THE KALA PANI: THE BLACK WATERS

Sep 14, 2008 Features / Columnists, The Arts Forum

The history of the West Indies is predicated on voyages across the oceans beginning with Columbus’s so-called voyages of discovery and leading up to the infamous venture of ferrying captive Africans across the Atlantic to slave on colonial plantations.

From mid-nineteenth century, the transporting of indentured workers from the Indian sub-continent began in response to the urgent wants of sugar barons.

Volumes have been written on plantation servitude and resistance to it, as well as the terms and conditions of survival, during both slavery and indentureship.

What is perhaps less well known and undocumented is knowledge of the perilous voyages across the Indian and the Atlantic Oceans, the treacherous kala pani.

Within recent times, we virtually struck gold with the odd diary of a ship’s captain or a ship’s surgeon surfacing, often after lying among family records for as long as a century and a half.

Recently, The First Crossing, being the Diary of Theophilus Richmond, ship’s surgeon aboard the Hesperus, 1837-8 ((2007) edited by Professor David Dabydeen et al, came to hand.

The Hesperus initiated the trade in indentured Indians to the West Indies and the Journal of the young surgeon (dedicated to his mother) records, in a lighthearted manner, accounts of his voyage from Liverpool to Mauritius, Calcutta and Demerara, his exploits in hunting and sightseeing when the ship docks.

We are disappointed that the merest glimpse of the habits or conduct of the passengers on board was not recorded and yet we note Richmond’s devotion to his human cargo when cholera strikes them while at sea, claiming a dozen lives or so.

Maharani’s Misery: Narratives of a Passage from India to the Caribbean was published by Professor Verene Shepherd (2002) and represents the analysis of various Commissions of Inquiries as well as numerous maritime records of the experience of indentured workers aboard the Allanshaw that sailed from Calcutta to colonial Guyana in 1885.

The book combines documentary evidence with narrative interpretation and represents a case study into the plight of an emigrant woman, Maharani, who was allegedly raped on board the ship and died at sea. She was among 17 Indians who died on that voyage.

A Return to The Middle Passage: The Clipper Ship “Sheila”, first published in 1921, and edited by Kenneth Ramchand with an introduction by Brinsley Samaroo, appeared in 1995.

It takes us into the Diary of Captain W.H. Angel on the ship’s maiden voyage from Calcutta to the Caribbean (Trinidad and Demerara) in 1877 with approximately six hundred souls on board.

The Other Middle Passage: Journal of a Voyage from Calcutta to Trinidad, 1858, with an introduction by Ron Ramdin (1994) is the joint Diary of Captain Swinton in command of the Salsette, and Mrs. Swinton. 120 Indians died on this voyage even though there was no prevalent epidemic at the time.

Cpt Swinton records: “I do not believe five, at most, either know where they are going, or what is to be their occupation.

If the coolies had been given writing materials during the voyage we might have had a richer history; that is a great loss.”

While we do not expect Captains and Surgeons of the coolie-carrying ships to see through the eyes of their wretched cargo, these eye witness accounts form the main part of colonial discourse. A tradition is emerging of reclaiming these first hand narratives.

More tragedies at sea on the “coolie” ships:
In 1859, the Shah Jahan had left Calcutta for Mauritius with over 400 coolies in addition to her crew. In the Indian Ocean—somewhere about midway between Cocos Island and Mauritius—fire broke out, and, in spite of everything that was done to fight it, the ship was gradually enveloped and had to be abandoned.

The number of boats was quite inadequate and rafts were made by lashing spars and timber together, but the weather being rough many lives were lost in getting away from the ship.

Two boats, containing captain and crew, were eventually picked up but nothing more was ever seen or heard of the crowded rafts. Of the whole crowd of coolies, only about half-a-dozen survived.

The Moy left Calcutta for Demerara in 1885 but over forty coolies died at sea from beri-beri. (On a return journey, Georgetown to Liverpool, carrying sandblast in 1904, the Moy was lost at sea – never arrived at Liverpool, one of the mysteries of the sea).

In September 1896, the Grecian was overtaken by what was perhaps the worst disaster that ever befell a Nourse ship.

She was totally lost in the Caribbean off Montserrat, and only one man by the name of Tom Keogh survived to tell the tragic tale. This same year, the Duncan Durbar perished at sea with one survivor.

In 1896 again, the British Peer was wrecked off the coast of South Africa with the loss of five lives. By the turn of the century, the great age of sail had passed and by 1904 all progressive ship owners turned their attention to steam.

The Nourse Line: James Nourse, Irishman (1830 – 1897): The first fully rigged ship of the Nourse Line was the Ganges registered in Lloyds Register in 1861 owned and mastered by Nourse himself.

Nourse quickly saw the possibilities which the rapid growth of Indian emigration held out to the enterprising ship-owner.

He built ships and engaged shipmasters to meet the special requirements of this trade . . . After the Ganges, Nourse placed further orders with the Sunderland yards, and by 1867 he had formed the beginnings of his fleet with the India, the barque Jumna, and the Syria. These ships were all bigger than the Ganges—the two last-named were over a thousand tons.

During the ‘seventies, the Foyle, the Bann, the Boyne, and the Allanshaw, were added to the Nourse fleet. The house-flag of the Line—the red diamond superimposed on a blue diagonal cross on a white ground—was sometimes to be seen as far north as Vancouver and as far south as Hobart, while long trips took the ships round the Horn and on round the world, but usually the vessels were employed on the regular coolie routes to and from Calcutta.

During the eighties, Nourse expanded his fleet by no less than twelve vessels (the second Ganges -1395 tons), the Main, Moy, Avoca, Erne, Elbe, Volga, Rhine, Bruce, Hereford, Grecian and British Peer.

During the nineties, Nourse added the Arno, Ems, Forth, Mersey, Clyde, Rhone, Avon, Lena and Jarrowar. The Ems was the last of the ships – her last sailing recorded at 1908. The first steamer of the Nourse Line, the Indus, was put into service in 1904.

After the Indus (1904), the following steam ships were put into the emigration service: the Ganges, Sutlej, Chenab, Mutlah, Dewa, and the Megna. Up till the outbreak of war, one or other of these ships was leaving Calcutta with emigrants regularly once a month.

On the outward voyage to the West Indies, the sailing ships had called at St. Helena, but the steamer call was transferred to Durban owing to the necessity of coaling at the Cape.

The competitors were Sandbach, Tinne & Co. of Liverpool and among their ships were the Ailsa, Brenda, Godiva, Stronsa, and Jura, specially designed for carrying Asiatic emigrants.

They mainly transported East Indian labour to the plantations of Demerara where Messrs. Sandbach had considerable interests.

L.G.White writes: “The Captains kept their logs, adjusted their spectacles, laboriously wrote up details of wind and weather, and . . . penned letters to their waiting wives, but there is very little evidence that they ever wrote much else.

The sailing ship was not an ideal place in which to write memoirs and the desire to keep a diary, like ink, is apt to evaporate in the tropics.

Yet we are the poorer for the loss of these records, for no man who has eyes to see and ears to hear, could work emigrant ships around the world without finding much that was entertaining, much that was amusing and not a little that was tragic”.

This picture is only a tiny part of the reality of the cost in human lives of the indentureship experience. According to Martin Carter, “On the bed of the ocean, bones alone remain/Rolling like pebbles, drowned in many years”.
Reference: L.G.W. White, Ships, Coolies and Rice (1936).

This research attempts to go beyond data that offer statistics of size of ships, number of passengers and years of arrival and departure. This article may be used only for purposes of research and only with due acknowledgement to its author, Ameena Gafoor.