ABSTRACT
After emancipation in 1834, the formerly Spanish possession of Trinidad, along with other British West Indian possessions experimented with various forms of unfree labour in the sugar and other tropical industries. From 1845 onwards, with several interruptions, the indenture of imported workers, most notably from India, became the most widely used solution to these labour difficulties. Trinidad, unlike other sugar colonies, offered labourers a stake in the colony when the years of industrial residence were completed. The introduction of indentured labourers also affected wages in sectors other than sugar. The planters had demanded and received imported labour as a kind of 'compensation' for the abolition of centuries of preferential duties. Representatives of the sugar industry complained to the Labour Committee of 1905 that free labour, especially free black labour, was dearer than they could afford, despite several more lucrative alternatives in agriculture and in other areas.
