Disciplining Coolies: An Archival Footprint of Trinidad, 1846

Description

The early years of the East Indian Indentureship system in the Caribbean saw experiments on "coolie" laborers under the British Empire. Colonial Trinidad was one of the main sites for this experiment. This book foregrounds one of the earliest cases (1846) of occupational and physical cruelty against East Indian indentured laborers in Trinidad within this very early period of experimentation. It presents and analyzes the full transcripts of an inquiry concerning the ill-treatment of "coolie" laborers and the severe punishment and death of one laborer, Kunduppa, by a Scottish planter in Trinidad. Drawing on the concepts of discipline, governmentality, and Orientalism, the main argument of the manuscript is that within the early experimental period of Indentureship, the figure of the "coolie" and disciplinary tactics of bodily torture were instrumental to redrafting and stabilizing the colonial governance of contract labor. It also argues that Crown investigations of "coolie" abuse and death became occasions for establishing a new colonial order, in which the disciplinary powers of planters were curbed in the interest of protecting and "caring" for the "coolie" ―a discourse that was crucial to re-inventing colonial rule as benevolent. As such, the author’s analysis of colonial violence has crucial implications for critically re-thinking colonial liberalism and its legacies in the present. Cover Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments Preface Cast of Characters Primary Characters Supporting Characters Introduction: The Footprint Buried: An Archeology of the Grave Across Horizons: Situating the Study in Indo-Caribbean Studies Exhumed: A Summary of the Inquiry Summary of Chapters Notes Bibliography Chapter 1. Disciplinary Orientalism and Indian Indentureship in the Colonial Caribbean Historical Context of East Indian Indentureship in the British West Indies: The Experimental Period (1838–1848) West Indian Orientalism & ‘The Coolie Question’ Can the ‘Coolie’ Speak?: The Question of Agency Notes Bibliography Chapter 2. ‘Coolie’ Genealogy as Colonial Governmentality: An Analysis of ‘Mr. Walkinshaw’s Ill-treatment of Coolies’ Introduction The Inquiry: Mr. Walkinshaw’s Ill-treatment of ‘Coolies’ (1846) Walkinshaw’s Despotic Liberalism: ‘Miscalculated’ Reason Food Rationing Double Tasking Corporal Punishment Medical Neglect The Force of Inquiry: Liberalism’s Struggle for the Docile Subject Notes Bibliography Chapter 3. The Transcripts: Trinidad 1846, Volume 4, Mr. Walkinshaw Ill treatment of Coolies, Governor Lord Harris Disp. 75 and 88 Note Chapter 4. Postscript: ‘Coolie’ Hauntings Notes Bibliography Index