Hindostaanse contractarbeiders in het immigrantendepot

This cyanotype photograph of a group of contract workers in Dutch Suriname is from an album by amateur photographer and colonial official Hendrik Doijer, who documented daily life. Doijer took this photograph at the “coolie depot” in Paramaribo where indentured workers, mostly from British India, disembarked. (“Coolie” is a racialized slur for Asian, largely South Asian and Chinese, workers.) The names of the people in the photograph are not recorded. Indentured women experienced a great deal of patriarchal violence from both their partners and their employers, yet many also chose to remain in the Caribbean to pursue greater economic and social independence than they may have been able to access in their home communities. However, pending concrete historical evidence we can only speculate as to the feelings and experiences of the women in this photograph.