Table Of ContentCOLLECTIVE MEMORY, IDENTITY AND
THE LEGACIES OF SLAVERY
AND INDENTURE
The Caribbean history provides a rich study of the different forms
of labour systems that have historically marked the politics of the
coloniser and the colonised. It further provides the basis for an
essential study for discourses on colonialism and capitalism. This
interdisciplinary volume bridges the gap between historiography and
the present-day diasporic communities, which emerged from the
slave trade and indenture. Through case studies from the Caribbean
context, the volume demonstrates how the region’s historical labour
mobility remains central to performances and negotiations of collective
memory and identity.
Farzana Gounder is a linguist and the Deputy Head of School
(Research) at IPU Tertiary Institute, New Zealand. Gounder’s research
interests draw on her indenture heritage. She has extensively examined
oral narratives of indenture and their role in collective memory
formation.
Bridget Brereton is Emerita Professor of History at UWI, St Augustine,
Trinidad and Tobago. She is the author of several books mainly on the
history of the Caribbean, and of Trinidad.
Jerome Egger is a Historian, specializing in the twentieth century
history of Suriname. Egger is presently the Head of History department
of the Faculty of Humanities.
Hilde Neus-van der Putten is a Dutch writer and publicist based in
Suriname. She writes regular book reviews for the daily newspaper de
Ware Tijd, and articles on history in Museumstof.
Collective Memory, Identity
and the Legacies of
Slavery and Indenture
Edited by
FARZANA GOUNDER
BRIDGET BRERETON
JEROME EGGER
HILDE NEUS
MANOHAR
2022
First published 2022
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Farzana Gounder, Bridget Brereton, Jerome
Egger, Hilde Neus-van der Putten; individual chapters, the contributors and
Manohar Publishers.
The right of Farzana Gounder, Bridget Brereton, Jerome Egger and Hilde Neus-van
der Putten to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors
for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
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Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh,
Pakistan or Bhutan)
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 9781032278049 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781003294184 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003294184
Typeset in Adobe Garamond 11/13
by Kohli Print, Delhi 110 051
Contents
Foreword 7
Brinsley samaroo
Introduction
Farzana Gounder, BridGet Brereton,
Jerome eGGer and Hilde neus 11
PART I: THE LEGACIES OF INDENTURE
AND MIGRATION
1. The Legacy of Indian Indentureship in the
Caribbean 1838-1920
PrimnatH GooPtar 31
2. Creative Industries: Our Legacies, Our Future
sandra Clenem 57
3. Shadowy Figures: Literary Representation of the
Chinese in French-Caribbean Fiction
KatHleen Gyssels 83
PART II: IDENTITY NEGOTIATIONS THROUGH
MUSIC AND CUISINE
4. When the Music Soundin ‘Sweet’: Musical
Instrument Construction, Performance Practice, and
the Changing Aesthetics of Indian Trinidadian
Tassa Drumming
CHristoPHer BallenGee 103
5. Baithakgáná Semantics
narinder moHKamsinG 125
6. Creolization and the Evolution of Indo-
Trinidadian Cuisine
nasser mustaPHa 141
6 Contents
PART III: COLLECTIVE MEMORIES OF SLAVERY
AND INDENTURE
7. Sitalpersad, a British Indian Interpreter in
Colonial Suriname
Jerome eGGer 165
8. Five Generations of a Surinamese Family 1873-2010:
A Legacy
KermeCHend raGHoeBarsinG 187
9. Emancipation and Arrival: How Emancipation
Day and Indian Arrival Day have Shaped Ethnic
Identities in Twenty-first Century Trinidad
and Tobago
BridGet Brereton 215
Contributors 237
List of Illustrations and Table 241
Index 243
Foreword
The term ‘globalisation’ is of relatively recent origin. Yet the concept
enshrined in the word is by no means new. Globalisation can be
traced from the late fifteenth century when Spain, Portugal, Britain,
France and the Netherlands sought to move out of their medieval
isolation characterised by bubonic plague, religious schism and
feudal warfare. Christopher Columbus initiated westward move
ment, and Vasco da Gama pushed eastward via the southern route
off the Cape of Good Hope. At the same time, adventurers from
northern Europe were vainly seeking a route to the East through a
north-west passage, a feat achieved in one’s lifetime only through
global warming and ice-breaking ships. In order to commercialise
the initial globalisation profitably, the question of labour had to
be tackled urgently. Where was this to be sourced? The answer was
in the other, namely first peoples, Africans and Asians, all inhabit
ants of the non-white Atlantic, Indian Ocean and Pacific worlds.
The Sugar Revolution in the Caribbean in the mid-seventeenth
century hastened the process of labour exploitation as these colonies
implemented the plantation system imported from Brazil. This
model proved to be so effective in producing rum, sugar and mo
lasses for European investors that it was transferred from the Carib
bean to the Indian Ocean and Pacific regions in colonies such as
Mauritius, Fiji and South Africa in a globalised production system.
At the socio-cultural level, the plantation system enabled a rigid
race-based class system upheld by a strict military presence to en
sure compliance.
Despite the rigidity of the plantation system, millions of African,
Asian and first peoples were able to maintain their identity markers
in religion, food, festivals, names and garments. Over the centuries,
they had to adopt or adapt to European norms. Many resisted and
others had to compromise as conversion to Christianity was pro
moted as the hallmark of the civilised person. A policy of divide
8 Foreword
and rule suppressed efforts on the part of subject people to combine
in seeking cultural freedom, as Kathleen Gyssels observes in her
article on literary representation of the Chinese in French Carib
bean fiction in this volume: ‘The policy of divide and rule imposed
by European colonialism is nowhere better illustrated than in the
French Caribbean.’
That statement can be applied equally to the non-Caribbean
regions such as India and West or South Africa. An equally impor
tant agency of control was a form of government inspired by ethnic
origin. White-dominated colonies (such as Australia, New Zealand,
Canada and South Africa) were allowed the privilege of representa
tive elected government and dominion status from 1925. The non
white colonies had to be ruled by governors sent down from Europe
who were constrained to maintain white hegemony.
The articles in this volume demonstrate that notwithstanding
these constraints, the colonised people were able to dig deep into
their ancestral memories as they created parallel and hybridised
cultures in the new homelands. They harmonised pieces of Africa,
India, China and Java to create new genres despite the pull of
globalisation which sought to impose a uniformity dictated, as in
the past, by the north, the so-called First World. This collection is
a refutation of cultural globalisation. Each writer asserts the Carib
bean character of an emerging civilisation in a variety of manifesta
tions. An outstanding feature is the inclusion of five (out of nine)
articles on the non-English speaking Caribbean. Four of these essays
deal with Suriname, a former Dutch colony to which a substantial
number of Indian and Javanese labourers went. The fifth article is
important because it speaks of the Chinese presence in the French
Caribbean—a rare topic in the Caribbean narrative. A fine example
of prescriptive writing is Sandra Clemen’s exposure of the consider
able diversity in Surinamese culture. Using her nation as the ex
ample, she argues that Caribbean diversity is unique because of
the many nations which are found in the Caribbean space. Now is
the time to turn inwards and in the straitened economic circum
stances, create commercial opportunities out of that rich diversity.
In the post-COVID era, when international tourism resumes, this
region must be prepared to supply this anticipated tourist de
Foreword 9
mand. Jerome Egger writes an engaging article on Sitalpersad who
climbs upwards from indentureship, working his way up to emi
nence in Suriname. Despite the rigid class structure of the society,
Sitalpersad, drawing on the ancestral memory moves from rurality
to urbanity, leaving a rich legacy. The same is the case of the family
history narrated by Kermechend Raghoebarsing, who traces the
ascendancy of his Indo-Surinamese family, which uses ancestral
values to give them anchorage in the new homeland. The descen
dants of Nandoe and Trees are able to cope with the New World,
providing enablement not only in Suriname but equally in the
wider European world.
Reenforcing the Surinamese presence is the new research by
Narinder Mokhamsing on baithak gáná or ‘sitting down singing’.
Over the decades, this has spread to the other Southern Caribbean
nations, encouraging interaction and emphasising India’s perma
nent cultural presence in this region. The fifth article in this cate
gory of non-English entries is Kathleen Gyssel’s account of the
Chinese presence in the French Caribbean. The article speaks of
the general contempt with which the Chinese are regarded by
other ethnic groups, largely because of jealousy against the hard
working tenacity of the Chinese. On the other hand, there is a rich
legacy of Chinese-inspired writing in the French Caribbean. These
French and Dutch Caribbean connections are important because
of their scarcity in the rest of the region. Regional integration has
been hampered considerably because of mutual ignorance festered
by separate colonial trajectories. Such new work will certainly foster
enhanced Caribbean-ness. The four other articles from the English-
speaking area provide balance to the collection. Christopher Bal
lengee’s article on tassa-drumming, accompanied by well chosen
pictures comes as a result of long hours of research at the St.
Augustine Library of The University of the West Indies as well as
his forays into Trinidad’s southland. There, he embedded himself
in the kingdom of the tassa. The outcome is an authentic account
of the traditional goatskin atop an earthen drum to the current
nut-and-bolt drums of present-day performance. This research is a
tribute to the cultural creativity of folk who came without tassas
but with its construction and melodies in their heads, enabling a
