Indentured Labour in South Africa

This essay traces the historiography of Indian indenture in South Africa, paying particular attention to shifts in approaches and interpretation and the evolution of the extant archive. Studies of Indian indenture in the 1970s focused on how the system originated and operated, the conditions under which migrants laboured, and their contribution to the colonial economy. Digitizing immigrants' registers and quantitative studies followed in the 1980s and 1990s and laid the basis for (colonial) archival-based studies that focused on the agency of migrants, their resistance and resilience. The years since 2010, when Indian South Africans commemorated 150 years since the arrival of the first indentured migrants to the country, have witnessed an explosion of family histories and works of fiction. These publications have expanded the archive of indenture and enriched our knowledge and understanding of the system. Studies of indenture have been criticized for framing the system within a neo-slavery paradigm and suggest that works of fiction can best capture the stories of indenture. This essay demonstrates that historiographical developments since 2010 underscore the importance of personal contact, determination and imagination to take us beyond what is recorded in the official colonial archives, facilitating conversation across the oceans and bringing the individual and collective agency of indentured migrants centre-stage. It shows the richness of the work on indenture resulting from the expansion of the archives, the constantly changing view of the past, and different ways of communicating the story. This study contends that the Natal colonial archive remains relevant while acknowledging that writers of historical fiction and family histories are asking new questions about the past and broadening the lens through which we approach the story of indenture.