Changing Caribbean geographies: connections in flora, fauna and patterns of settlement from Indian inheritances

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/jofstudindentleg.1.1.0016
• Pages: 16-35
• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Date: 01 September 2021
• Author: Brinsley Samaroo
• Subject Matter: Caribbean geographies,Jahaji bundle,Girmityas,buffalypso,Ramayana in indenture,Qu'ran in indenture,seeds in indenture,Indian animals in the Caribbean

Journal of Indentureship 1.1 September 2021

Changing Caribbean

geographies

Connections in flora, fauna and patterns

of settlement from Indian inheritances

Brinsley Samaroo

Brinsley Samaroo is professor of history (emeritus), University of

the West Indies

ABSTRACT

There can be no doubt that Indian immigration to the plantation

colonies changed the geography of those colonies. However, most

analyses have dealt with the sugar industry in the colonies after the

abolition of slavery. This paper will argue that, apart from the sugar

industry, Indian labour and ingenuity made other signicant contri-

butions to plantation economies. The girmityas (agreement signers)

were well aware that they were going to agricultural occupations

so they took with them an amazing array of dried fruits, seeds and

cuttings, which survived the long crossing, adding to the ora of the

plantations. Armed with this foreknowledge, the jahajis packed these

items into their jahaji bundles alongside the Tulsi Ramayan and the

Holy Qu’ran. Animals too formed part of this international trade.

Sheep, goats and poultry which were not eaten on the outward voy-

age were sent to the estates, where they multiplied. When dangerous

snakes threatened plantation security, cages of mongoose were dis-

patched to the Caribbean where they bravely tackled venomous

creatures. At the urging of Indian labourers with long experience in

the sugar industry, the plantations’ owners imported Brahma bulls

and Zebu cattle, which revolutionised transport on the estates and

provided leather, manure and meat to the wider population.

There is also the amazing story of the importation of hundreds

of water buffaloes (bhaisa) from the Indo-Gangetic plains. Some

nine breeds were imported and in the twentieth century Caribbean

bio-geneticists were able to blend the best qualities of those Indian

animals and created a new hybrid, the buffalypso, which combined

CHANGING CARIBBEAN GEOGRAPHIES 17

Journal of Indentureship 1.1 September 2021

the scientic name with Trinidad’s fame as the land of the calypso.

The buffalypso became a prized animal for haulage, meat, milk and

leather and an item of export to Venezuela, Colombia, Miami and

the wider Caribbean. Indian cultivars were continuously exported

to the botanic gardens in the Caribbean and Indian forestry experts

were sent to the region to advise on forest rehabilitation in the

wake of large-scale deforestation, which sugar cultivation required.

In these and other ways the physical character of the Caribbean un-

derwent permanent change, which manifests itself today.

KEYWORDS

Caribbean geographies, Jahaji bundle, Girmityas, buffalypso,

Ramayana in indenture, Qu’ran in indenture, seeds in indenture,

Indian animals in the Caribbean

In 1886 the Scottish American traveller William Paton visited

Trinidad as part of a larger Caribbean tour. As he walked through

‘the cooly quarter of San Fernando’ he marvelled at the manner

in which the Western, Caribbean town was being Orientalised by

the East Indian presence. His description of the San Fernando

market would hardly have been different from sections of the

Bourda market in Guyana’s main city or the farmers’ market in

Paramaribo, Suriname. Here in Trinidad the Bihari market had

been recreated, complete with the sacred banyan tree, trans-

ported as part of the floral transfers from India to the Caribbean:

In the midst of this cooly district there is an open space, an acre or two in extent,

densely shaded by a very ancient and far-spreading banyan tree, under the

branches of which the cooly people hold their market. It would be impossible to

imagine a scene more unlike any that I have ever beheld in all my travels in

America or Europe. The people, their wares, their manner of trading, their baskets,

trays, tables, their manner, voices, gestures, all were strange and outlandish, for the

Hindus lose but little of their national characteristics in the New World. As I passed

through the crowd the sellers saluted respectfully, bowing as they said, ‘Salaam,

sahib’; then eagerly, but without clamour or violent gestures, besought me to