First Indian workers arrive in South Africa

Sugar farming grew rapidly in the late 1800s in Natal as a result of very cheap “indentured labour” sourced from India. The first group of Indian workers arrived in Durban harbour on 16 November 1860 aboard the ship “Truro”. British farmers were unable to secure enough workers from the Zulu population because they still had access to land. In later years the colonial frontier expanded and the Zulu’s were forcefully stripped of their land. By then labour supply to the White farms was no longer an issue. But in 1860 India was still the best place for the British to find “willing workers” - people who had been dispossessed of their land. For 30 years prior to this Indian workers were shipped to plantations across the globe. Indentured labour came to prominence after the abolition of slavery and can be understood as a “new kind of slavery”. Workers were signed into five-year contracts at a very low, fixed wage far away from their homes.