ABSTRACT
Indian seamen or lascars constituted a significant maritime labor force and played a vital role in facilitating navigation and trade in the early modern and colonial periods. Often, however, their lived experiences were bitter, as they lived and worked under harsh conditions and were treated badly and brutally by the ships’ captains and officiating crews. The experiences of many such lascars aboard the European ships, Union (1802) and David Scott (1841), provide intriguing insights into their lives and journeys from India to Britain and other Indian Ocean ports. This chapter examines their lived experiences on shore and during the journey and argues that the hardships and violence they suffered was the result of an inevitably flawed system of labour recruitment and the ensuing failure of the lascars and their employers to come up to each other’s expectations.
