ABSTRACT
On March 21, 1916, the British colonial government abolished the Indian indentureship system with effect from March 21, 1917. One of the earliest examples of the political presence of Indians in the United States was when some Indian students and the Pacific Coast Indian laborers brought the Indian freedom struggle to North America. This chapter looks at some theories that claim that the Chinese and even Indians might have landed in the Americas even before Columbus. America is home to approximately five million Indian Americans who either were born in continental America or have immigrated from India or other countries. Some of the earliest such arrivals, however, happened in the Caribbean countries, in the nineteenth century, who were termed “coolies,” as shown in the 2002 BBC film, Coolies: How Britain Re-Invented Slavery. Another wave of arrivals happened in and after the 1990s in North America and these Indians were termed “cyber coolies”, as they worked in IT industries.
