ABSTRACT
Wolf and Mintz have noted that one of the important conditions necessary for the establishment and continued operation of the plantation system is a regular or seasonal oversupply of cheap labour. Thompson further observes that whenever the plantation established its own regimen as the dominant socio-economic system, it imported vast numbers of unfree labourers to fulfil its labour requirements. Raymond Smith has observed that 85.6 percent of the Indian immigrants originated from the provinces of Agrah, Oudh and Bihar in northern India. They were subdivided by differences of caste and religion. The planters were also keen to secure the labour of the immigrants for as long as possible beyond their period of compulsory indenture. The disinclination of the Indians to emigrate to the colony under the liability of contributing to their return passage signalled the failure of this scheme, which was finally abandoned in 1859.
