ABSTRACT
Early in 1843 George Thompson journeyed to the Indian subcontinent on behalf of the British India Society. Civility was equally necessary in the exchange of opinions since all such societies might err, either in methods or goals. As a spokesman for the British India Society addressing an Indian agricultural society Thompson was, of course, bound to identify Indian commodities, especially cotton and sugar, as already the product of free labor. The proponents of migration were able to expand the opportunities for increased indentured migration throughout the British tropical colonies. India remained the principal source of indentured labor in the British colonies. Public agitation against overseas indentured migration emerged only in the early twentieth century. In 1885 the establishment of an Indian National Congress finally offered India's elite a nationwide institution with the potential to bring political pressure to bear on the government of India.
