• Externe Kennisinstelling

• Historisch

• Migratie,
• Arbeid & Inkomen

Chinese contract migrants in Surinam between 1853 and 1870

The phenomenon of the foreign labourer is by no means a new one. Throughout the ages labour from foreign countries has been used for work for which there was insufficient local potential or interest. In those parts of the New World in which plantation colonies developed upon their "discovery", Negro slaves imported from West Africa were utilized at an early stage. The planters here had no option but to recruit labour abroad, since the indigenous, nomadic Indians lacked the necessary physical endurance and mental stamina for the heavy, monotonous, forced labour in the fields. In the course of the 19th century a drastic change occurred as a result of the abolition first of the slave trade (1808) and subsequently of slavery itself, beginning in the English territories (1834) and ending in the Spanish ones (1886) and Brazil (1888). This gave rise to the necessity of securing the essential labour in some other way. It is as a result of the more or less successful endeavours in this direction that these areas, particularly Surinam, developed into the ethnic patchwork quilts they are today. The present-day population of Surinam plainly reflects the various phases of this labour policy. Aside from the indigenous Indian population we encounter here the descendants of the Negro slaves, intermixed to a greater or lesser extent with the white masters, and the ethnically pure descendants of the so-called "runaways", or fugitive slaves who settled in the tropical forests. In ad

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