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1 Amar Wahab
The early years of the East Indian Indentureship system in the Caribbean saw
experiments on “coolie” laborers under the British Empire. Colonial Trinidad
was one of the main sites for this experiment. This book foregrounds one of the
earliest cases (1846) of occupational and physical cruelty against East Indian
indentured laborers in Trinidad within this very early period of experimenta-
Disciplining Coolies
tion. It presents and analyzes the full transcripts of an inquiry concerning the
ill-treatment of “coolie” laborers and the severe punishment and death of one
laborer, Kunduppa, by a Scottish planter in Trinidad. Drawing on the concepts
of discipline, governmentality, and Orientalism, the main argument of this
book is that within the early experimental period of Indentureship, the figure
of the “coolie” and disciplinary tactics of bodily torture were instrumental to
redrafting and stabilizing the colonial governance of contract labor. It also ar-
gues that Crown investigations of “coolie” abuse and death became occasions
for establishing a new colonial order, in which the disciplinary powers of plant-
ers were curbed in the interest of protecting and “caring” for the “coolie” —a
discourse that was crucial to re-inventing colonial rule as benevolent. As such,
the author’s analysis of colonial violence has crucial implications for critically
re-thinking colonial liberalism and its legacies in the present.
An Archival Footprint of Trinidad, 1846
Amar Wahab is Associate Professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality and
Women’s Studies at York University, Canada. He received his PhD in sociology
and equity studies from the University of Toronto. Among his publications is
the monograph, Colonial Inventions: Landscape, Power and Representation in Nine-
teenth-Century Trinidad (2010).
www.peterlang.com Studies in Transnationalism, vol. 1

PETER LANG
Cover Image: A composite image of “Outline of Kunduppa’s feet” (Source:

CO 295/153: Trinidad 1846. Volume 4: Mr. Walkinshaw’s ill-treatment of
Coolies. Governor Lord Harris Dispatches 75 and 88. London: The National
Archives, 1846. This public sector information is licensed under the Open
Government Licence v3.0; permission has been obtained through this li-
cense to adapt the information), juxtaposed with an excerpt of “After/Still
Life” (Source: Author).
1 Amar Wahab
The early years of the East Indian Indentureship system in the Caribbean saw
experiments on “coolie” laborers under the British Empire. Colonial Trinidad
was one of the main sites for this experiment. This book foregrounds one of the
earliest cases (1846) of occupational and physical cruelty against East Indian
indentured laborers in Trinidad within this very early period of experimenta-
tion. It presents and analyzes the full transcripts of an inquiry concerning the
ill-treatment of “coolie” laborers and the severe punishment and death of one
laborer, Kunduppa, by a Scottish planter in Trinidad. Drawing on the concepts
of discipline, governmentality, and Orientalism, the main argument of this
book is that within the early experimental period of Indentureship, the figure
of the “coolie” and disciplinary tactics of bodily torture were instrumental to
redrafting and stabilizing the colonial governance of contract labor. It also ar-
gues that Crown investigations of “coolie” abuse and death became occasions
for establishing a new colonial order, in which the disciplinary powers of plant-
ers were curbed in the interest of protecting and “caring” for the “coolie” —a
discourse that was crucial to re-inventing colonial rule as benevolent. As such,
the author’s analysis of colonial violence has crucial implications for critically
re-thinking colonial liberalism and its legacies in the present.
An Archival Footprint of Trinidad, 1846
Amar Wahab is Associate Professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality and
Women’s Studies at York University, Canada. He received his PhD in sociology
and equity studies from the University of Toronto. Among his publications is
the monograph, Colonial Inventions: Landscape, Power and Representation in Nine-
teenth-Century Trinidad (2010).
www.peterlang.com Studies in Transnationalism, vol. 1

PETER LANG
Cover Image: A composite image of “Outline of Kunduppa’s feet” (Source:

CO 295/153: Trinidad 1846. Volume 4: Mr. Walkinshaw’s ill-treatment of
Coolies. Governor Lord Harris Dispatches 75 and 88. London: The National
Archives, 1846. This public sector information is licensed under the Open
Government Licence v3.0; permission has been obtained through this li-
cense to adapt the information), juxtaposed with an excerpt of “After/Still
Life” (Source: Author).
Studies in Transnationalism
Jatinder Mann
Series Editor
Vol. 1
The Studies in Transnationalism series is part of the Peter Lang Humanities list.
Every volume is peer reviewed and meets
the highest quality standards for content and production.
PETER LANG
New York  Bern  Berlin
Brussels  Vienna  Oxford  Warsaw
Amar Wahab
An Archival Footprint of
Trinidad, 1846
PETER LANG
New York  Bern  Berlin
Brussels  Vienna  Oxford  Warsaw
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Wahab, Amar, author.
Title: Disciplining coolies: an archival footprint of Trinidad, 1846 /
Amar Wahab.
Description: New York: Peter Lang, 2019.
Series: Studies in transnationalism, vol. 1
ISSN 2578-9317 (print) | ISSN 2578-9325 (online)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018017610 |ISBN 978-1-4331-5616-8 (paperback: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4331-5617-5 (ebook pdf) | ISBN 978-1-4331-5618-2 (epub)
ISBN 978-1-4331-5619-9 (mobi)
Subjects: LCSH: Indentured servants—Violence against—Trinidad and
Tobago—Trinidad—History—19th century. | Foreign workers, East
Indian—Violence against—Trinidad and Tobago—Trinidad—History—19th
century. | Great Britain—Colonies—Administration—History—19th century.
Classification: LCC HD8246.W34 | DDC 331.11/7360972983—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018017610
DOI 10.3726/b13462
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available
on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.
© 2019 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York

29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006
www.peterlang.com
All rights reserved.

Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,
xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited.
contents
List of Figures vii

Acknowledgments ix
Preface xi
Cast of Characters xv
Introduction: The Footprint 1
Chapter 1. Disciplinary Orientalism and Indian Indentureship in

the Colonial Caribbean 29
Chapter 2. ‘Coolie’ Genealogy as Colonial Governmentality:
An Analysis of ‘Mr. Walkinshaw’s Ill-treatment of Coolies’ 51
Chapter 3. The Transcripts: Trinidad 1846, Volume 4, Mr. Walkinshaw’s
Ill-treatment of Coolies, Governor Lord Harris,
Disp. 75 and 88 77
Chapter 4. Postscript: ‘Coolie’ Hauntings 259
Index 271
figures
Figure 1.1: Coolie Re/marks 46

Figure 3.1: Outline of Kunduppa’s Feet 257
Figure 4.1: (a) and (b): Abbey of the Parasite: on Human Remains 260
Figure 4.2: Slow Death: Consignment No. 348/520 262
Figure 4.3: (a), (b), and (c): DisAffections: A Parliament of
Things (triptych) 263
Figure 4.4: Re/marks: A Coolie Parliament 264
Figure 4.5: (a) and (b): In a Queer State: The Wail 265
Figure 4.6: (a) and (b): After/Still Life 267
acknowledgments
This book could not have been possible without the contributions of the many
people, voices and institutions which supported me throughout my writing.
I am grateful to The National Archives, Kew, United Kingdom for permis-
sion to read and publish the transcript of the inquiry and to include imagery
of the institution’s buildings in my visual installations. Thanks also to the
staff at the National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago who were very help-
ful during my research in Trinidad. I also thankfully acknowledge the Journal
of Historical Studies and the Journal of Asian American Studies for providing
permission to reprint edited versions and sections of my published articles.
I acknowledge the support of funding for the initial leg of this research, which
was gained through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada and the Centre for Caribbean Studies, University of Warwick, UK,
for providing the initial institutional base for this research. Thanks also to
Silmi Abdullah, who worked on the first phase of transcription of the original
archival material and to the reviewers and editorial staff at Peter Lang Pub-
lishers Inc., who provided valuable feedback, support and advice throughout
the publication process.
While the act of writing is a lonely process, I am deeply grateful to my
transnational network of family and friends—in Trinidad, the US, Canada,
x disciplining coolies
and the UK—as well as colleagues—at York University—who provided a

nurturing and supportive context in which to work. I am especially thank-
ful to my mom, Sarojanie, who has always been there for me and whose
encouragement has been crucial to the completion of this project. Our daily
conversations have fuelled this project in very significant ways. I am also
deeply thankful to my partner, Graëme, who listened supportively through-
out the process, nourished my drive to see this project through, and helped
me in creating some of the experimental artwork as well as staging it in the
UK—especially at a moment when my own disability threatened to further
delay this project. Moreover, he never failed to keep me inspired and going
at some of the most dismal moments of working with the horrific footprint of
violence presented in this book. To all the authors whose works I have drawn
upon, I am grateful for the ways in which they’ve helped this book to mat-
ter. They offered—through their scholarship—a meaningful community for
voicing in moments at which I felt utterly horrified, depressed and alone in
the archival grave. In this regard, I acknowledge the ghostly presences of the
inquiry, especially Kunduppa, whose footprint has spoken to me for the last
decade. His haunting has awakened new and creative intellectual horizons
for me and as such, this book is situated in a space of questioning how we
reconcile the violence of the past and listen to voices that refuse to be silenced
in death.
As a work of dedication, this book is dedicated to the collective I have
mentioned above, for in many ways, we have co-produced this space of mean-
ing. I would also like to dedicate this work to ‘the Caribbean community’
(regionally and transnationally), because it may help to hold us in a different
relation to ourselves. Last, but not least, I dedicate this work to those who
survived the violence of indentureship, and especially to Kunduppa; I see you.
preface
The year 2018 marks the 180th anniversary of the beginning and the 101st
anniversary of the end of the British East Indian indentureship system in the
Caribbean—a system of contract labor that not only aimed to stabilize the
plantation labor supply to British colonies after the abolition of slavery, but
which also experimented on East Indian laborers to work out a new regime of
governing ‘contractually-free’ labor across the British Empire. Colonial Trin-
idad was one of the main sites for this experiment, which began in 1845,
but was (temporarily) suspended in 1848 due to financial crisis in the colony.
This three-year period was also marked by an intense humanitarian outcry—
especially in Britain and India—about the extreme forms of punishment and
alarming cases of abuse and death of indentured East Indians within a system
of supposedly free labor.
This book foregrounds one of the earliest cases (1846) of punishment
and cruelty (emotional, occupational and physical) against East Indian
indentured laborers or ‘coolies’ in Trinidad within this very early period of
uncertainty, experimentation and recalibration. It presents and analyses the
testimonies of a state inquiry concerning the ill-treatment of ‘coolies,’ includ-
ing the severe punishment and death of an East Indian laborer, Kunduppa, by
a Scottish planter, Edward Walkinshaw, on the Clydesdale Cottage estate in
xii disciplining coolies
South Naparima, Trinidad (within the first year of this experiment), in which
the latter claimed that torture was a necessary tactic to indulge ‘coolies’ to
work. Drawing on the concepts of discipline and governmentality (developed
by French philosopher and social historian, Michel Foucault) and Oriental-
ism (developed by Edward Said, a founding figure in the field of post/colonial
studies), the main argument of the book is that within the early experimen-
tal period of indentureship, the figure of the ‘coolie’ and disciplinary tactics
of bodily torture were instrumental to redrafting and stabilizing the colonial
governance of ‘contractually-free’ labor. It also argues that state investigations
of ‘coolie’ abuse and death (such as the case focused on in this book) became
occasions for establishing a new colonial order, in which the disciplinary pow-
ers of planters were curbed in the interest of protecting and caring for the
‘coolie’—a discourse that was critical to the image of a benevolent rule of
bonded labor within the British Empire.
While much of the historical literature and analyses of labor in colonial
Trinidad (as well as the wider Caribbean) focus on free and enslaved African
labor, there remains a deep paucity of substantive analyses concerning the reg-
ulation of East Indian labor, specifically within this early period (1845–1848)
of the indentureship system. In the handful of books that have been published
on indentureship in Trinidad, few have briefly referenced the case which is
central to this book. In addition, none of the existing works offer a substantive
analysis of the cruelty, torture and death of ‘coolies’ within this experimental
period in relation to the concepts of discipline and governmentality. More-
over, none of the existing analyses trace the footprint of ‘coolie’ death as a
crucial installment in the production of colonial liberalism i.e. the reimaging
of Empire as humanitarian, in the immediate aftermath of slavery. This is
perhaps because almost all existing analyses are situated within the schol-
arly discipline of history. While this manuscript is definitely a contribution
to the field of historical studies, its analytical uniqueness lies in its reliance
on conceptual strands in critical studies of colonial discourse (Orientalism)
and social and political theory (discipline and governmentality). In addition,
the visual experiments in the final section of the book are also inspired by
studies at the intersections of critical race studies, queer studies, and studies of
debility to deconstruct the ‘coolie’ as a racialized-queer and debilitated figure,
whose invention as such, was crucial to his/her disposability, which served to
reconfigure and re-capacitate the hegemony of colonial rule. The book targets
general and scholarly readers (concerned with British, Caribbean and Indian
history), with a keen interest in understanding the very material and measured
preface xiii
torture of ‘coolie’ laborers within this period of the indentureship scheme

(a part of the indentureship story that is understudied and silenced, even
within the academic domain) and in understanding the productive value of
such cruelty and torture to the British Empire at the very moment of its rein-
vention as benevolent. As such, the author hopes to contribute to scholarly
and creative literature situated within the interdisciplinary nexus of social sci-
ence and historical studies on indentureship, specifically in fields such as Indo/
Caribbean Studies, studies of British colonialism and Orientalism, Indian and
South Asian studies, and critical labor studies.
cast of characters
The following is a list of the main characters, followed by a list of support-

ing characters involved in the inquiry focused on in this book. Many of
the non-European names are inconsistently spelled in the transcripts of the
inquiry (fully reproduced in Chapter 3).
Primary Characters
Bilchie East Indian laborer accused of rum drinking and

attack on fellow laborers.
Bitchook East Indian laborer accused of being part of a gang.
Edward Young Creole laborer, witness
Major James Fagan Coolie Stipendiary Magistrate
Justice Floyd Magistrate
Ginno East Indian laborer accused of being part of a gang.
Girdarry East Indian laborer accused of stealing sugar and
exposing his private parts to women and children.
Earl Grey Secretary for the Colonies
xvi disciplining coolies
Lord George Harris Governor

Justice Horatio Nelson Magistrate
Huggins
Hurra Sing Estate Sirdar
Jarroo East Indian laborer accused of smoking, not com-
pleting his task work, absent without pass, scolded.
Mr. Walkinshaw hit him to get him to work.
Justice Charles Knox Magistrate
Kunduppa East Indian laborer who died on the Clydesdale
Cottage estate.
Mr. James Huggins Planter of neighbouring Fullerton estate, former
Lacroix Justice of the peace (St. Vincent).
Latoo East Indian laborer accused of being part of a gang.
Luono East Indian laborer accused of being a member of
a gang of Calcutta coolies who supposedly attacked
Mr. Walkinshaw.
Nattoo East Indian laborer.
Mr. Sidney Smith Overseer
Sonnu East Indian laborer accused of being part of a gang.
Phil Thomas Creole laborer, witness
Edward Walkinshaw Proprietor of the Clydesdale Cottage estate.
Mr. Watson Friend of Mr. Walkinshaw in Belmont.
Arthur White Colonial Secretary, Trinidad
Supporting Characters
David Creole laborer

Esop Creole laborer
Francis Creole laborer
Happa East Indian laborer (Madras)
Iswalky Simbo Creole laborer
Jundoo East Indian laborer
Muskame East Indian laborer (Madras)
cast of characters xvii
Nuctuma East Indian laborer

Richard Creole laborer
Romkillar East Indian laborer
Seshurdun East Indian laborer
Susannah Creole laborer
William Creole laborer
introduction
The Footprint
Buried: An Archeology of the Grave

Graves are not solely places to bury the dead. They also function as prisons
where presences are disposed of by those who fear the unruly power of the
dead. I first came across the case presented in this book in 2006, while I was
a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Caribbean Studies at the University
of Warwick in the United Kingdom. I was researching visual and textual rep-
resentations of East Indians in the nineteenth century in preparation for my
book manuscript Colonial Inventions: Landscape, Power and Representation in
Nineteenth-Century Trinidad (2010, Cambridge Scholars Publishing). On a
very cold and bleak winter’s morning in 2006, I boarded a train from London
to Kew, where I would spend the day at The National Archives (UK), care-
fully sifting through colonial records on East Indian indentureship in Trini-
dad. A few days earlier, while exploring London on foot, I had seen an old
sooty Victorian bridge with the date ‘1845’ engraved on it, the very same
year that the first shipment of East Indians was brought to Trinidad under
the British indentureship scheme. As I made my way to Kew, this image of
the bridge haunted me as it signalled the treacherous crossings of indentured
East Indians into the Atlantic world and the difficult destinies that awaited
them on the sugar and cocoa plantations in Trinidad. I was also mourning the
2 disciplining coolies
recent loss of my father, who had grown up in Trinidad on a cocoa estate, and
recalling all the morbid tales of poverty and hardship he had told me about
growing up on the plantation.
It was with these feelings of profound melancholy and grief that I entered
The National Archives building at Kew, which in itself, seemed like enter-
ing a grave that was not mine to enter. Although I had a list of the colo-
nial records I wanted to search, I really didn’t know what ghostly presences
I would find lurking in that grave. The stories of the East Indian indentured
laborers I wanted to research were all coded and catalogued in an unfeeling
colonial archival and curatorial grammar, such as ‘CO295 Colonial Office
and Predecessors: Trinidad Original Correspondence,’ which made it feel
colder than the bleak English weather outside. As I entered the building, got
searched by white guards, locked up my bag into the ground-floor locker, and
headed upstairs to the ‘Research and Enquiries’ room—with pencil, paper,
digital camera, white cotton gloves and my reader’s ticket—I remember feel-
ing a deep churning in my stomach, thinking I was an imposter in that world
of relation between grave watchers and their treasured knowledge objects.
These grave watchers knew what lay buried in their crypt, but I had to deci-
pher the catalogue—named ‘Discovery’—with its very limited descriptions,
to know which records I wanted to order and view. It was almost as if there
were some secrets we—as postcolonial researchers—weren’t meant to know,
even though they were categorically in the public domain. Even more, only
employees of the Archive were allowed into the vault to retrieve materials
that I had requested online, giving me the feeling that there was much more
buried in that vault than I could glean from the online catalogue. I spent most
of the morning ordering and reading through several colonial office records.
It was a chilly exercise, made more so by the guards who constantly walked
around the viewing tables in the document reading rooms, policing research-
ers’ handling of the records. Even the heavy metal page-divider chains felt icy
to the touch as they disciplined my interaction with the record I was viewing.
I remember feeling miserable, not finding new material for my research pro-
ject and wondering whether I had effectively cracked the catalogue codes.
While I understood the archival practices of careful preservation, supervised
public access, and a systematized ordering of things, I couldn’t help wonder-
ing whether these were also strategies of deterrence, deflecting me away from
something I was not supposed to find.
As I returned to the catalogue search computers and once again keyed in
the search words ‘East Indian,’ ‘Coolie,’ ‘indentureship,’ and ‘Trinidad’ one
introduction 3
particular record entry caught my eye: ‘CO295/153’. The record’s descrip-

tion—‘Despatches from Governor Lord Harris [George Francis Robert Harris]
concerning Edward Walkinshaw’s ill-treatment of Indian immigrants’—made
me curious, especially since it was dated 1846, the year following the start of
East Indian indentureship in Trinidad. The record comprised two despatches:
Despatch No. 75: forwards correspondence with Mr. Walkinshaw, proprietor of the
Clydesdale Cottage Estate in the district of South Naparima. Also encloses the pro-
ceedings of an enquiry commissioned by the governor concerning Walkinshaw’s
treatment of the Indian Immigrants on the estate. Notes that as a result of the inves-
tigation the immigrants were removed from Walkinshaw’s charge. Also states that
there was ‘considerable slackness … in many of the proprietors and managers of
estates in complying with the regulations which require them to furnish clothing and
other necessaries to the Coolies’. (National Archives online catalogue)
Despatch No 88: Forwards copies of the proceedings in two of the three cases of com-
plaints made against Mr Walkinshaw by the Indian immigrants on his estate. Notes
that the third case was abandoned due to lack of evidence. The first case concerned
the assault of a labourer named Beechook. The second case concerned an inquisition
into the death of a labourer named Kunduppa. (National Archives online catalogue)
As I requested the record on Discovery and waited for its retrieval from the
vault, I wondered what was the ‘considerable slackness’ I was about to read
and what about this ‘slackness’ was so exceptional as to include the names
of the laborers—Beechook and Kunduppa—in the record description. When
the record finally arrived, I could see that it was a hard-bound, thick volume
(741 pages) that would take me quite some time to sort through. The cover
page—“Trinidad 1846—Vol. 4—Mr. Walkinshaw ill-treatment of Coolies—
Governor Lord Harris Disps 75 & 88”—written in fountain pen ink, looked
quite plain and bureaucratic, like just any other file of mundane colonial
administration. As I read through the pages in numerical order, I felt utterly
sickened by the detailed accounts of ill-treatment meted out on indentured
laborers, and again wondered how it was that ‘coolie’ personhood could only
be made intelligible and exceptional through colonial violence. I came across
one page (p. 228) that was stained in what seemed like dried blood. Knowing
that I was reading a record about the ill-treatment of ‘coolies,’ I grew increas-
ingly nervous, wondering whose blood I was now viewing and touching.
Beyond the bodies named, described and captured in the text, it seemed as if
something was spilling out, in excess of the textual way in which these bodies
were being summoned as knowable and governable objects—even in their
suffering and death. I kept on reading, now more carefully and slowly, as by
then, I was reading about an inquiry into the death of an indentured laborer,
Kunduppa. At the end of the hand-written despatch (No. 88), there was an
appendix containing a typed-written copy of the ‘Rules and Regulations to be
observed in regard to the distribution and location of coolie laborers.’ Know-
ing that appendices are often used to include supplementary materials, like
the ‘Rules and Regulations’ in this case, I presumed that I had read everything
about the ill-treatment of ‘coolies’ compiled by Governor Lord Harris in the
previous pages.
As I turned the page, what I saw was not only deeply visceral in that
moment, but an image that would haunt and continue to traumatize me for the
next twelve years. The image in this appendix was a pencil outline of a foot—
belonging to Kunduppa—which was submitted as evidence of Kunduppa’s
ill-treatment during an inquiry subsequent to his death on the Clydesdale
Cottage estate. The outline was more of a template, with circles marked ‘A’
and ‘B’ to identify the locations of sores on Kunduppa’s left and right feet.
I could not know whether this was a template randomly drawn by the Super-
intendent Magistrate or whether this was a tracing of Kunduppa’s actual feet.
If the latter, I could not tell whether this was done before or after Kunduppa’s
death. I could not tell whether the signs of yellowing on the page were signs
of the record’s deterioration or the imprint of bodily fluids (sweat or blood)
left by Kunduppa. Although I know that the answers to these questions will
remain buried in the colonial effluvia, it is this footprint that has haunted me
for the past twelve years and which—as one of the very few visual-administra-
tive records of the early indentureship period in Trinidad (1845–1848)—has
prompted me to write this book as a way of critically responding to the colo-
nial archive’s demand for secrecy and absenting, even in the public domain. If
the thick-volumed, colonial administrative record now appears as a burial of
suffering and death—its cover page like an administrative tombstone—then
the footprint stands in for those ghostly presences that are meant to remain
submerged at the bottom of the grave.
Across Horizons: Situating the Study

in Indo-Caribbean Studies
My investigation of the abovementioned case is situated primarily within the
marginalized and systematically silenced scholarly field of Indo-Caribbean
studies. The consistent erasure or trivialization of this field as a legitimate
introduction 5
field of study is in part due to the normalized view of ‘East Indians in the West’
as a recent phenomenon, the deprioritization of analyses of labor populations
that were ‘neither slave nor free’ in the dominant story of ‘the Caribbean,’ and
the tacit rejection of Indo-Caribbean scholars and scholarship as part of valid
knowledge production within and outside of the region. While the book draws
theoretically on ideas and concepts that have global currency, it nevertheless
anchors these conceptual frames in relation to critical studies of colonialism
in the Caribbean and more specifically to studies (mostly historical) on East
Indian indentureship in the Anglo-Caribbean. It is important to recognize that
this area of investigation is itself situated at the confluence of broader schol-
arly fields, including studies of British colonialism and Orientalism, Indian
and South Asian studies, and critical labor history studies (especially focusing
on indentureship as a trans-oceanic formation of empire, linking Atlantic,
Indian and Pacific Ocean labor systems). The field is therefore simultaneously
and contrapuntally local, regional and global in socio-historical, geopoliti-
cal and conceptual scope; beyond its disciplined normalization as ‘area stud-
ies,’ ‘ethnic studies,’ and ‘minority studies.’ As such, this book builds on and
seeks to contribute to the emerging field of Indo-Caribbean scholarship which
coheres around the question: how do we make sense of ‘coolie’ experience and
voice in the context of colonial violence?
Several historical studies of Indian indentureship in the Caribbean, and
more specifically, in colonial Trinidad, have informed and help to meaning-
fully and critically contextualize the case that is the focus of this book. British
Historian, High Tinker’s A New System of Slavery: the Export of Indian Labour
Overseas 1820–1930, (1993, originally published in 1973) is one of the “first
comprehensive surveys” of Indian indentureship within the British Empire. It
provides a definitively historical-descriptive account of the system of inden-
tureship, the passage from India to Mauritius, Natal, South Africa, Trinidad,
British Guiana and Jamaica and the complex site-specific processes that led
to the eventual abolition of indentureship as a system (in the early twenti-
eth century). While Tinker’s study has informed my general understanding
and analysis of the trans-colonial indentureship circuit, its focus on colonial
Trinidad is understandably limited and the colonial government documents
consulted on indentureship in the West Indies are from 1870 to 1914 (25 years
after the start of indentureship in Trinidad). While Tinker’s work can be
located more squarely in the disciplinary study of history, the anthology India
in the Caribbean (1987)1 by David Dabydeen and Brinsley Samaroo is one
of the first regional attempts by Indo-Caribbean diasporic scholars—and
a foundational text in Indo-Caribbean studies—to explore Indian indenture-

ship and post-colonial identity politics from historical and cultural studies,
through a series of essays, poems and prose. Also in this vein, Marina Carter
and Khal Thorabully’s, Coolitude: an Anthology of the Indian Labour Diaspora
(2002) provides an interdisciplinary analysis of Indian indentureship, primar-
ily in Mauritius (where the ‘great experiment’ of Indian indentureship first
began in the 1820s), informed by historical and cultural studies perspectives.
The authors offer up and define coolitude as a concept which “… encompasses
the experiences of the first generation workers together with those of their
descendants spread across the Caribbean, Pacific and Indian Ocean islands
today. The symbolic value of the word lies in both the scope it gives us to
interpret the specificities of the coolie experience and its use as a compara-
tive tool … [which] emphasizes their shared history.” The study informs the
conceptual framing and methodological posturing of this book through my
analyses of ‘the coolie subject’ in Chapter 1 and the purposeful combination
of traditional and creative intellectual production in the experimental visual
installations at the end of this book, which I hope would open up crucial
questions that might underwrite the expansion of coolitude as a concept of
critical thought.
In the Trinidadian context, local academic historian, Walton Look Lai’s
longitudinal historical study Indentured Labor, Caribbean Sugar: Chinese and
Indian Migrants to the British West Indies, 1838–1918 (1993) presents a rich
historical analysis of the indentured system for both Chinese and East Indian
laborers in the British West Indies. Its uniqueness lies in its research into
“life and labour”—including histories of debilitation related to abuse, misery,
and punishment of ‘coolies’—for East Indians on the plantations of Trinidad,
which has been crucial to each chapter of this book. While Indentured Labor,
Caribbean Sugar only provides a very brief glimpse into the early experimental
period of East Indian indentureship in Trinidad (1845–1848), it is one of the
few scholarly texts which cite and provide a one-paragraph summary of the
specific case (i.e. “Mr. Walkinshaw ill-treatment of Coolies”) foregrounded in
this book. The other scholarly text which has referenced the specific case is
that of Neil Sookdeo’s Freedom, Festivals and Castes in Trinidad after Slavery:
A Society in Transition (2000) which provides a detailed summary and anal-
ysis of ‘violence at Walkinshaw’s estate.’2 Both texts have been crucial to
understanding issues of context and content surrounding the particular case,
although they offer a limited analysis of colonial power relations within the
case itself. Nevertheless, I have brought these texts into conversation with
introduction 7
the work of other historians, including Bridget Brereton’s A History of Modern

Trinidad (1981), to understand the complexity of relations and structures that
defined the first decade after the emancipation of slavery and Trinidad’s initial
experimentation with Indian indentureship.
These texts have allowed me to meaningfully bring matters of historical
context into critical dialogue with the transcripts of the inquiry, not only to
understand the conditions of ‘coolie’ life and labor during the experimental
period, but also ponder the transition from a society based on slavery to one
based on a liberal disciplinary mode of organizing and controlling bonded
labor. In this regard, I also read the transcripts as symptomatic of the “prob-
lem of freedom,” which, according to Thomas Holt (1991), was a defining
feature of the early post-emancipation period. Holt’s insightful exploration
of this “problem” differently contextualizes the case in this book, since it sug-
gests that while we may think of the case as representative of the experi-
mental period of indentureship—focused on ‘coolie’ labor as a problem to be
resolved—it simultaneously signals an experiment with the liberal adminis-
tration and government of new forms of labor (in this case, bonded labor)
in the colonial peripheries. Both Chapters 1 and 2 rely on the theoretical
contributions of Michel Foucault—particularly the concepts of discipline, the
disciplinary society and governmentality—to foreground the case as inciting
questions about the problem of liberalism. In Discipline and Punish (1975),
Foucault mapped out the features of modern power in Western Europe as a
result of Enlightenment transitions, most notably the shift from despotic and
authoritarian forms of social control (in pre-modern Europe) to seemingly
more benign and liberal forms of punishment that were aimed at correction,
self-discipline and improvement, which defined modern society as a ‘discipli-
nary society.’ This society was invented and secured through discursive pro-
duction (as central to the production of ‘R’eason), which entailed a range of
scientific institutional techniques of observation, examination and correction
of subjects and which aimed to bring about docility and conformity to rules
and norms (through the language of ‘improvement’ and ‘reform’). Foucault
further elaborated on his theory of modern power through the concept of
governmentality, which focused on the institutional disciplining of subject
populations, beyond the level of the individual subject. While these concepts
were developed in the context of Western Europe, they were also tested and
elaborated on in the colonial peripheries, especially in redrafting regimes
of governance of racialized laboring populations under a supposedly more
efficient and benevolent age of empire. David Scott’s (1999) conception of
colonial governmentality is useful here, since Scott raises questions about the
“Enlightenment’s colonial career,” especially when early post-emancipation
society—with its crises around ‘free’ labour—posed numerous challenges for
reforming and improving the management of racialized labour as part of the
“government of freedom.”3 More so, this historical moment presented even
more of a challenge to rationalize and calculate what the liberal government
of laboring subjects such as ‘coolies’—who were “half free, half tied”4— would
look like. It is to this problem of experimentation with the liberal governance
of liminal laboring subjects in the colonial periphery, that I draw on the work
of Foucault and Scott to analyze the inquiry in Chapter 2.
This experimentation was deeply invested in discursively constructing the
‘character’ of particular populations of racialized labor, as part of an expanding
colonial taxonomy of types of subjects. Building on Foucault’s insights, post-
colonial scholar, Edward Said (1979), developed the concept of Orientalism
as a form of colonial power/knowledge, whereby Western Euro-centric dis-
courses were developed and deployed to constitute and control the Oriental
other as colonial subjects. Orientalist discourse, as a system of representation,
was thus effectively aimed at disciplining its subjects based on Euro-centric
conventions and categories of knowledge production, which served to rein-
force colonial authority. As a form of colonial discourse, Orientalism is useful
to this study for understanding the ways in which ‘the coolie’ was discursively
constructed as an object of knowledge and site of ‘difference,’ set within a
broader set of questions about the problem of regulating labor within a ‘free’
society. My exploration of what I call ‘the Coolie Question’ in Chapter 1
foregrounds the discursive production of ‘the coolie’ as a sub-human category
of labor, who required exceptional techniques of regulation precisely because
of colonial anxieties about the capability of this subject for self-discipline.
It is within the Orientalist framing of ‘the Coolie Question’ that I situate
the abuse, misery, suffering and death of ‘coolie’ laborers on the Clydesdale
Cottage estate as disciplinary technologies aimed at coercion and inducing
compliance. While advocates of ‘coolie’ emigration argued that ‘the coolie’
was exceptionally docile (in contradistinction to free Africans), there existed
a parallel discourse during the experimental period of indentureship which
constructed and naturalized ‘the coolie character’ as indocile and unsuited
to liberal regimes of self-regulation (e.g. coolies who left estates without a
pass were seen as incapable of honoring their contractual obligations). This
discourse later helped to pave the way for stricter regimes of criminalization
in order to punish and forcefully mold ‘the coolie’ into a more docile subject
introduction 9
through a legal reformist discourse of improvement. As such, the effect of

Orientalist discourse was not only to create a dominant system of representing
‘the coolie’ in the colonial imagination, but especially through its mode of
pathologizing this subject, helped to hypervisibilize ‘the coolie as problem.’
This discursive production effectively detracted away from any critical scru-
tiny of the indentureship scheme and its claim to be representative of a more
liberal humanitarian regime of labor management in the first decade after the
emancipation of slavery.
While I have primarily depended on the above texts to inform the con-
ceptual framework and matters of historical context, as a range of method-
ologies, they also help this book to do the work of haunting—inspired by
Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Silencing the Past (1995) and Avery Gordon’s Ghostly
Matters (1997)—it so desires; by re-habilitating and deploying the figure of
the “vanished coolie”5 as a ghostly figure who haunts the imaginative horizons
of the historical present. As a methodology, I have used haunting as a way of
queering or disrupting the silenced past, by reprinting the full transcript of the
inquiry in Chapter 3 as a way of exposing the atrocity of the British Empire.
In addition, through the experimental artistic re-interpretations (i.e. disrup-
tion) in the postscript, I gesture at the agency of the dead to disrupt the domi-
nant stories of indentureship. As such, this book is another incarnation of the
style of “intellectual interpretation” and “poetic and artistic immersion” that
informs Carter and Thorabully’s conception of coolitude. In extending this
concept, it is necessary to think about ways in which we come to think about
the shared (though not uniform) experiences of ‘coolie’ subjects and popu-
lations, even as they speak to us from the archival grave. What we do with,
to, through their voice(s) is highly meaningful to critically re-thinking our
objects and modes of intelligibility within the field of Indo-Caribbean studies
and its value as a field in and of itself.
While many of the historical and cultural studies of analyses of indenture-
ship rely on primary historical sources (most of which centre the interpreta-
tive voice of the colonial ‘master’), they tend to foreground select material
(a kind of quarantining) to support and illustrate their arguments and analyses.
As such, there is a limited number of works (understandably for a number of
reasons) which aim to publish full transcripts of primary historical materi-
als on indentureship. Three such texts that have inspired and informed the
work of this book are Ron Ramdin’s The Other Middle Passage: Journal of a
Voyage from Calcutta to Trinidad, 1858 (1994), Verene Shepherd’s Maharani’s
Misery: Narratives of a Passage from India to the Caribbean (2002) and The
First Crossing: being the diary of Theophilus Richmond, Ship’s Surgeon aboard the
Hesperus, 1837–8 (2007) by Theophilus Richmond, David Dabydeen, Jonathan
Morley, Brinsley Samaroo, Amar Wahab and Brigid Wells. Ramdin’s text pro-
vides an introduction to and overview of indentureship, together with the
full transcript of the diary entries of Captain and Mrs. Swinton about their
voyage with ‘coolie’ emigrants on the Salsette. Maharani’s Misery investigates
an inquiry into the rape and death of a coolie woman—Maharani—during her
sea journey between Calcutta and British Guiana in 1885 on the colonial ship,
the Allanshaw. Not only does Shepherd offer a sustained feminist analysis of
the workings of gender, sexuality and race in the indentureship period, but the
book represents the very first time the 26 witness depositions of the inquiry
have been made public. The First Crossing reprints the diary accounts of the
impact of cholera on ‘coolies’ by the ship’s surgeon, Theophilus Richmond,
though the diary is yet to be analyzed for signs of ‘coolie’ agency during this
voyage. While the primary historical documents in these three texts pertain
to testimonies of ‘coolie’ abuse and suffering during ‘shipment’ (as cargo sub-
jects) and also do not directly relate to the early experimental period in Trin-
idad (1845–1848) focused on in this book, I have found them quite powerful
(especially the first two), not only in their analyses, but because the publi-
cation of the primary sources—in full—has a unique performative power to
disrupt ‘the public of the past’ and the normative locations from which we
imagine our critical work as mattering. This performativity is anchored in
an understanding of the ‘coolie’ as both subject (disciplined and closed in by
structures of rule) and figurative, as a kind of countering possibility that is wide
awake in misery and death, and which cannot be completely entrapped i.e.
the ‘coolie’ is a ghostly figure.
It is within this re-formulation that this book is framed in response to
postcolonial studies scholar, Gayatri Spivak’s question “Can the subaltern
speak?” My decision to publish the full transcript of the Walkinshaw case
in Chapter 3, is aimed at making public or unsilencing the open secrets of
‘coolie’ abuse, suffering and death during the early phase of indentureship
in the Caribbean (which could be interpreted as a shaming and disruption
of empire). Especially in this case, with its numerous examples of ‘coolie’
testimonies (verbal and signature marks), one of the most haunting enun-
ciations of colonial violence is the visual-yet-vocal signature of Kunduppa’s
footprint i.e. speaking back to us with his feet. Beyond the contentious desire
to re-cover ‘coolie’ voices and restore ‘coolie’ personhood from the archives,
this book is also concerned with a creative re-thinking of the power of these
introduction 11
voices to re-direct and re-organize what questions are imaginable within the
field of Indo-Caribbean studies, which may potentially incite new potential
for a vibrant intellectual unruliness.
This demand for yet another critical turn in Indo-Caribbean studies is
made in the postscript of this book, which consists of six image installations
created by the author to provoke questions about what it means to speak
(back)—through words, written symbols, and footprints—to return the gaze
from the categorical position of being “beyond the human” (Chen, 2012). In
speaking back to Empire, the installations are informed by recent scholarship
in feminist and gender studies, queer affect studies and studies of disabil-
ity and debility. As an intersectional framework they gesture to questions
that I believe remain unattended to in the existing scholarly analyses of ‘the
bonded coolie’ and how this particular subject/figure is dis/appeared within
the story of colonial liberalism. Some of these questions include: How might
the case open up an understanding of the shifts and re-registrations of differ-
ent, yet related, constructions of colonial masculinities (official, planter, and
bonded labor) during the early experimental period and how do these shifts
serve to re-organize the meaning and strategies of liberal governance as a
blueprint of the colonial future? How might we read the strategies of debili-
tation of racialized ‘coolie’ laborers (starving, physical punishment, medical
neglect, restricting mobility, incarceration) and their production as ‘debili-
tated-thus-disposable bodies,’ as normalized forms of violating and violently
controlling contract labor in the name of liberalism? How might we make
sense of ‘the coolie’—racialized, feminized, disabled, and debilitated—as a
subject who is rendered non-normative or queer, precisely because this sub-
ject’s humanity is suspended within the liberal contract? Methodologically
speaking, in what ways can/does ‘the dead coolie speak (back)?’ and what
are the resonances of this case for those who demand a more studied justice
from the historical present? The installations in the postscript represent a
mash-up of these questions, precisely because it is through this mode of cre-
ative disruption that the field of Indo-Caribbean studies might open up its
possibilities for critical ‘reworldings.’6
Exhumed: A Summary of the Inquiry

The inquiry papers (which are reproduced in Chapter 3) were sent to Earl
Grey (Secretary for the Colonies) from Lord George Harris, the Governor of
Trinidad in 1846 to “furnish your lordship with a copy of these lengthened

proceedings,” which investigated the complaint of Mr. Edward Walkinshaw,
proprietor of the Clydesdale Cottage estate in the district of South Naparima,
that he was attacked by four of the ‘coolies’ on his estate and the coun-
ter-complaints of three of these ‘coolies’ to Coolie Stipendiary Magistrate,
Major James Fagan, about their ill-treatment (especially hitting and kick-
ing) by Mr. Walkinshaw. However, Lord Harris indicated in his cover letter
to Earl Grey, that the inquiry was part of a growing concern about what he
described as “considerable slackness to say the least of it, in many of the pro-
prietors and managers of the estates in complying with the regulations which
require them to furnish clothing and other necessities to the coolies,” which
Lord Harris had asked Major Fagan to investigate. Prior to receiving Major
Fagan’s report, Lord Harris received a letter from Walkinshaw, in which he
not only accused the four ‘coolies’ as attackers, but also complained about
Major Fagan’s conduct towards him. While Harris stated that he had every
inclination to give Walkinshaw a fair hearing, the evidence found during the
inquiry led him (Harris) to conclude that “the coolie magistrate has shown
considerable forbearance towards Sir Walkinshaw whose conduct and manner
towards him had been very insulting and most indecorous.” In the letter to
Earl Grey, Harris referred to Major Fagan’s report which recommended that
the ‘coolies’ remain on the Clydesdale Cottage estate, as well as Walkinshaw’s
letter to Harris, wherein Walkinshaw himself acknowledged that Major Fagan
had persuaded him to write to Harris to prevent the confiscation of his ‘coo-
lies.’ Harris however pointed to “contradictions and false statements” by
Walkinshaw, which further discredited the proprietor’s claims and led Har-
ris to conclude that these claims “appeared to have been stated in the most
premeditated manner.” Furthermore, while Walkinshaw claimed that he was
not sent a copy of the regulations (“Rules and Regulations to be observed
in regard to the distribution and location of coolie labourers”), Harris dis-
puted this, informing Earl Grey that a copy was sent to each estate, copies
were distributed among “agents who received the immigrants,” and “they were
published in the Royal Gazette and copied into all the island papers.” As
such, Harris claimed that “after careful investigation of the evidence therein
given, I have felt it my duty, however painful, to remove the coolies from
Mr. Walkinshaw’s charge” (and refused to supply replacement laborers as well).
In addition, three of the assault charges brought by Walkinshaw against the
‘coolies’ were dropped and while the fourth ‘coolie’ was found guilty of assault,
he was “discharged as being justified on account of having been previously
introduction 13
assaulted by Mr. Walkinshaw.” However, the charges made by three of the

‘coolies’ against Walkinshaw, about his ill-treatment, remained pending.
Even more catastrophic was that one of the laborers, Kunduppa7, who com-
plained of neglect, had later died on the Clydesdale Cottage estate as a result
of “severe illness.” As such, Governor Lord Harris was eager to investigate
these charges, especially since Kunduppa’s death and the ‘coolies’’ complaints
were also damning evidence about the horrendous conditions of indenture
during this early period of experimentation with the system in Trinidad.
In fact, Harris communicated to Earl Grey that:
This is the second case in which I have been obliged to remove coolies on account
of ill treatment. I have not done so without considering the grave responsibility of
depriving a proprietor or manager of his immediate supply of labour, but I feel that
with poor half-educated strangers alone in a strange country, ignorant of its language,
customs and laws it would be highly blamable on the government to neglect any
means in its power to see justice done to them; not only this, but as I have mentioned
in the early part of this dispatch there is good ground for supporting that an indispo-
sition exists on some estates to deal fairly by them. I hope by showing that it is my
determination rigorously to examine every case made known to me and unhesitat-
ingly to remove the coolies if sufficient cause is shown, that I shall prevent a repeti-
tion of these very unpleasant proceedings and also affect a more punctual observance
of the conditions upon which the services of these immigrants have been obtained.
(Harris to Earl Grey, 5th October 1846)
In his response to Lord Harris, Earl Grey stated that he had no doubt
that Harris “acted with proper discretion in removing the ‘coolies’ from
M. Walkinshaw’s estate” and concurred with Harris’ “views on an absolute
necessity of a strict enforcement of the laws and of all regulations made for
securing the good treatment of the immigrants.”
In Walkinshaw’s letter (12th August 1846) to Colonial Secretary (Trin-
idad), Arthur White, he provided a detailed account of what he claimed
was an attack on him by up to twenty of his ‘coolie’ laborers. He specifi-
cally referred to the ringleaders of insubordinate behavior (e.g. rum drinking,
stealing sugar, indecent bodily exposure, physical violence between laborers,
abandonment of the estate, etc.) as “a few black sheep in the flock” who
he claimed were influenced by ‘coolie’ laborers on other estates. Walkin-
shaw gestured to prior outbreaks of ‘coolie’ disobedience and blamed the said
attack on his failure to “get these ringleaders punished.” He claimed that
‘coolie’ laborer, Bilchie, “who is much addicted to rum drinking, on a Sunday
severely assaulted with large sticks two of the coolies” was eventually
subdued by two constables and locked up for five days. Upon release, Bilchie
reported to his fellow laborers that “Police very good place. Plenty of rice
and no work,” which Walkinshaw viewed as encouraging further insubordi-
nation and desertion. Intent on calling for a stricter regime of punishment
and control of the coolie population, Walkinshaw also cited the behavior
of laborer, Girdarry, who was found stealing sugar and exposing his private
parts to women and children on the estate, to call for a more efficient system
of ‘coolie’ punishment. He wrote to Secretary White that “had punishment
been inflicted on these two delinquents, I should have now have had an
obedient and happy gang as can anywhere be found.” Walkinshaw claimed
that the ‘coolies’ attacked him because he did not issue rice to them unless
they worked. As a result “they armed themselves with sticks and surrounded
my house intimating their determination to kill and eat the Sirdar unless I
would give them rice.” This was in part due to conflicting interpretations
of the food allowances section of the regulations by Walkinshaw and Major
Fagan—which helped to fuel an already tense relationship between both
men (and which Walkinshaw—in a letter to Lord Harris on 21st August
1846—alleged was really based on Major Fagan’s “private feelings,” biased
against him8). Walkinshaw portrayed the laborers as threatening and refusing
to honor their contractual obligations. Even more, he viewed himself as the
real victim in the inquiry when he wrote to Secretary White that “my life
and property I consider both at stake. Mr. Lacroix of Fullarton estate was
pelted with stones and mud lately by his gang, and I much fear unless a very
severe example is made and that immediately that you will ere long hear
of murder being committed by them.” At the end of his letter to Secretary
White, Walkinshaw added:
From the proceeding you will hardly be surprised to hear that I have this morning
nearly been killed by the Calcutta Coolies. The circumstances are these. A fellow
named Jarroo having been absent since Sunday without a pass after beginning his
task this morning went almost immediately to a house to smoke. Finding him so
employed at half past seven and not a yard of his work done, I gave him a scold
for being absent without a pass and led him by the arm back to the cane piece. He
instantly lifted his hoe and flung it from him. I caused him to pick it up to resume
his task. When he lifted it with a threatening attitude, I gave him a push, which I
resented by giving him a rap over his fingers. On this, he immediately went away and
collecting the Calcutta coolies and got them to arm themselves with large sticks and
attack me in a body. I am literally covered with bruises and but for the praiseworthy
of the Madras Coolies and the Calcutta Sirdar aided by a few creoles who came to my
assistance, I must have been killed. The most active were Busingdal Sing and Sonnu
introduction 15
who with sticks as thick as my arm laid on me with all their might. (Walkinshaw to
White, 14th August 1846)
What was clear in this letter, was that the planter was not only construct-
ing a story of ‘coolie’ disobedience, but in doing so, providing Secretary
White with a rationale for reforming the penal conditions attached to inden-
tureship. In the absence of strict penal enforcement by the colonial state,
planter violence against ‘coolies’ was presented as an argument of self-defense.
Furthermore, Walkinshaw also hoped to convince Secretary White that
‘coolie’ insubordination (with impunity) would force planters to abandon
their cultivation, which would have grave implications for Trinidad’s predom-
inantly sugar-based economy.
Several of Walkinshaw’s statements were questioned by Major Fagan,
who, in his report (29th August 1846) to Lord Harris pointed to a series of
inconsistencies between Walkinshaw’s statement and those provided by sev-
eral other witnesses (mainly ‘coolies’ and a few Creole laborers on the estate),
some of whom were named by Walkinshaw as providing supporting evidence.
Upon consideration of the evidence given by Walkinshaw, the Sirdar Harry
Sing and Bookan Sing (both of whom Major Fagan regarded as credible wit-
nesses on account of their high caste status), Latoo (whose evidence was
doubted by Major Fagan as a result of his being from the “Ghosein” or beggar
caste), Creole laborer Phil Thomas, overseer Mr. Smith, estate doctor (also a
planter on the neighboring Fullerton estate) Dr. Meikleham, Dr. Sayers (who
examined Walkinshaw’s body for signs of physical injury), and an “African
child, Edward” (referred to as “the boy, Edward”), Major Fagan concluded:
With regard to the charge against the coolies of insubordination and of actual assault
on MR. Walkinshaw, it is difficult to determine how or by whom the disturbance was
originated, there being no very satisfactory evidence to show whether Mr. Walkin-
shaw or one of the coolies was the immediate aggressor; at all events I see nothing
in the evidence to lead to the conclusion that the coolies committed so serious an
attack as that with which they have been charged; my impression is that, allow-
ing that a case of beating has been proved, and to this extent the evidence is very
contradictory and unsatisfactory, the coolies had no other intention than that of a
combined retaliation for a long course of neglect, of ill usage and of want of proper
care and attention on the part of their employers, and that the attack made upon
MR. Walkinshaw admitting that it was actually perpetrated, was brought on by his
having shortly before, struck one of their comrades across the knuckles with a stick,
breaking the skin and drawing blood, and that possibly such attack might have been
in defence of one of their own countrymen whom Mr. Walkinshaw was beating. …
(Major Fagan to Harris, 29th August 1846)
Major Fagan’s conclusion provided a counter to Walkinshaw’s claim that he

was attacked, instead pointing to the laborers’ actions as “refractory conduct”
arising from their suffering (especially lack of food and normalized physical
abuse by the planter) on the estate. The coolie magistrate also claimed that
both the employer (i.e. the planter) and the doctor (Dr. Meikleham) were “in
breach of the articles of immigration agreement, and of the claims of com-
mon humanity.” Furthermore, Major Fagan highlighted the conflicting evi-
dence of Drs. Sayers and Meikleham about the injuries which Walkinshaw
claimed he suffered as a result of being “struck by twenty men with sticks as
thick as his wrist, and with an iron hoe covering him all over with bruises.”
While Dr. Sayers’ evidence indicated that “no traces were discernable on his
[Walkinshaw’s] body,” Dr. Meikleham attested to finding “bruises … of seri-
ous nature” on Walkinshaw’s body. This was only one of many conflicting
reports by witnesses (expert and laborer), which Major Fagan pointed out to
discredit Walkinshaw’s claim about the extent of the attack i.e. by “every one
of the” twenty men with sticks and with an iron hoe (which Creole laborer,
Phil Thomas, disputed in his testimony). Even Walkinshaw’s statements bore
inconsistencies; for example, while his statement at the police station stated
that he struck Jarroo “unintentionally,” in his letter to Secretary White, he
claimed that he struck Jarroo out of “self-defence” (and the statement by Jarroo
stated that Walkinshaw punched him two or three times in the stomach).
This led Major Fagan to deduce:
I could not but be impressed with the belief, latterly resulting in the conviction, that
Mr. Walkinshaw had made statements in his letter and an oath in his examinations,
which he must have known at the time not to be exactly founded in fact. (Major
Fagan to Harris, 29th August 1846)
Furthermore, Major Fagan drew attention to “the boy, Edward’s” tes-

timony, which indicated (to the former) that his testimony was tutored
(to support Walkinshaw’s testimony) and also cast doubt on Phil Thomas’
testimony which, in part, maintained Walkinshaw’s testimony that all twenty
men with sticks struck him. Perhaps most damning for Walkinshaw, was that
the evidence of ‘coolie’ laborers (especially the Calcutta Sirdar Harry Sing
and Buchan Sing)—who were called to support Walkinshaw’s case—actually
contradicted Walkinshaw’s statements. The coolie magistrate thus stated:
I may fairly say that looking at all the circumstances of the case it is difficult to arrive
at any other conclusion than that the affray was commenced by Mr. Walkinshaw
introduction 17
himself particularly if we take the evidence of Harry Sing and Buchan Sing as unim-
peachable. (Major Fagan to Harris, 29th August 1846)
In conclusion, the coolie magistrate recommended:
On the whole under the peculiar circumstances affecting both parties, each one being
guilty of breach of the laws to which he ought to have submitted, although the attack
upon Mr. Walkinshaw has its source in his own ill-advised and imprudent courses,
the enquiry I presume to think might terminate by not punishing either party, concil-
iating the coolies to a continuance with their present master under the guarantee of
better protection for the future and a stricter adherence to the coolie regulations and
articles of immigration agreement on the part of Mr. Walkinshaw instead of being
transferred to another estate both parties being admonished as to their future mutual
just conduct towards each other. (Major Fagan to Harris, 29th August 1846)
Not only did Major Fagan recommend “not punishing either party,” but he
also drew attention to Dr. Meikleham’s medical neglect of the laborers on the
Clydesdale Cottage estate, who were, according to Dr. Sayers, “found laboring
under various ailments, disabling them from work.”9 Moreover, even Walkin-
shaw testified that Dr. Meikleham gave him orders not to provide food for the
‘coolies’ unless they went to the estate hospital for treatment. In the interest
of securing “our national character and of humanity,” Major Fagan recom-
mended that “Dr. Meikleham should be relieved not only from the medical
charge of the Clydesdale Cottage Estate but from that of the other estates he
is appointed to attend.”
Whereas Walkinshaw was under the impression that the inquiry primarily
concerned the alleged assault on him by over twenty of his ‘coolies’—Busindal
Sing, Jarroo, Sunno, and Ginno named as “the ringleaders”—it became clear
that Walkinshaw’s treatment of the ‘coolies’ on the Clydesdale Cottage estate
was the primary focus of investigation. Once he realized this, Walkinshaw
refused to provide the magistrate with further evidence until he was pro-
vided with a copy of his letter (now being used as evidence against him) to
colonial secretary White, to ensure that all his statements were aligned. The
magistrate ordered that Walkinshaw be provided with a copy of the letter
and subsequently issued a citation to Walkinshaw so he could be questioned
about the contents of his letter and the complaint he made at the San Fer-
nando police station about the alleged assault on him. From the proceedings,
it is clear that Major Fagan visited the Clydesdale Cottage estate prior to the
alleged attack (based on complaints by the ‘coolies’) and found that no pots
and pans were provided to the ‘coolies’ for cooking—especially since this was
stipulated in the regulations—and threatened to remove the ‘coolies’ from the

estate if they were not provided with the articles stipulated in these regula-
tions. It was also revealed that Walkinshaw did not keep a ‘book of the sick’
as required by the regulations nor was there a nurse for attendance to the sick,
which substantiated the magistrate’s suspicions about Walkinshaw’s neglect
and ill-treatment of his laborers. Walkinshaw claimed that he did not know
that this was required by the regulations and he had not received a copy of the
regulations. Even in the investigation of the alleged assault, the magistrate’s
questioning seemed to suggest that Walkinshaw’s injuries were related to a
fall from his horse and not from the alleged attack by his ‘coolies.’ Moreover,
his initial assault on the ‘coolie’, Jarroo (for smoking, not completing his task
work, and wandering off the estate without a pass)—which led to the retali-
atory assault by the ‘coolies’—was viewed by the magistrate as connected to
Walkinshaw’s general ill-treatment of the ‘coolies.’ What Walkinshaw did not
know, was that the ‘coolie’, Bitchook (who was initially detained for assault-
ing a ‘coolie’ estate constable), was actually defending himself against attacks
by the estate constable. In addition, it became clear that during the alleged
attack by Busindal Sing et al on Walkinshaw, that the latter—not familiar with
“the coolie language”—misinterpreted the phrase “Sub Calcutta Coolie Bam-
boo Boxes,”10 thinking this was a call by Busindal Sing to attack Walkinshaw,
when this was in fact a cry for help—especially since it was revealed during
the investigation that Busindal Sing was quite ill—to let fellow workers know
that he (Busindal Sing) was being attacked:
Magistrate: You have mentioned I believe, that Busindal Sing previous to the
attack upon you called out to the other coolies “Sub Calcutta Coolie
Bamboo boxes.” What did you understand by these words?
Walkinshaw: I understood it to be a command from this ringleader that all the
Calcutta coolies should join in the attack upon me; for almost imme-
diately they came and joined him in the attack.
Note: the Coolie Magistrate here explains that those expressions are used
by laborers and others of the lower classes in India after being struck
or beaten with a bamboo cane, and merely denote that a person so
beaten had received a ‘bamboo present.’
While Walkinshaw seemed heavily invested in constructing a narra-

tive of ‘coolie’ brutality, through which his violent behavior would be read
as self-defense, it seems that the coolie magistrate, Major Fagan, was intent
on exposing Walkinshaw as the perpetrator of planter violence against and
ill-treatment of ‘coolies’ (which also demonstrated that Major Fagan was
introduction 19
doing his job to protect the ‘coolies,’ to the credit of the colonial admin-
istration of indentureship). Moreover, while the state seemed invested in a
protectionist discourse to ensure that the ‘coolies’ were well-treated and gov-
erned within the conditions of the regulations, the magistrates’ questioning of
Walkinshaw seemed to suggest that his violence and ill-treatment were calcu-
lated to incline the ‘coolies’ to breech the conditions of their contract, and as
such to be subsequently disciplined through a stricter regime of punishment.
Major Fagan also seemed invested in demonstrating Walkinshaw’s exaggera-
tion of what he termed “the evil disposition” (i.e. their tendency for “insubor-
dination”) of his ‘coolies.’ Especially since the Clydesdale Cottage estate was
based on enslaved African labor prior to 1834, it is possible that Walkinshaw’s
nostalgia for punishment and autocratic authority informed his treatment of
the ‘coolies’—not as contract laborers, but as objects of discipline; in this
case, Walkinshaw advocated for state-supervised punishment of ‘coolies’ (i.e.
criminalization), in the interest of protecting the planter!
A few weeks after the first inquiry into Walkinshaw’s ill-treatment of
his ‘coolies,’ another inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death
of ‘coolie’ laborer, Kunduppa, was conducted at the Naparima police dis-
trict under the presiding stipendiary justice of the peace, Charles F. Knox.
Kunduppa, an elderly ‘coolie’ laborer11, was under a one-year contract at the
Clydesdale Cottage estate, and thus under the responsibility of Walkinshaw.
He had arrived on the estate on 15th June 1846 and “was employed cutting
chop chop” from 19th June. Based on the depositions of fellow ‘coolies’ at
the inquiry, he was healthy when he arrived on the estate, but became ill
shortly after 18th August 1846. While very little information about Kund-
uppa is provided in the depositions, it seems that he was part of the second
batch of ‘coolies’—the Madras ‘coolies’—which Walkinshaw had received on
that date,12 although it was suggested that he was quite isolated since there
were no fellow ‘coolies’ of his caste on the estate. Based on the depositions13
of Thomas Pollard Franklin (manager of the nearby Cedar Grove estate),
Dr. William Miekleham (estate doctor), Robert Sidney Smith (overseer),
Richard Smith (creole laborer), Major James Fagan (Coolie Stipendiary
Magistrate), Justice of the peace Horatio Nelson Huggins, Dr. Samuel Henry
Sayer (doctor of neighboring estates), and ‘coolie’ laborers, Sanichar, Hurry
Sing (Sirdar), Gujadur and Oojear, the inquiry exposed a gruesome case of
Walkinshaw’s and Dr. Meikleham’s neglect and ill treatment of Kunduppa,
which resulted in phenomenal suffering and eventually, his death.
As a result of the previous inquiry’s findings of ill-treatment, Major

Fagan recommend the removal of the Clydesdale Cottage ‘coolies,’ including
Kunduppa, to be transferred to the Cedar Grove estate in Naparima. On
arriving at the Clydesdale Cottage estate to receive Walkinshaw’s confiscated
‘coolies,’ the Cedar Grove estate manager, Thomas P. Franklin, testified that
(accompanied by the overseer, Mr. Smith), he saw Kunduppa “stark naked”
and lying on a cabane (an elevated platform) in the ‘coolie’ hospital as a result
of serious illness arising from a number of chigoe-infested sores on his feet.
Kunduppa was not only screeching in pain, but Franklin claimed that the “sores
appeared very bad, the stench from him was so intolerable that I could not
stand it.”14 The Clydesdale Cottage estate overseer, Robert Smith (who Major
Fagan put in charge of Kunduppa’s care, as he was doubtful of Walkinshaw’s
commitment to properly care for the confiscated ‘coolies’) claimed:
From the day that I took Kunduppa under my charge I observed that some of his
toes were half eaten away by worms and there was a great stench from them. I found
many worms on the soles of his feet. There was one foot worse than the other. One
of the feet had the whole of the ball eaten by worms as well as part of the toes;
the ball of the other foot was also partly eaten away. The day that I took charge of
Kunduppa I observed the bandage that was on the sores. It was nothing but a piece
of rags and leaves that Kunduppa applied himself to the sores. I do not know whether
Kunduppa applied to Mr.Walkinshaw for anything to put on the sores. The sores had
not increased on the day of his death but the flesh being swollen gave them a larger
appearance; there was inflammation around the sores extending upwards. The large
toe and the one next to it had been eaten off and the others were partly eaten. This
was on the right foot. (Smith, 4th November 1846)
Although Kunduppa was reportedly healthy upon his arrival at the estate,
estate Sirdar, Hurry Sing, testified that Kunduppa stayed at a fellow ‘coolie’,
Ringsam’s house for a while and then went to the mule pen for “two days lying
down on the earth.” Kunduppa was then ordered by Walkinshaw to go to the
‘coolie’ hospital, which he did by creeping about one hundred and fifty feet
from the mule pen. The Sirdar recounted being told by Walkinshaw “sick man
in Hospital half rice, no hospital, no rice.”15 Based on Walkinshaw’s interpre-
tation of the rules and regulations, sick laborers would only be provided with
food if they went to the hospital and stayed there.16 If they left the hospi-
tal, they would receive no rations. Interestingly, overseer Smith claimed that
Walkinshaw refused to provide food to Kunduppa, even during his first stay
(four days) at the estate hospital: “I will swear that Kunduppa never got any
bread from Mr. Walkinshaw during the time he was in the Hospital … … … he
introduction 21
had refused giving him food some time previous when he (Kunduppa) did not
go into the Hospital, and did not work, he being unwell.” The depositions
by Dr. Meikleham, overseer Smith and creole laborer Richard Smith (who
the overseer put in charge of cleaning and dressing Kunduppa’s sores, as well
as cooking for him) claimed that Kunduppa had apparently left the hospital
(shortly after his arrival) and was subsequently found suffering in the mill
house for a period of about ten days. However, the deposition of ‘coolie’ lab-
orer, Oojear, claimed that Kunduppa was in fact ejected from the hospital by
Walkinshaw:
I saw Mr. Walkinshaw take Kunduppa by the arm and shove him out of the hospital
… He was not taken out of the hospital for the purpose of having his sore dressed but
dragged out because his sores were offensive. I was the only person present when Mr.
Walkinshaw pulled out Kunduppa. He was not led out but pulled out. (Oojear, 29th
October 1846)
The series of depositions within the inquiry seem to suggest that it is

doubtful whether Walkinshaw provided Kunduppa with food while at the
hospital and almost certain that he was not provided with such during his
ten-day suffering at the mill house17. Sirdar, Hurry Sing reported on Kundup-
pa’s isolation at the mill: “There was no person to take care of the sick or cook
their meals and Kunduppa remained in the mill day and night alone. In the
gang of ‘coolies’ on the estate there was none of his own caste, and none of the
‘coolies’ would go near him on account of the stench from his body.”18 Also,
Major Fagan claimed that when he visited Kunduppa at the mill he saw “an
old man in the last state of exhaustion and nothing but skin and bones … He
had a blanket over him which was all he had to cover his nakedness except a
piece of cloth round his loins which barely answered the purpose of decency.”
Furthermore, he claimed that Kunduppa told him: “the ‘Sahib’ had turned
him out of the hospital. … I have no resting place anywhere, I am dying
from hunger, and the doctor never comes to see me, and at the same time he
pointed to his feet, mouth and body. His appearance fully corroborated what
he stated. … Kunduppa repeatedly told me, on that day, that he was uncared
for and forsaken, and that he was dying and wished to die. ” Major Fagan’s
words were corroborated by the Sirdar, Hurry Sing’s deposition, in which he
claimed that Kunduppa told him that “he had nothing to eat and he was
starving.” The Sirdar also told Justice Knox that Kunduppa crept on his “pos-
teriors, hands and heels” from the hospital to the mill “in the wet” and that
Walkinshaw “must have heard” Kunduppa’s cries at the mill. In fact, Major
Fagan had ordered overseer Smith to take Kunduppa back to the hospital (on
2nd September) precisely because the ‘coolie’ magistrate believed Kunduppa
would at least receive adequate nourishment there. Yet, the many depositions
reveal that it is doubtful whether Kunduppa received consistent nourishment
at the estate hospital and that he continued to suffer from starvation19 and
bodily (foot) pain in the weeks before his death on 24th September 1846.
Furthermore, while Dr. Meikleham claimed that he provided overseer
Smith and Walkinshaw with instructions for treating Kunduppa’s worsening
sores, Smith’s testimony seemed to suggest a general disinterest in the care
of Kunduppa by both the medical doctor and planter. For instance, while
Dr. Meikleham claimed he visited the patient many times, only one visit
was registered in the sick book. If Kunduppa had left the hospital on his
own volition, it could have also been on account of the conditions of the
‘coolie’ hospital (in addition to him being deprived of food and ejected by
Walkinshaw), for which no nurse and no cook was provided.20 In fact, Dr.
Sayer—a medical doctor who also inspected Kunduppa at the Clydesdale
Cottage estate hospital and testified in the previous inquiry—claimed that
the hospital “house leaked and there were crevices at the sides of the house
through which rain passed,” causing him to report to Justice Knox that “the
house was unfit to be used as a hospital.” This led Major Fagan to conclude,
in his deposition, that: “My impression from what I have heard from the
‘coolies,’ and what I have seen of the treatment of Kunduppa is that he fell
a victim, in a great measure, if not solely, to neglect, principally on the part
of the medical man.” However, it was abundantly clear from most of the
depositions that the planter, who had “engaged” the ‘coolie’ laborers, was
directly responsible for the deprivation, hunger, and medical ill-treatment of
Kunduppa. In fact, Justice Knox concluded the inquiry with his judgement:
“It is my opinion that the death of Kunduppa was accelerated by negligence
on the part of Edward Walkinshaw in as much as that he was bound by his
contract to see that the said Kunduppa had due medical attendance which he
does not appear to have had.”
Walkinshaw’s ill-treatment (denial of food) and (medical) neglect of
Kunduppa signal the various measures planters used to create debility and death
of laborers who were marked as disposable.21 In addition, his actions seemed
quite deliberate and calculated to spectacularize his own retaliatory power,
precisely at a moment in which such power was threatened by Major Fagan
(as a representative figure of the colonial state). Moreover, since Kunduppa
was in the process of being transferred to the Cedar Grove estate, it is very
introduction 23
likely that Walkinshaw did not see it as his responsibility to provide rations or
care for Kunduppa, despite Major Fagan’s instructions to do so.22 In fact, even
upon Kunduppa’s death, Walkinshaw refused to “furnish what was necessary
to bury him” (overseer Smith claimed that he had to find a carpenter to make
a coffin and “the body was interred”), telling Smith that he (Walkinshaw)
“had nothing to do with him (Kunduppa).” Furthermore, even though Major
Fagan refused Walkinshaw’s request (in early September) to “postpone the
removal of the coolies,” he considered the planter as still “bound to take care
of the ‘coolies’ and furnish them with everything that was necessary after the
fifteenth of September until they were finally removed.” Beyond mere retali-
ation (for the state’s disciplinary measures), perhaps Walkinshaw was mirror-
ing to the state, its own paradox—that while planters were being regulated
to care for the ‘coolies’—as property of the state—the state’s self-regulation
remained arbitrary yet unaccountable. For example, overseer Smith claimed
that he requested Major Fagan to advise on whether to “employ a doctor”
to examine Kunduppa (especially in light of Dr. Meikleham’s absenteeism23),
but received no response from the coolie magistrate. In this battle between
planter and state—built on the debilitated bodies of ‘coolie’ and creole labor-
ers—Kunduppa paid the dearest price! And while the planter was held directly
responsible for Kunduppa’s ill-treatment and death, there was no subsequent
punishment for Walkinshaw (except the confiscation of his laborers). Knox’s
decision showed Walkinshaw as a bad planter, who had abused the spirit and
misread the letter of the contract, but definitely not criminal for inclining
Kunduppa to death.
Summary of Chapters
The chapters in the book are organized based on analytical framings which
are important to the project of critically engaging studies of indentureship.
Chapter 1, ‘Disciplinary Orientalism and Indian indentureship in the Colonial
Caribbean’ draws on historical studies of East Indian indentureship in colo-
nial Trinidad during the early experimental period (1845–1848) and offers an
analysis of the ‘coolie’ as an indispensable yet disposable subject. This chapter
starts with a brief history of Indian Indentureship in the Colonial Caribbean,
especially opening up a series of investigative questions around the early
period of this labor system. It is followed by a discussion of what is known
in Caribbean colonial studies as ‘The West Indian Labor Question’ as a way
of inciting an exploration of what I term ‘The Coolie Question,’ nuanced

through Edward Said’s and other scholars’ analyses of Orientalism. In the final
section of this chapter I focus on ‘coolie’ subjecthood, as a crucial feature of
West Indian Orientalist discourse.
Chapter 2, ‘Coolie Genealogy as Colonial Governmentality: An Analysis
of Mr. Walkinshaw’s Ill-treatment of Coolies’ analyses the correspondences
and testimonies (in Chapter 3) of the state inquiry in which the Scottish
planter, Walkinshaw, who claimed he was abused by ‘coolie’ laborers, ended
up being the plaintiff and held responsible for the ill-treatment of his ‘coolie’
laborers, including the death of the ‘coolie’ laborer, Kunduppa. The chapter
begins with a discussion of the Indentureship system as a ‘state of exception,’
whereby various tactics of torture and discipline were normalized as strate-
gies of colonial governmentality i.e. controlling ‘coolie’ populations as a spe-
cific species of labor. This discussion is followed by a detailed description and
investigation of the calculated corporal torture of ‘coolies,’ resulting in the
debilitation and eventual death of Kunduppa. Sub-sections focus analytically
on food rationing, double tasking, corporal punishment, medical neglect and
the obliging to death of ‘coolie’ laborers by the planter. I then analyze the role
of other ‘coolie’ laborers in the court case and their pivotal role in helping
to shift the status of the planter from defendant to plaintiff in the case. The
final section of this chapter analyzes the testimonies of the Superintendent
of Coolies or ‘Protector of the Coolies’ (Major Fagan) to show how the colo-
nial state—in hearing this case—not only managed to curb the power of the
planter to discipline ‘coolie’ labor, but to bestow a measured degree of human
rights on ‘coolie’ laborers. In doing so, the colonial administration distanced
itself from the atrocities of the indentureship system and restored its image
as properly administering and governing ‘coolie’ subjects. The figure of the
‘coolie’ was therefore instrumental in re-capacitating British colonialism as
liberal and humanitarian.
Chapter 3, ‘The Transcripts: Mr. Walkinshaw Ill-treatment of Coolies’
presents the full transcript of the court case. It is divided into two sections: the
first section documents the transcripts pertaining to an inquiry into Walkin-
shaw’s initial report of the alleged ‘coolie’ attack on him and the subsequent
reversal of this claim, in which the coolie magistrate held Walkinshaw to
account for his ill-treatment of the said ‘coolie’ laborers. The second section
‘Inquisition on the death of Kunduppa’ documents the state’s investigation
of the death of ‘coolie’ laborer, Kunduppa, who died of various debilitating
circumstances on the Clydesdale Cottage estate mere months following the
introduction 25
first inquiry. Both sets of transcripts include letters, depositions and testimo-
nies by the Governor, the colonial secretary, the planter, the overseer, creole
and ‘coolie’ laborers, medical doctors, magistrates and other planters. It also
includes the ‘Rules and Regulations to be observed in regard to the distri-
bution and location of coolie laborers,’ a register of ‘coolie’ complaints on
the Clydesdale Cottage estate, and the most striking outline of Kunduppa’s
sore-afflicted feet. The primary aim of publishing the entire transcript of the
inquiry is to place the calculating brutality of indentureship and a question-
ing of colonial benevolence more squarely under public scrutiny (i.e. outing
Empire). Moreover, it is an attempt to re-open questions about ‘coolie’ voice
and agency within a troubled and violent period of experimentation.
Finally, the postscript, ‘“Coolie” Hauntings,’ presents a series of experi-
mental visual installations (some public) which pushes readers to think cre-
atively about the implications of the inquiry in the present political moment
through a different mode of critical engagement. The installations advocate
for an affective archive which uses the method of collage, to open up ques-
tions of the politics and ethics of thinking about dead bodies—especially
within Indo-Caribbean Studies—as a way of incapacitating official regimes
(like archives) which simultaneously work to sustain and debilitate memory,
shutting down certain pathways of intimation and ignition between past and
present. My creative analysis here is also focused on how to make sense of the
subjecthood of the tortured, debilitated and murdered ‘coolie’ subject—relying
on scholarly influences from critical race studies, gender studies, queer studies,
and critical disability/debility studies—especially focusing on the actual foot-
print of the dead ‘coolie’s’ foot. Given that there is an almost total absence
of any visual and embodied traces of ‘coolie’ presence during the experimen-
tal period (1845–1848), in contrast to a plethora of visual representations of
supposedly ‘happy and disciplined’ East Indian indentured laborers in Trini-
dad from the 1860s, this early footprint of the dead ‘coolie’ is one of the first
visual sources of bodily presence, ironically making its appearance at the very
moment that the body itself is made to disappear.
Notes
1. This was followed up with Dabydeen and Samaroo (1996).
2. There is also an unpublished Masters thesis by Cochran (2017) which provides a summary
and analysis of the Walkinshaw case.
3. Scott, 1999: 70.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
yellow, translucent, rather firm, meaty, juicy, sugary vinous, rich; very
good; stone oval, medium in size, clinging; season with Wild Goose.
Pappaconi. Domestica. 1. Noisette Man. Comp. Jard. 2:499. 1860.
Imported into France from the Royal Gardens of Naples. Fruit
larger than Dame Aubert, brilliant yellow, ripens in September.
Papeleu. Domestica. 1. Hogg Fruit Man. 716. 1884.
Fruit medium in size, round, symmetrical; stem moderately long,
set in a narrow depression; suture very shallow; golden-yellow when
ripe, mottled with pale straw color; dots small, crimson; bloom light;
flesh yellow, tender and juicy, rich, sugary and highly flavored;
freestone; mid-season.
Paquet. Domestica. 1. U. S. D. A. Pom. Rpt. 26, Col. Pl. 1894.
Originated in 1889 with Peter Paquet, Oregon City, Oregon. Fruit
very large, oval; cavity large, deep, regular; stem about an inch long,
rather stout, curved; suture moderate; apex truncated; yellow
washed with red; dots many, yellow; skin thick; flesh yellow; very
good; stone oval, semi-clinging; early.
Park. Domestica ×? 1. Kerr Cat. 1894. 2. Ibid. 25. 1897. 3. Ohio Sta.
Bul. 162:256, 257. 1905.
Kerr says this is reputed to be a hybrid of Prunus domestica with a
native variety. Tree upright-spreading; fruit above medium size,
oblong-oval; cavity broad and deep; stem of medium length, stout;
greenish-yellow; flesh yellow; good; stone of medium size, clinging;
mid-season.
Parker. Species? 1. Wis. Sta. Bul. 63:52. 1897.
Reported as very productive and regular in bearing; fruit large;
good; early.
Parrott. Species? 1. Kan. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 30:63. 1908-09.
Parrott originated with A. H. Griesa, Lawrence, Kansas. Fruit
small, bright red; bloom thin; stone small; very late.
Parsonage. Domestica. 1. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 367. 1857.
Originated at Rhinebeck, Dutchess County, New York. Tree very
vigorous, upright, productive; fruit medium to large, oval; stem
medium; cavity small; pale yellow splashed with green; flesh yellow,
juicy, rich; freestone; mid-season.
Partridge. Species? 1. Can. Exp. Farm Bul. 2nd Ser. 3:54. 1900. 2.
Can. Exp. Farms Rpt. 548. 1901.
Grown at the Experimental Farm, Agassiz, British Columbia. Tree
vigorous; fruit medium, round; suture distinct; red with white bloom;
flesh yellowish, sweet, pleasant; early.
Pasqua. Nigra? 1. Can. Exp. Farms Rpt. 426. 1900.
Sent out by Thomas Frankland, Stonewall, Manitoba. Fruit large,
red; late.
Pathfinder. Triflora × (Triflora × Simonii?) 1. Rural N. Y. 68:752.
1909.
Pathfinder, a cross between Chabot and Wickson, was grown by
William Strong Arkansas. Fruit heart-shaped, strongly pointed, dark
colored; flesh firm, fine-grained and sweet.
Patten A. Munsoniana. 1. Ia. Sta. Bul. 46:286. 1900.
Received by the Iowa Experiment Station from C. G. Patten,
Charles City, Iowa, with whom the variety originated. Fruit medium in
size, ellipsoidal, flattened at both ends; cavity deep; suture a well-
marked groove; bright red to purplish-red; dots small, numerous;
bloom thin; flesh firm, meaty; good; stone of medium size, winged,
flat, clinging; not introduced.
Patten B. Americana. 1. Ia. Sta. Bul. 46:286. 1900.
Of the Stoddard type, from C. G. Patten, Charles City, Iowa. Fruit
medium to large, conical, somewhat pointed; cavity shallow; stem
long; suture clearly outlined; apex pointed; dark purplish-red; dots
numerous, small; bloom thick; skin thick, brittle; flesh yellow-brown;
good; stone large, flat, clinging.
Peach Leaf. Hortulana. 1. Wis. Sta. Bul. 63:52. 1897. 2. Vt. Sta. An.
Rpt. 11:285. 1898.
Peachleaf 2.
A variety of unknown origin grown for many years by B. A.
Mathews of Iowa. Given as synonymous to Kanawha by the
American Pomological Society. Waugh says this is an error. Fruit
medium in size, round; cavity slight; suture a faint line; deep wine
red; dots many, small; flesh yellow, firm; good; stone medium, rough.
Peach-plum. Domestica. 1. Ray Hist. Plant. 2:1529. 1688. 2. Rea
Flora 208. 1676.
Peach Plum 1.
A yellow variety grown in the Seventeenth Century.
Peake. Domestica. 1. Parkinson Par. Ter. 578. 1629.
Parkinson says of it, “long, whitish and very good.”
Pearl. Americana mollis. 1. Kerr Cat. 11. 1898. 2. Terry Cat. 5. 1900.
3. Ill. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 424. 1905.
From H. A. Terry, Crescent, Iowa; grown from seed of Van Buren
planted about 1891. Tree very productive, vigorous, upright; fruit
large, white becoming pale red; of best quality; ripens last of August.
Pear Plum. Domestica. 1. Kraft Pom. Aust. 2:45, Tab. 199 fig. 2.
1796. 2. N. E. Farmer Dict. 266. 1797.
Die veilchenfarbige Birnpflaume 1. Prune poire grosse violette 1.
Kraft in 1796 described a little-known Pear plum. Tree medium in
size, unproductive; fruit very large, pear-shaped; suture distinct;
stem long; reddish-purple; flesh juicy, unpleasant; freestone. This
may or may not be the same as the New England variety of this
name mentioned in the references.
Peasant. Species? 1. Can. Exp. Farm Bul. 2nd Ser. 3:55. 1900.
Tested by the Experimental Farm at Agassiz, British Columbia.
Tree vigorous; fruit small, roundish, purple; flesh yellowish, juicy,
sweet; mid-season.
Peerless. Americana. 1. Meneray Cat.
A seedling of Harrison grown by H. A. Terry and introduced by F.
W. Meneray, Council Bluffs, Iowa. Fruit large, oblong, dark red; skin
thin; flesh yellow, firm; good; freestone.
Pekin. Species? Letter from Kerr.
Originated by Theodore Williams, Benson, Nebraska.
Pendent. Munsoniana × Hortulana mineri. 1. Kerr Cat. 19. 1898. 2.
Vt. Sta. Bul. 67:18. 1898.
A cross between Pottawattamie and Forest Garden from Theodore
Williams of Benson, Nebraska; introduced by J. W. Kerr in 1898.
Tree slender, a rapid grower, productive; fruit medium to large,
roundish inclined to oblong, red; semi-clinging; mid-season.
Penning. Americana. 1. Kerr Cat. 11. 1897. 2. Waugh Plum Cult.
160. 1901.
Penning’s Free 2. Penning’s Free 1.
Originated with Martin Penning of Minnesota; a perfect freestone.
Penning Peach. Americana. 1. Kerr Cat. 7. 1896. 2. Wis. Sta. Bul.
63:52. 1897. 3. Kerr Cat. 11. 1899.
C. W. H. Heideman of Minnesota says this variety was introduced
about thirty years ago as the Peach plum and was sold under that
name by Northwestern nurserymen; he added the name Penning to
avoid confusion; it closely resembles Harrison and is by some
considered identical with that variety. Tree hardy and healthy, a shy
bearer; fruit medium to large, oblong, purplish-red; flesh sweet; semi-
clinging; mid-season.
Penobscot. Domestica. 1. Horticulturist 1:196. 1846. 2. Elliott Fr.
Book 428. 1854. 3. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 222, 244. 1858.
Originated about 1840 with James McLaughlin of Bangor, Maine.
Rejected by the American Pomological Society in 1858. Tree
productive; fruit large, oval; suture distinct; cavity small; stem of
medium length; greenish-yellow with a red blush in the sun; bloom
thin; flesh yellow, sweet; flavor pleasant; stone long, pointed at both
ends, clinging; early.
Pennock. Prunus besseyi × Domestica? 1. Vt. Sta. Bul. 67:18. 1898.
2. Colo. Sta. Bul. 50:43. 1898.
Pennock’s Hybrid 2.
Pennock was raised in 1893 by C. E. Pennock of Fort Collins,
Colorado, from seed of Prunus besseyi supposed to have been
pollinated by Arctic. Tree dwarfish, upright; leaves of medium size,
ovate, coarsely serrate, thickish, finely tomentose on either side;
petiole short, stiff, sometimes with one gland at the base of the
blade; fruit small, roundish; suture slight; deep blue; bloom heavy;
flavor intermediate between the plum and cherry; stone small, round
and cherry-like.
Peoly Early Blue. Domestica. 1. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 309. 1845.
2. Thomas Am. Fruit Cult. 346. 1849.
From Massachusetts. Fruit medium in size, oblong; stem short;
suture obscure; dark blue; bloom light; flesh yellow; pleasant; fair
quality; semi-clinging; early.
Perdrigon des Alpes. Domestica. 1. Lond. Hort. Soc. Cat. 151.
1831.
The London Horticultural Society listed Perdrigon des Alpes and
Perdrigon Violet des Alpes as distinct varieties but there seems to be
little difference between them.
Perdrigon of Cernay. Domestica. 1. Quintinye Com. Gard. 68, 69.
1699.
Cernay Perdrigon 1.
Mentioned in the preceding reference as round or oblate, with a
dry and mealy flesh.
Perdrigon Tardif. Domestica. 1. Quintinye Com. Gard. 67. 1699. 2.
Lond. Hort. Soc. Cat. 151. 1831. 3. Mas Pom. Gen. 2:125.
1873. 4. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 450. 1889.
Damas de Septembre 4 incor. Königs Pflaume aus Paris 4.
Königspflaume von Paris 3. Later Perdrigon 1. Royale de Paris
Tardive 4. September Damascene 4 incor. Späte Herrn Pflaume 4.
Späte Königs Pflaume 4. Späte Königs Pflaume aus Paris 4. Später
Perdrigon 4. Später Perdrigon 3.
Quintinye, in 1699, mentioned a Later Perdrigon which is probably
this variety. Duhamel confused this variety with the Impératrice but
they are distinct. In America this Perdrigon is unknown. Tree small;
leaves small, obovate; flowers very small; fruit small, roundish-
ellipsoid; suture distinct; skin thick, purplish-black; stem short; cavity
shallow; flesh yellowish, fine, firm, sweet; freestone; late.
Pershore. Domestica. 1. Hogg Fruit Man. 375. 1866. 2. Mas Pom.
Gen. 2:111. 1873. 3. Garden 49:225. 1896.
Pershore Yellow Egg 3.
Grown largely in the Pershore district, Worcester County, England.
Tree vigorous, productive; fruit medium, obovate; suture indistinct;
golden-yellow; flesh clear yellow, neither juicy nor sweet; quality fair;
stone small, clinging; fit only for culinary purposes; propagated by
suckers.
Petite Quetsche Sucrée. Domestica. 1. Mas Pom. Gen. 2:181.
1873. 2. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 437. 1889.
Ananas Zwetsche 2. Kleine Zuckerzwetsche 2. Kleine Zucker
Zwetsche 1.
A German variety produced from seed of Violette Diaper. Fruit
small, oval; suture shallow; cavity small; stem slender; dark purple;
bloom thick; flesh yellow, fine-grained, juicy, sweet; freestone; mid-
season.
Phiolenartige Gelbe Zwetsche. Species? 1. Mathieu Nom. Pom.
442. 1889.
Mathieu found the name of this variety in Wiener Garten-Zeitung
288. 1884.
Pilot. Americana. 1. Wis. Sta. Bul. 63:24, 52. 1897. 2. Ibid. 87:15.
1901. 3. Dak. Sta. Bul. 93:31. 1904.
Originated with M. E. Hinckley at Marcus, Iowa, from seed of a
wild plum gathered on the Little Sioux River near Cherokee, Iowa;
seed planted in 1870. Tree open, spreading, drooping; fruit large,
oblong-oval with rounded apex; suture distinct; yellow mottled with
light and dark red; skin thick, tough; flesh firm, rich and sweet; good;
stone long-oval, pointed, margined; mid-season; cracks and rots in
wet seasons.
Pink Damson. Insititia? 1. Montreal Hort. Soc. Rpt. 93. 1885.
Fruit small, pinkish-red; flesh light pink, soft; quality fair; very early.
Pioneer Prune. Domestica. 1. Pioneer Nur. Cat. 1900.
A variety grown for several years by the Pioneer Nursery
Company, Salt Lake City, Utah; discarded because of its close
resemblance to the Italian Prune.
Piper. Americana. 1. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 162. 1891. 2. Wis. Sta.
Bul. 63:52. 1897. 3. Ia. Sta. Bul. 46:287. 1900. 4. Wis. Sta.
Bul. 87:15, 16 fig. 4. 1901.
Piper’s Peach 1, 2, 3. Piper’s Peach 4.
Found wild near Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minnesota, about
1887 by J. S. Harris of Crescent, Minnesota. Tree vigorous, upright,
hardy, productive; fruit large, round, bright red; flesh orange-yellow,
sweet and rich; good; stone roundish, slightly margined, nearly free;
mid-season; mentioned in the catalog of the American Pomological
Society in 1899.
Piram. Angustifolia varians. 1. Cornell Sta. Bul. 38:80. 1892. 2. Tex.
Sta. Bul. 32:490, 491. 1894. 3. Waugh Plum Cult. 197. 1901.
A seedling from Goliad County, Texas, originated by G.
Onderdonk; named after Piram Hall about 1875. Tree hardy,
productive; fruit medium to large, roundish; suture indistinct; light
yellow; dots white; bloom thin; skin thin and tender; flesh yellow, soft,
sweet; fair to good; clingstone; mid-season.
Pissardi. Cerasifera. 1. Rev. Hort. 191. 1881. 2. Gard. Mon. 25:367.
1883. 3. Rural N. Y. 44:479. 1885. 4. Gard. and For. 1:178.
1888. 5. Garden 55:314. 1899. 6. Bailey Cyc. Hort. 1447.
1901.
Prunus Cerasifera Atropurpurea 5. Prunus Pissardi 5. Prunus
Pissardii 3. Purple-leaved Plum 3. The Purple Myrobalan 5. Prunus
Pissardi 1, 2, 4.
See Prunus cerasifera, p. 000. Tree large; shoots purplish; foliage
while unfolding tinged with red, later becoming dark purple; fruit
medium in size; skin purplish, showing color in unripe stage, thin,
tough; suture obscure; flesh firm, juicy, moderately acid, inferior in
quality; clingstone.
Plantz. Domestica. 1. Cal. State Bd. Hort. Rpt. 129, 130 fig. 1891.
Plantz’s Seedling 1.
A chance seedling found by W. A. Plantz of New Castle,
California, about 1883. Tree thrifty, productive; fruit large, oval,
tapering towards the stem, reddish-purple; flesh yellow, sugary, rich,
juicy and sweet; ripens in California about three weeks before the
Hungarian Prune.
Plunk. Americana. 1. Wis. Sta. Bul. 63:44. 1897. 2. Kerr Cat. 9.
1897. 3. Waugh Plum Cult. 160. 1901.
Large Red Sweet 3. Large Red Sweet 1, 2.
Introduced by Charles Luedloff, Cologne, Minnesota. Tree a rapid
grower with good foliage; fruit large, round, dark red or purplish-red;
flesh reddish, not juicy, very sweet; good; clingstone; early.
Pomaria. Domestica. 1. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 189. 1867.
A seedling of the Reine Claude from South Carolina, about 1867.
Tree productive; fruit medium in size, blue; bloom heavy; superior to
its parent in flavor.
Pomona. Americana × Hortulana mineri? 1. S. Dak. Sta. Bul. 93:31.
1904.
Originated by E. D. Cowles, Vermilion, South Dakota; under test at
the South Dakota Experiment Station. Said to be “a natural cross of
Forest Garden and Miner.”
Pond Purple. Domestica. 1. Kenrick Am. Orch. 209. 1835. 2.
Downing Fr. Trees Am. 309. 1845. 3. Thomas Am. Fruit Cult.
344 fig. 368. 1867.
Pond’s Purple 2. Pond’s Seedling 2, 3.
Grown in the garden of Henry Hill, Boston; introduced by Samuel
Pond of Cambridge, Massachusetts. As it resembles the well-known
Pond, it has been confused with that variety. Young branches downy;
fruit of medium size, roundish; stem short; purple; flesh yellowish,
rather dry, sweet, mingled with acid; quality fair; freestone; early.
Pontbriant. Domestica. 1. Pom. France 7:30 fig. 1871. 2. Cat. Cong.
Pom. France 344. 1887.
De Pontbriant 2. Prune De Pontbriant 1.
Raised by M. F. Morel, Lyons, France, from seed of the Purple
Gage planted in 1851. Tree of medium vigor; fruit large, round, a little
more truncated at the base than at the apex; cavity narrow, shallow;
stem long and stout; suture shallow and wide; reddish-purple,
deeper on the sunny side; bloom heavy; flesh pale yellow, medium
fine grained, melting, very juicy, with a very sweet and aromatic
flavor; freestone.
Pontford. Domestica. 1. Watkins Cat. 46. 1892?
Tree very productive; fruit of medium size, purple; mid-season;
suitable for market.
Pontotoc. Hortulana. 1. Vt. Sta. An. Rpt. 11:286. 1898.
Mentioned in the catalog of F. T. Ramsey in 1898 as not yet well
tested.
Porsch Rote Zwetsche. Species? Listed in Mathieu Nom. Pom.
443. 1889.
Potter. Americana? 1. Waugh Plum Cult. 233. 1901.
Mentioned by Waugh who says it originated in Cherokee County,
Iowa, and is probably an Americana.
Poupart. Domestica. 1. Hogg Fruit Man. 717. 1884.
Poupart’s 1.
Mr. Poupart, market gardener at Brompton, grew this variety,
according to Hogg, who says it is an enormous bearer and an
excellent preserving plum. Fruit medium, nearly round, resembling
Purple Gage; light purple, dotted and streaked with darker shades;
flesh reddish, firm, sweet, with a Sloe flavor; freestone.
Powell Damson. Insititia. 1. Watkins Cat. 48. 1892?
Mentioned in the preceding reference as a new variety. Tree
vigorous, productive and large.
Prairie Flower. Hortulana mineri. 1. Col., O., Hort. Soc. Rpt. 5:10.
1890. 2. Ia. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 276. 1893. 3. Mich. Sta. Bul.
118:54. 1895. 4. Waugh Plum Cult. 175. 1901.
Prairie 3. Prairie Flower 3.
Prairie Flower, a supposed seedling of Miner, originated in Adrian
County, Missouri; introduced by Stark Brothers about 1884. Fruit of
medium size, roundish-oval; suture a line; cavity shallow; skin thick,
red over yellow; bloom thin; flesh yellow; good; stone oval, slightly
flattened, clinging; season late. Mentioned in the last two issues of
the catalog of the American Pomological Society.
Prairie Rose. Nigra? 1. Can. Exp. Farms Rpt. 426. 1900.
A seedling raised at the Experimental Farm at Indian Head,
Northwest Territory, Canada. Fruit of medium size, red; good; mid-
season.
Précoce Defresne. Species? Mentioned in Mathieu Nom. Pom. 443.
1889.
Précoce de Freudenberg. Domestica. 1. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 430.
1889. 2. Guide Prat. 156, 361. 1895.
Freudenberger Früh Pflaume 1. Freudenberger Früh Pflaume 2.
Précoce de Freudenberg 1.
This variety is of German origin. Fruit of medium size, oval,
reddish-brown; flesh yellow, firm; good; early.
Précoce de Lucas. Domestica. 1. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 2d App.
156. 1876. 2. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 439. 1889. 3. Lucas Vollst.
Hand. Obst. 474. 1894.
Lucas Frühzwetsche 2, 3. Précoce de Lucas 2. Quetsche Précoce
de Lucas 2.
Of foreign origin; tree vigorous, an early and abundant bearer; fruit
large, oval; stem long, slender; dark blue; bloom heavy; flesh
greenish, juicy, sweet; freestone; mid-season.
Précoce de Reutlinger. Domestica. Can. Exp. Farms Rpt. 433.
1905.
Précoce de Reutlinger Prune 1.
Tested at the Experimental Farm at Agassiz, British Columbia.
Fruit below medium size, oval; stem short; cavity small; suture well
defined and one side enlarged; deep purple; flesh yellowish, tender,
sweet, juicy, rich; stone small, free; mid-season.
Premium. Americana. 1. Cornell Sta. Bul. 38:41. 1892. 2. Colo. Sta.
Bul. 50:43. 1898. Peffer’s Premium 1, 2.
Introduced by George P. Peffer of Pewaukee, Wisconsin. Tree
vigorous with an open top, productive; leaves of medium size, broad-
ovate; fruit medium in size, round or inclining to oblate; cavity very
shallow; stem medium; suture nearly obsolete; deep red over
orange-yellow; dots numerous, small; bloom thin; flesh yellow, firm;
fair to good; stone circular, smooth, clinging; mid-season.
Preserver. Triflora × Angustifolia varians. 1. Vt. Sta. Bul. 67:18.
1898. 2. Kerr Cat. 11. 1900.
A supposed cross between Kelsey and Early Red; from D. H.
Watson, Brenham, Texas; introduced by William A. Yates in 1897.
Tree vigorous, compact; fruit of medium size, roundish, dark red;
flesh red, firm; mid-season.
President. Americana. 1. Meneray Cat. The President 1.
A seedling of Harrison grown by H. A. Terry, and introduced by F.
W. Meneray, Council Bluffs, Iowa. Tree productive; fruit large, yellow,
covered with red; flesh yellow, sweet, rich, firm; semi-clinging.
President. Domestica. 1. Gard. World 12:123. 1895. 2. Garden
58:294. 1900. 3. Ibid. 64:262. 1903.
Raised by Thomas Rivers of Sawbridgeworth, England; first fruited
in 1894 and introduced in 1901 by the originator. Tree compact,
productive; fruit large, oval, deep purple almost black; bloom heavy;
flesh with a sweet, rich flavor; freestone; late. Recommended for
culinary and market use.
President. Triflora × Simonii. 1. Vt. Sta. An. Rpt. 12:226. 1899.
Grown by Luther Burbank as a seedling of Wickson; named by
Waugh in 1899. Fruit large, heart-shaped; cavity deep, rounded;
stem short, very stout; suture shallow; apex pointed; dark, fire-red;
dots many, minute; bloom thin; skin thin; flesh firm, meaty, yellow;
flavor peculiar, a trifle like musk-melon; quality poor; stone large,
oval, pointed, flattened, semi-clinging.
President Courcelles. Domestica. 1. Guide Prat. 162, 361. 1895. 2.
Can. Exp. Farms Rpt. 401. 1898. 3. Can. Exp. Farm Bul. 2nd
Ser. 3:55. 1900.
President Courcelle 3.
Tested at the Experimental Farm at Agassiz, British Columbia.
Tree vigorous; fruit of medium size, globular or sometimes heart-
shaped; suture shallow; purple; flesh pale yellow or greenish, juicy,
sweet, pleasant; mid-season.
Presley. Hortulana mineri × Hortulana. 1. Vt. Sta. An. Rpt. 12:227.
1899.
From A. L. Bruce, Basin Springs, Texas. Waugh says its parentage
is probably Miner by Wayland. Fruit of medium size, inclined to oval;
cavity shallow; bright red; dots numerous, indistinct; flesh yellow;
good; stone small, round, flattened, clinging.
Price. Americana. 1. Meneray Cat.
Prof. Price 1.
A seedling grown by H. A. Terry; introduced by F. W. Meneray,
Council Bluffs, Iowa. Fruit large, oblong, yellow, tinged with red;
good; clingstone.
Pride of Waterloo. Domestica. 1. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 3rd App.
182 fig. 1881. 2. W. N. Y. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 44:92. 1899.
Pride of Waterloo? 2.
Raised by A. H. Doles, Waterloo, New York, from seed of Smith
Orleans; distinct from Pond with which it is sometimes confused.
Tree upright, vigorous, very productive; branches smooth, reddish-
brown; fruit large, oval, narrowing towards the stem; suture indistinct;
cavity large; stem medium in length and thickness; reddish-purple;
bloom thin; flesh deep yellow, coarse, juicy, sweet, sprightly, not rich;
stone slightly adherent; mid-season.
Primate. Domestica. 1. Rivers Cat. 35. 1898-9. 2. Thompson Gard.
Ass’t 4:159. 1901. 3. Can. Exp. Farms Rpt. 433. 1905.
A seedling first fruited by Thomas Rivers, Sawbridgeworth,
England, in 1890, and introduced by him in 1897. Fruit large, round;
stem short, set in a medium cavity; suture distinct; sides often
unequal; purplish-red; dots numerous, small, golden; bloom thin;
flesh yellowish, juicy, sweet; good; stone small, free; ripens late and
hangs well after maturing.
Prince. Domestica. 1. Ray Hist. Plant. 2:1529. 1688.
Ray mentions a variety by this name. It may be the same as
Gloucestershire Violet.
Prince Early Damson. Insititia. 1. Prince Pom. Man. 2:87. 1832.
Prince’s Early Purple 1.
A seedling raised by William Prince. Fruit of medium size, ovate,
dark purple, pleasant; freestone; early.
Prince Orange Egg. Domestica. 1. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 392.
1857. 2. Mas Pom. Gen. 2:187. 1873.
Oeuf Orange De Prince 2. Prince’s Orange Egg 2.
Grown by William Prince. Tree vigorous, productive; fruit large,
globular; cavity medium; stem short, stout; reddish-purple; dots
brownish-yellow; bloom thick; flesh greenish-yellow, a little coarse,
juicy, sweet and sprightly, not rich; semi-clinging; mid-season.
Prince Orange Gage. Domestica. 1. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 405.
1857.
Noted only by Downing, who describes it as follows: “Fruit
medium, roundish-oval; suture moderate; skin yellow; stalk long, set
in an open cavity; flesh light yellow, coarse, juicy, pleasant, but not
rich; adheres to the stone; first of September.”
Prince Primordian. Domestica. 1. Prince Treat. Hort. 25. 1828. 2.
Prince Pom. Man. 2:79. 1832.
Prince’s Blue Primordian 1. Prince’s Blue Primordian 2.
A seedling of White Primordian, grown by William Prince. A very
early variety, of about the same size as its parent, oval in shape,
blue; flesh pleasantly flavored.
Pringle. Insititia? 1. U. S. D. A. Rpt. 503, Pl. 63. 1905.
Pringle is a Damson-like variety originating as a sprout from the
stock of a Lombard tree in the orchard of A. C. Pringle, Mears,
Michigan; introduced by E. Hawley & Sons of Hart, Michigan, about
1896.
Pringle Blue. Domestica. 1. N. Y. Sta. Rpt. 12:612. 1893.
Received by the New York Experiment Station in 1890 from L. M.
Macomber, North Ferrisburg, Vermont. Tree very productive; fruit
large, irregular-oval; cavity medium; suture shallow; skin thin, tender;
purplish-black; bloom thick; dots small, numerous; flesh pale yellow,
dry, firm; flavor flat; fair; stone semi-clinging; mid-season; of no
value.
Pringle Purple. Domestica. 1. N. Y. Sta. Rpt. 9:347. 1890.
Received by the New York Experiment Station in 1890 from L. M.
Macomber, North Ferrisburg, Vermont. Tree productive; fruit of
medium size, roundish, compressed; cavity small; suture a line; skin
thin, tender; reddish-purple, unattractive; bloom thinnish; dots small,
numerous; flesh light yellow, moderately juicy, slightly fibrous, firm,
mild; good; stone nearly free; mid-season; of no value.
Procureur. Domestica. 1. Mas Pom. Gen. 2:63. 1873.
Platte Hellrothe Königspflaume 1.
Probably of French origin. Tree vigorous, early, productive; fruit
large, round, flattened at the ends; suture well defined; dull yellow,
almost covered with bright purple; bloom thin; flesh pale yellow, juicy,
sweet, aromatic; quality fair; stone small, free; mid-season.
Profuse. Species? Letter from Kerr.
Originated by Theodore Williams, Benson, Nebraska.
Prof. Wittmack. Insititia? × Domestica? 1. Gard. Chron. 3:364.
1888.
The parentage of this variety is not definitely known but it is
thought to be a Mirabelle crossed with Italian Prune; grown by Herr
Ulhorn, Grevenbroich, Lower Rhenish Prussia. A sweet plum of the
prune type; freestone; good for either dessert or drying.
Pruneau. Species? 1. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 117. 1875.
Reported from Quebec, Canada, in 1875; commonly grown from
suckers.
Prune d’Agen Double. Domestica. Mentioned in Mathieu Nom.
Pom. 420. 1889.
Prune d’Amour. Domestica. Listed in Mathieu Nom. Pom. 421.
1889.
Prune d’Automne. Domestica. 1. Mas Pom. Gen. 2:9. 1873.
Herbstpflaume 1.
Raised by Dr. Dorell of Kuttenberg, Bohemia. Tree of capricious
growth; fruit small, globular; suture indistinct; purplish-black; flesh
greenish-yellow, juicy; good; freestone; late.
Prune de Laghouat. Domestica? Mentioned in Mathieu Nom. Pom.
438. 1889.
Prune d’Ente Impériale. Domestica. Mentioned in Mathieu Nom.
Pom. 429. 1889.
Prune de Rudolphe. Domestica. 1. Mas Pom. Gen. 2:189. 1873.
Rudolph’s Pflaume 1.
Liegel received this variety in 1842 from Count Bressler of
Hungary. Origin uncertain. Tree vigorous, an early and prolific
bearer; fruit medium in size, obovate; suture indistinct; golden-
yellow, dotted with red; flesh clear yellow, sweet, juicy; good; stone
obovate, clinging; mid-season.
Prune de Seigneur. Species? Mentioned in Mathieu Nom. Pom.
450. 1889.
Prune de Prince.
Prune Tardive. Domestica. 1. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 2nd App. 157.
1876.
Tree vigorous, very productive; fruit below medium size, oval; stem
long, slender, set in a small cavity; black; bloom thick; flesh greenish-
yellow, juicy, sweet; freestone; very late.
Pseudo Mirabelle. Insititia. Mentioned in Lond. Hort. Soc. Cat. 152.
1831.
Purple Favorite. Domestica. 1. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 307. fig. 126.
1845. 2. N. Y. Agr. Soc. Rpt. 293 fig. 1848. 3. Mag. Hort.
16:455, 456 fig. 27. 1850. 4. Mas Le Verger 6:83, fig. 42.
1866-73.
Favorite Pourpre 4. Purple Favourite 4.
The original tree of Purple Favorite was planted at Newburgh, New
York, by the father of A. J. Downing; from whence it came is not
known. Fruit of medium size, roundish; cavity slight; suture lacking;
brownish-purple; bloom thin; flesh pale yellow, tender, juicy, sweet;
quality very good; stone small, round, free; mid-season. Listed in the
American Pomological Society catalog since 1852.
Purple Flesh. Triflora. 1. Stark Bros. Cat. 1909.
A purple-fleshed variety introduced by Stark Brothers and
recommended by them as being hardy.
Purple-leaved Hybrid. Triflora × Cerasifera. 1. Burbank Cat. 16 fig.
1893.
K. P. 193 1.
A seedling of Kelsey pollinated by Pissardi; from Luther Burbank,
Santa Rosa, California. Resembles the male parent in wood, bark,
leaves, flowers and fruit; very ornamental on account of its large
purple leaves. Fruit larger than Pissardi, dark purple with many white
dots; bloom thin; flesh reddish-purple throughout, firm, subacid;
good; ripens several weeks before Kelsey.
Purple Panhandle. Angustifolia watsoni. 1. Kerr Cat. 1894. 2. Ibid.
21. 1897. 3. Bailey Ev. Nat. Fruits 222, 223. 1898. 4. Waugh
Plum Cult. 233. 1901.
Introduced from the Panhandle of Texas by F. T. Ramsey, Austin,
Texas. Tree small, rapid in growth; fruit below medium in size, round-
oblong, inclining to conic, purplish-red; quality poor; clingstone; early
to mid-season.
Purple Yosemite. Species? 1. Gard. Mon. 20:176. 1878. 2. Penin.
Hort. Soc. Rpt. 65. 1891. 3. Can. Exp. Farm Bul. 43:32. 1903.
Yosemite 1. Yosemite Purple 3.
Introduced by W. S. Carpenter of Rye, New York, who secured it
from the “Rocky Mountains.” Fruit large, roundish; cavity shallow;
suture a line; skin thick, deep, dull red; dots yellow, distinct; bloom
medium thick; flesh yellow, juicy, sweet; quality fair; stone oval,
flattened, clinging; mid-season.
Puymirol d’Ente. Domestica. 1. Wickson Cal. Fruits 356. 1891.
Originated at Puymirol in the southwest of France; introduced into
California; a type of the Agen. Tree productive; fruit large, inclined to
oblong; flesh very sweet; ripens a little earlier than Agen.
Quaker. Americana. 1. Ia. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 308. 1884. 2. Waugh Plum
Cult. 160. 1901.
Found in the wild by Joseph Bundy of Springville, Linn County,
Iowa; introduced about 1862 by H. C. Raymond, Council Bluffs,
Iowa. Fruit large, roundish; cavity shallow; suture a line; stem long;
skin thick, dark red; bloom thick; dots many; flesh yellow, sweet,
pleasant; good; stone large, oblique-oval, flattened, semi-clinging;
mid-season.
Quality. Americana. 1. Wis. Sta. Bul. 63:24, 55. 1897. 2. Ia. Sta. Bul.
46:287. 1900. 3. Wis. Sta. Bul. 87:15. 1907.
Gaylord Quality 2.
Of unknown origin; top-grafted about 1880 by Edson Gaylord of
Nora Springs, Iowa, who afterwards distributed the variety. Fruit
below medium in size, round, dull purplish-red; dots white; bloom
heavy; flesh soft; quality fair; stone turgid; mid-season.
Quebec. Domestica. Mentioned in Can. Exp. Farm Bul. 43:38. 1903.
Queen. Americana. 1. Can. Exp. Farm Bul. 43:31. 1903.
Golden Queen 1.
From H. A. Terry coming from unknown parents and bearing its
first crop in 1897. Tree upright; fruit large, round, bright golden-
yellow; very good; said to be excellent for canning or dessert.
Queen May. Domestica. 1. Can. Exp. Farm Bul. 43:36. 1903.
First grown by Thomas Clark, Chateaugay, Quebec. Tree strong
and productive; fruit large, round; cavity narrow; suture indistinct;
greenish-yellow; bloom thin; dots indistinct; flesh greenish-yellow,
juicy, firm, sweet, rich; very good; clingstone.
Queen Mother. Domestica? 1. Parkinson Par. Ter. 576, 577, 578.
1629. 2. Rea Flora 207. 1676. 3. Ray Hist. Plant. 2:1529.
1688. 4. Quintinye Com. Gard. 69, 70. 1699. 5. Langley
Pomona 94, Pl. XXIV fig. 3. 1729. 6. Prince Pom. Man. 2:87.
1832. 7. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 310. 1845. 8. Floy-Lindley
Guide Orch. Gard. 291. 1846. 9. Mas Le Verger 6:41. 1866-
73. 10. Hogg Fruit Man. 719. 1884. 11. Mathieu Nom. Pom.
437, 448. 1889. 12. Guide Prat. 160, 361. 1895.
Cherry of some ?1, ?3. Coeur de Pigeon 11. Damaske Violet ?1.
Damas Violet 7, 11, 12. Königin Mutter 11. Moschatelle of some 3.
Muscadine ?1. Petit Damas Rouge 9, 12. Petit Damas Rouge 6, 11.
Pigeon’s Heart 7, 10, 11, 12. Pigeons Heart 4. Queene Mother of
some 1. Queen Mother 9, 11, 12. Red Queen Mother 7, 11. Rotes
Taubenherz 11. Rotes Taubenherz 11. Small Red Damask 6. Small
Red Damson 6.
Queen Mother and Damas Violet have been confused for nearly
three centuries, yet they are distinct, as our descriptions show. Hogg
thought the Queen Mother mentioned by Ray and pictured as a
cordate-shaped fruit by Parkinson, was the Myrobalan. Tree medium
in size, compact, spherical; fruit small, nearly round; suture slightly
pronounced, halves equal; cavity nearly lacking; stem medium in
length; skin red to violet on the sunny side; flesh yellow, firm, juicy,
sweet; good; freestone; mid-season.
Queen of Arkansas. Species? Mentioned in Tex. Sta. Bul. 32:490.
1894.
Quetsche à feuille argentee. Species? 1. Guide Prat. 162, 362.
1895.
Frühzwetsche mit Silberblatt 1. Silberblattrige Zwetsche 1.
A variety from Hungary having silvery-colored leaves; said to ripen
two weeks before the German Prune.
Quetsche Aplatie. Domestica. 1. Mas Pom. Gen. 2:23. 1873. 2.
Mathieu Nom. Pom. 423. 1889.
Breitgedrückte Zwetsche 2. Breitgedrückte Kaiser Zwetsche 2.
Breitgedrückte Zwetsche 1. Donauers Zusammen Gedrückte
Zwetsche 1, 2. Plattrunde Zwetsche 1, 2. Quetsche Aplatie 2.
Found in a garden by M. Donauer of Saxe-Cobourg, Gotha. Fruit
of medium size, obovate, compressed; suture broad, shallow; dark
purple; bloom thick; flesh green, sweet, aromatic; good; stone rough,
free; mid-season.
Quetsche Buhl-Eltershofen. Domestica. 1. Mas Le Verger 6:159.
1866-73.
A seedling raised by M. Liegel of Germany and named in honor of
M. Buhl-Eltershofen. Fruit above medium size, long-ovate; suture
distinct; deep purple; bloom light; flesh greenish-white, juicy; quality
good; stone large.
Quetsche Datte des Allemands. Domestica. 1. Guide Prat. 160,
362. 1895.
Fruit large, irregular-oval, darker color than German Prune; flesh
yellow, sweet; good; late.
Quetsche de Dobrowitz. Species? 1. Guide Prat. 160, 362. 1895.
Dobrowitzer Frühzwetsche 1. Quetsche de Doubrawie 1.
A Hungarian variety maturing about fifteen days earlier than
German Prune.
Quetsche de Kreuter. Domestica? 1. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 438.
1889. 2. Guide Prat. 163, 363. 1895.
Kreuter’s Zwetsche 1. Kreuters Zwetsche 2. Quetsche de Kreuter
1.
A variety of little merit.
Quetsche de Millot. Domestica. 1. Baltet Cult. Fr. 496. 1908.
Mentioned by Baltet as a better variety than the German Prune.
Quetsche De Ransleben. Domestica. 1. Mas Pom. Gen. 2:153.
1873.
Ranslebens Pflaume 1. Ranslebens Zwetsche 1.
A seedling of Reine Claude raised by M. Ransleben of Berlin,
Germany. Tree vigorous, an early and abundant bearer; fruit small,
long-oval; suture indistinct; purplish-brown; thick bloom; flesh green,
juicy; stone rough, free.
Quetsche de Transylvanie. Species? 1. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 450.
1889. 2. Guide Prat. 163, 362. 1895.
Quetsche de Transilvanie 2. Siebenburger Zwetsche 1.
Siebenburger Zwetsche 2.

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List of Figures vii

Chapter 1. Disciplinary Orientalism and Indian Indentureship in

Figure 1.1: Coolie Re/marks 46

and the UK—as well as colleagues—at York University—who provided a

torture of ‘coolie’ laborers within this period of the indentureship scheme

The following is a list of the main characters, followed by a list of support-

Bilchie East Indian laborer accused of rum drinking and

Lord George Harris Governor

David Creole laborer

Nuctuma East Indian laborer

Buried: An Archeology of the Grave

particular record entry caught my eye: ‘CO295/153’. The record’s descrip-

Across Horizons: Situating the Study

a foundational text in Indo-Caribbean studies—to explore Indian indenture-

the work of other historians, including Bridget Brereton’s A History of Modern

through a legal reformist discourse of improvement. As such, the effect of

Exhumed: A Summary of the Inquiry

Trinidad in 1846 to “furnish your lordship with a copy of these lengthened

assaulted by Mr. Walkinshaw.” However, the charges made by three of the

Major Fagan’s conclusion provided a counter to Walkinshaw’s claim that he

Furthermore, Major Fagan drew attention to “the boy, Edward’s” tes-

In conclusion, the coolie magistrate recommended:

stipulated in the regulations—and threatened to remove the ‘coolies’ from the

While Walkinshaw seemed heavily invested in constructing a narra-

As a result of the previous inquiry’s findings of ill-treatment, Major

The series of depositions within the inquiry seem to suggest that it is

of inciting an exploration of what I term ‘The Coolie Question,’ nuanced

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List of Figures vii

Chapter 1. Disciplinary Orientalism and Indian Indentureship in

Figure 1.1: Coolie Re/marks 46