c. 1910
Indian workers were brought over by the British to the West Indian island of Jamaica between 1845 and 1917. Roughly 37,000 people were brought over under an indentured labor system, where they had to work on mostly sugar estates, where strict discipline, poor living conditions, low pay and provisioned rations made life very difficult. Repatriation was difficult and costly, with many workers forced to re-indenture themselves.