and Mason wrote to the Colonial Secretary that this constituted ‘‘obstruction’’ in terms of Section 34, Law 2 of 1870. The Wragg Commission, however, concluded that employers found the request that they excuse themselves ‘‘unnecessary and derogatory.’’ Charles Reynolds told the Commission that as a result of the Protector’s request, ‘‘for some time, everything was wrong, the men defying their sirdars and setting people in authority at defiance, and then I have more men punished by the Magistrate within a month after one of these obnoxious visits of the Protector than for six months when he has not made a visit of that sort.’’ The commissioners were satisfied that Charles Reynolds treated his workers with ‘‘sympathy’’ and that the Protector’s request would have led to ‘‘loss of respect and consequent insubordination.’’ The Commission considered it ‘‘highly undesirable’’ for a Protector to ask an employer to withdraw while he spoke with workers.83 The Commission commended Protector Lloyd for conversing with workers in their languages without asking employers to leave; what they missed is that this gave Lloyd the very privacy that Mason was seeking.84
Without the support of authorities or political connections, it was difficult for Mason to challenge planter abuses. The example of Mason’s successor, James Polkinghorne, shows the importance of being well connected.
POLKINGHORNE AND REYNOLDS BROTHERS
Mason’s successor, James Ackerman Polkinghorne (1856–1942), was born to a pioneer settler family.85 His father J.T. Polkinghorne had arrived in Natal in 1850 as part of the Byrne scheme and took up farming on the north coast and held several posts in the Colonial government. He was a member of the Legislative Council in 1869, a member of the IITB, and Colonial Treasurer from 1879. When Natal received Responsible Government in 1893, he was elected president of the upper house of Parliament. James was born in Verulam, educated at a prestigious private school, Hilton College in the Natal Midlands, and joined the Immigration Department as a junior clerk in 1877. In civic life he was chair of the Durban Public Library for fifteen years and a high-ranking official and member of the Methodist Church in Durban.
James also married into a wealthy and politically influential family.86 His wife, Alice Pearson Cato, whom Polkinghorne married in October 1883, was the daughter of George C. Cato (1814–1893) who had arrived in Natal in 1839, owned a very large estate adjoining Durban, Cato Manor, was an employer of indentured labour since 1860, and was Durban mayor in the 1850s.87 James Polkinghorne was appointed Acting Protector from March 1902 and Protector from July 1903.88 He worked in the immigration department for a quarter of a century and knew the ins and outs of the indentured system. The political and economic clout that Polkinghorne could call upon allowed him to challenge planters and highlight abuses in ways that Mason could not. Polkinghorne’s hand was further strengthened when he was ap- pointed to the Legislative Assembly in 1905 and had an ally in the new Colonial Secretary, Charles Smythe, who was also the prime minister.89
Since the 1880s Reynolds Brothers was the subject of repeated complaints due to the company’s higher than average rates of desertion, suicides, and death and due to perennial complaints of overwork and poor health.90 Despite overwhelming evidence, various magistrates, doctors, and Attorney- Generals refused to act. The Reynolds family wielded enormous political power. Family patriarchs Thomas and Lewis had arrived in 1850. Over a period of time Thomas, Lewis, and later Thomas’s sons Charles and Frank, established large sugar estates on the south coast of Natal and a sugar mill in 1884. Thomas represented Alexander County in the Legislative Council in the 1880s; Frank served on the IITB from 1895 to 1904 and Charles served from 1904 to 1907; Frank also served in the Legislative Council.91
Polkinghorne’s appointment as Protector produced a change in attitude towards Reynolds Brothers. In December 1904, he drew Charles Reynolds’s attention to the death rate of 36 per 1,000 on his estate, which was double the average in the colony, and attributed this to poor hygiene, diet, and living conditions on the estate.92 Acting medical officer for the County, Dr. Gilroy, confirmed in February 1905 that undercooked food (due to lack of firewood and time to prepare meals) was the main cause of diarrhoea, which was one of the reasons for the high disease and death rates. Polkinghorne’s visit on February 21 and 22, 1905 confirmed that Reynolds’s workers were subject to overwork daily which totalled an extra two days labour per week.93 Polkinghorne commented on March 28, 1905 that he had failed in three years to get Reynolds to attend to charges of overwork and the poor quality of food.94
Reynolds used his influence to fight back. In May 1905, Dr. Abel Jean Antonie Rouillard, the County medical officer, declined to put in writing the opinions he had expressed to Polkinghorne in August 1904, November 1904, and January 1905 about the poor treatment of workers on Reynolds’s estates.95 As Polkinghorne observed, Rouillard’s brother was married to Reynolds’s sister.96 Rouillard himself would tell the 1906 Commission, ‘‘I have got two masters. I have the Immigration Board and the Protector of Indians. I also have on the other side the employers of labour. . . . It is my duty to keep on good terms with them for my own benefit.’’97
Reynolds also wielded influence over other officials. In a letter to Charles Reynolds on 14 September 1904 regarding the estate’s failure to issue dhal (Indian lentils) to labourers, Alexandra County’s resident magistrate, James McLaurin wrote apologetically: ‘‘We quite understand one another and it will indeed be a great joy to me should there never be any further occasion for me to trouble you.’’98 When McLaurin was transferred from the County in November 1905, he gave Reynolds a testimony which the latter would use in a subsequent inquiry: ‘‘During the more than sixteen years I presided as Magistrate of Umzinto, I was comparatively little troubled by your estates and consider that, on the whole, your Indians were very well treated.’’ Polkinghorne responded on December 5, 1905 that McLaurin ‘‘knew nothing’’ about the actual working conditions: ‘‘Is this not another case of Mr. Reynolds’ influence?’’99
Between September 18 and 21, 1905, Polkinghorne got twelve depositions concerning overwork and another twelve related to assault from Reynolds’s workers.100 The estate was informed in October 1905 that unless ‘‘there was decided improvement in the treatment of Indians, no further allotment of Indians would be made to Reynolds Bros.’’101 Charles Reynolds rejected the charges and called for an ‘‘impartial’’ inquiry so that he could vindicate himself.102 The Colonial Secretary appointed a committee comprising of James Schofield MLA (Ixopo), Dr. James Hyslop of the Natal Government Asylum, and C.B. Lloyd from the Midlands who chaired the committee.103 The testimony showed that ill-treatment of Indian labour was institutionalised on the estates. F. Mellon, who served as overseer from 1884 to 1890, during 1896 and 1897, and again during 1899 and 1900; E.B. Gautier, overseer in the late 1890s; Leon Renaud, an overseer in the early 1890s; as well as former medical officer Dr. W.P. Tritton, all testified to overwork, poor quality of rations, beatings of workers, lack of time to cook food, inadequate medical care, and workers being made to labour in the fields during heavy rain.104 Charles Reynolds accused Polkinghorne of orchestrating a conspiracy against him and blamed the high sickness and death rates on the poor quality of the migrants allotted to his estate. This was a ridiculous claim since Frank Reynolds had been a member of the IITB since December 1895 and was replaced by Charles in December 1904 and would have had a say in the quality of workers allotted.105 The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and local MLA Robert M. Archibald and medical officer Dr. Rouillard testified in Reynolds’s favour.106
Polkinghorne told the Commission that he was ‘‘perfectly aware that I am fighting a very strong and influential Company backed up in any quarters. . . . The Medical Officer has been against me, the whole neighbourhood has been against me.’’ But he vowed not to fight on: ‘‘The question will not finish with this Committee. I shall carry it on further . . . It is a question of the lives of these people and as Protector. . . I found it my duty to take up this subject.’’107 Hyslop and Lloyd found against Reynolds while Schofield’s minority report exonerated Reynolds of all charges.108 Despite the overwhelming evidence against Reynolds, the political establishment did not act against him. Polkinghorne soldiered on. In September 1906 he protested to the Colonial Secretary about having to assign indentured labour to Reynolds when reports of ill-treatment persisted.109 He wrote on September 28, 1907 that ‘‘it is nothing short of absolute cruelty to treat Indians like this, and for what? Simply to be able to declare a larger dividend at the expense of human flesh.’’110 Polkinghorne continued to find instances of overwork, abuse, and poor food quality. He wrote to the Colonial Secretary on June 1, 1908 to charge Reynolds with culpable homicide for the ongoing sickness and death among his indentured labourers as a result of diseased and fermented rations. ‘‘It is simply scandalous that such things should take place after the experience of the past.’’111
The government eventually acted against Reynolds. In letters dated June 24 and July 2, 1908, the Colonial Secretary informed the estate that the supply of indentured labour would be stopped until Charles Reynolds was removed from its management. Reynolds Brothers wrote to the government on July 15 and July 28, 1908 asking to know the specific wrongs that Charles Reynolds was alleged to have committed so that he could offer a rebuttal and calling instead for Polkinghorne to be dismissed.112 The government stood firm and stopped supplying labour. On November 4, 1908, the Colonial Secretary noted that Charles Reynolds had left Reynolds Brothers and on December 20, 1908 the firm received a new allotment of labour.113 Polk- inghorne’s perseverance bore fruit. His network of ‘‘informers’’ on the plantation and his political contacts allowed him to stand up to the might of Reynolds Brothers.
CONCLUSION
This article has examined the role of the Protector within the political economy of indenture in Natal. The volume of documents emanating from the Protector’s office points to the sheer weight of work, which ranged from important to mundane matters. This workload would have made it difficult to pursue every complaint and abuse. The extent to which Protectors succeeded is up for debate. Protectors were undoubtedly ‘‘of their time’’ and would have found it difficult to be even-handed in a context where planters wielded enormous political and economic power. However, the evidence suggests that the office of the Protector did limit the absolute control of plantation owners. The case of Reynolds Brothers is one very obvious and public example of planter power being constrained. But there were other, less obvious ways in which the indentured took advantage of the Protector’s office. The complaints of planters that the presence of the Protector empowered workers is testimony to this as are the many complaints in the Protector’s files. Richard Gresham of Forest Lodge near Pietermaritzburg felt that the Protector’s visits eroded Gresham’s absolute authority: ‘‘Before he ever came I was master, my coolies would do anything for me, even if it were midnight, I had only to call them.’’ Now, a worker named Jeebodli warned him, ‘‘strike me, and I will report you.’’114 Some of the indentured exercised agency and some skilfully used the few ‘‘spaces’’ available to them, including that of the office of the Protector, to seek redress.
These partial biographies of the individuals who served as Protectors have examined whether their social class, political positioning, and individual characteristics impacted how they performed or were able to perform, their duties. While the biographies constructed here are unsatisfactory in that they are incomplete, the fragments do provide clues about various Protectors. It is evident that while Protectors’ powers were limited in a settler society dominated by planter interests, the social class and political influence of individual Protectors allowed them to take action against employers where they had the will and desire to do so. Others had the will to take action but not the political muscle to succeed. While not wanting to gloss over the worst excesses of a brutal system, there were instances where the Protector provided succour to some individuals. In a context of limited information in the archives, global research in geneaology has been helpful in finding material about those who served the British Empire. It is hoped that as more information is unearthed we may be able to draw a fuller picture of the lives of the Protectors and others involved in the system in order to better understand how they went about their work and how it impacted the indentured whom they were meant to protect.
GOOLAM VAHED is a professor of history at the University of Kwazulu-Natal.
Notes:
1. Letter to the Natal Mercury, republished in Indian Opinion, November 25 1905, 4.
2. David Northrup, Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism, 1834–1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 111.
3. Leonard Thompson, Indian Immigration into Natal, 1860–1872 (Pretoria: Union Govern- ment Archives, 1952), 93.
4. RadhikaV.Mongia.‘‘ImpartialRegimesofTruth.’’CulturalStudies18.5(2004):749–68,759.
5. Shannagh Dorsett and John McLaren, ‘‘Laws, Engagements and Legacies. The Legal Histories of the British Empire: An Introduction,’’ in Legal Histories of the British Empire: Laws, Engagements and Legacies, eds. Shannagh Dorsett and John McLaren (London: Routledge, 2014), 1.
6. Miles Ogborn, Global Lives. Britain and the World 1550–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 8–9.
7. Clare Anderson, Subaltern Lives. Biographies of Colonialism in the Indian Ocean World, 1790–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 2012), 6–7.
8. David Welsh, The Roots of Segregation: Native Policy in Colonial Natal, 1845–1910 (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1971), 7–8.
9. Thompson, Indian Immigration into Natal, 3.
10. Y.S. Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour in Natal, 1851–1917 (Durban: Institute for Black Research, 1980), 325.
11. See K. Atkins, ‘‘The Cultural Origins of an African Work Ethic and Practices: Natal, South Africa 1843–75,’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1986); Shula Marks, The Ambiguities of Dependence in South Africa (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 26–29; Colin Bundy, Rise and Fall of the South African Peasantry. Second Edition (Cape Town and Johannesburg: David Philip, 1988).
12. Joy Brain, ‘‘Indentured and Free Indians in the Economy of Colonial Natal,’’ in Enterprise and Exploitation in a Victorian Colony: Aspects of the Economic and Social History of Colonial Natal, eds. Bill Guest and John M. Sellers (Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu Natal Press, 1996), 201.
13. Surendra Bhana, Indentured Indian Emigrants to Natal 1860–1902. A Study Based on Ships Lists (New Delhi: Promilla & Co., 1991), 20.
14. Robin A. Butlin, Geographies of Empire. European Empires and Colonies c. 1880–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 147.
15. Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 3. 16. Butlin, Geographies of Empire, 154.
17. R.F. Osborn, Valiant Harvest. The Founding of the South African Sugar Industry, 1848–1926 (Durban: South African Sugar Association, 1964), 39.
18. Brain, ‘‘Indentured and Free Indians,’’ 210.
19. See Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed, Inside Indian Indenture. A South African Story 1860– 1911. (Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council Press, 2010), 61–82.
20. Bhana, Ships Lists, 91.
21. Law 14, 1859, in Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 41–46.
22. C.G. Henning, The Indentured Indian in Natal (New Delhi: Promilla & Co., 1993); Desai and Vahed, Inside Indian Indenture, 103–48.
23. Hugh Tinker, A New System of Slavery: The Export of Indian Labour Overseas, 1830–1920(London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1974).
24. Maureen Swan, ‘‘The 1913 Natal Indian Strike,’’ Journal of Southern African Studies 10 (1984): 243.
25. Coolie Commission records, in Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 156–62.
26. Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 118.
27. Northrup, Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism; Rudolph Ng, ‘‘The Chinese Commission to Cuba (1874): Reexamining Relations in the Nineteenth Century from a Transcultural Perspective,’’ Transcultural Studies 2 (2014), available at http://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/ index.php/transcultural/article/view/13009/11348; Arnold J. Meagher, The Coolie Trade: The Traffic in Chinese Laborers to Latin America 1847–1874 (Bloomington, Ind.: Xlibris Corporation, 2008), 348–52.
28. Ulbe Bosma, The Sugar Plantation in India and Indonesia: Industrial Production, 1770– 2010 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 164–65.
29. ‘‘Rugby School Register’’, accessed September 9, 2015, https://archive.org/stream/ rugbyschoolregis0 1 rugbuoft/rugbyschoolregis0 1 rugbuoft_djvu.txt.
30. The London Gazette, May 13, 1859, August 3, 1866; Master of the Supreme Courts–Estates (MSCE) 39/145, Natal Archives Repository, Pietermaritzburg (NAB).
31. See Records of the Supreme Court (RSC) 1/5/83, 1462/1874, NAB, which lists Lloyd as Acting Colonial Secretary; Burke’s Peerage 107th ed., 273, accessed September 10, 2015, https:// http://www.burkespeerage.com/search_results.php?results1⁄41.
32. ‘‘West Cork History. History of Durrus/Muintervara,’’ accessed September 16, 2015, http:// durrushistory.com/2 0 1 5 /0 1 /2 8 /sir-michael-henry-gallwey-1 8 2 6 -1 9 1 2 -greenfield-ardfield-clonakilty- co-cork-k-c-m-g-q-c-leading-member-of-the-munster-circuit-attorney-general-natal-south-africa- chief-justice-acting-g/; MSCE 46/160. Michael Henry Gallwey. S/SP Fanny Cadwalader (Born Erskine) 1912.
33. Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 129.
34. Ibid., 121–30.
35. Ibid., 128.
36. Gaiutra Bahadur, Coolie Woman. The Odyssey of Indenture (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2013), 127.
37. Northrup, Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism, 110–11.
38. Dorsett, ‘‘Travelling Laws: Burton and the Draft Act for the Protection and Amelioration of the Aborigines 1838 (NSW),’’ in Legal Histories of the British Empire, eds. Dorsett and McLaren, 179.
39. James Heartfield, The Aborigines’ Protection Society: Humanitarian Imperialism in Aus- tralia, New Zealand, Fiji, Canada, South Africa and the Congo 1836–1909 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).
40. ‘‘Tatham Family History. The Tathams of County Durham,’’ accessed September 12, 2015, http://www.saxonlodge.net/getperson.php?personID1⁄4I0800&tree1⁄4Tatham#cite15.
41. Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 104–5.
42. MSCE 11/152, 1880, NAB.
43. Evidence to the Coolie Commission, 6 July 1872, in Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 147.
44. Jeff Guy, Theophilus Shepstone and the Forging of Natal (Pietermartizburg: University of KwaZulu Natal Press, 2013).
45. Mongia, ‘‘Impartial Regimes of Truth,’’ 762.
46. NA, II, I/27, 9 May 1883, Colonial Secretary Bulwer to W. Mitchell.
47. Wragg Commission, Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 360.
48. Government Notice No. 84, 1873. In Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 128. 49. Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 170–71.
50. Law 19, 1874. In Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 225–26.
51. Natal Government Gazette, Vol. XXVI, No. 1453, January 20, 1874.
52. Government Notice, No. 301, 1880.
53. Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 172.
54. Wragg Commission, Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 255.
55. The London Gazette, November 30, 1875.
56. ‘‘Mark Clarke’s Family and the Families of Going, Litton, Oliver and Dobbs,’’ accessed September 10, 2015, http://www.marshalclarke.com/ClarkesOfGraiguenoepark/Clarkes4.htm.
57. ‘‘Report on Resumption of Indenturing to Natal, Government Gazette, September 22, 1874,’’ in Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 204–5.
58. Colonial Secretary’s Office (CSO) 585, 1877/925. Notes taken at recent trial of Captain McLeod, NAB.
59. CSO 585, 1877/925. Notes taken at recent trial of Captain McLeod, NAB. 60. Attorney General’s Office (AGO), 1/8/19,296A/1877, NAB.
61. CSO 586, 1877/1026, NAB.
62. CSO 645, 1878/2073, NAB.
63. Report of the Protector of Indian Immigrants 1882, 8. These are housed at the Gandhi-Luthuli Documentation Centre, University of KwaZulu-Natal.
64. Report of the Protector of Indian Immigrants 1883, 12. Graves died on 13 February 1903. His deceased estates paper states ‘‘Military Hospital, Pietermaritzburg, Private 7th Dragoon Guards, Residence: Moor River.’’ It seems that he returned to the military but there is no record of him.
65. MSCE 6455/1921, NAB.
66. George Burgess, ‘‘Memorandum to the Indian Immigration Trust Board of Natal,’’ February 25, 1884. II, I/20 93/1884, NAB.
67. Protector Mason to the IITB, March 6, 1884. II, I/20 102/1884, NAB.
68. Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 338–41, 431.
69. CSO 1883/1097, NAB.
70. Annual Report of Deputy Protector Manning, June 9, 1883. In Henning, The Indentured Indian in Natal, 57.
71. Ibid., 57.
72. Indian Indenture (II), 1/29, 616/85, NAB.
73. Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 406. 74. Ibid., 433.
75. Ibid., 383.
76. Ibid., 399.
77. Ibid., 427.
78. Ibid., 284.
79. Henning, The Indentured Indian in Natal, 72.
80. Robert Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen: Settler Masculinity in Colonial Natal, 1880–1920 (Pretoria: UNISA Press, 2001); Duncan L. Du Bois, Sugar and Settlers. A History of the Natal South Coast 1850–1910 (Bloemfontein: Sun Press, 2015).
81. CSO 1204 1888/5550, NAB.
82. Henning, The Indentured Indian in Natal, 72.
83. Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 254–55; Paul Warhurst, ‘‘Obstructing the Protector,’’ Journal of Natal and Zulu History 7 (1984): 31–40. 84. Warhurst, ‘‘Obstructing the Protector,’’ 35.
85. MSCE 35771/1942, NAB.
86. ‘‘Polkinghorne, James Akerman. South African Who’s Who 1912,’’ accessed September 16, 2015, http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/SOUTH-AFRICA/2012-12/1354517607.
87. Testimony of G.C. Cato, Wragg Commission, in Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 368.
88. ‘‘Report of the Protector of Indian Immigrants 1903,’’ 16.
89. Warhurst, ‘‘Obstructing the Protector,’’ 34.
90. The notoriety of Reynolds Brothers’ treatment of its employees has been widely covered. See, for example, Desai and Vahed, Inside Indian Indenture, 132–35; Du Bois, Sugar and Settlers, 243–76; Warhurst, ‘‘Obstructing the Protector,’’ 31–40.
91. See Osborn, Valiant Harvest, 1964.
92. CSO 2854, No. 7790, Polkinghorne’s evidence to the 1906 Inquiry, NAB.
93. Ibid.
94. Ibid.
95. II 1/156, May 8, 1905, NAB; CSO 2854, No. 7790, Polkinghorne to Colonial Secretary May 25, 1905.
96. CSO 2854, No. 7790, December 5, 1905, NAB.
97. Du Bois, Sugar and Settlers, 224.
98. Ibid., 226.
99. CSO 2854, No. 7790, December 5, 1905, NAB.
100. Ibid., September 26, 1905.
101. II 1/156, October 25, 1905, NAB. Reynolds’s loose relationship with the colonial gov- ernment is shown in the fact that when Governor Henry McCallum visited Alexandra County in September 1905, he stayed at Charles Reynolds’s Lynton Hall mansion. Natal Mercury, September 25, 1905.
102. CSO 2854, No. 7790, November 1, 1905, NAB. 103. CSO 2854, No. 7990, December 6, 1905, NAB.
Vahed | The Protector, Plantocracy, and Indentured Labour in Natal, 1860–1911 123
104. Ibid., February 8, 1906 and January 12, 1906. 105. Ibid., February 8, 1906.
106. Ibid., January 30, 1906.
107. Ibid., February 10, 1906; May 10, 1906.
108. II 1/156, July 5 and 16, 1908, NAB.
109. Desai and Vahed, Inside Indian Indenture, 143. 110. II, 1/156, September 28, 1907, NAB.
111. Ibid., June 1, 1908.
112. Ibid., June 19, 1908.
113. Ibid., November 7, 1908; Desai and Vahed, Inside Indian Indenture, 144.
114. Meer et al., Documents of Indentured Labour, 448.
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