ABSTRACT
INDIANS IN SOUTH AFRICA One other special subject needs to be mentioned in outline at this point which will come up later during a period when it assumed an All-India importance. The Indians who had been sent abroad to the British Colonies under an iniquitous system called ‘ ‘indentured labour” had been spread over them as labourers wherever there were sugar planta tions. The emigration began soon after slavery was abolished; for the emancipated negroes refused to work any longer on the plantations where they had been forced to work as slaves. The sugar industry was saved by Indian labour, but at a terrible cost. For the five years of indenture were hardly less servile in character than the years of slavery itself.
