Historical Overview of International Migration

‘Migration is a product not of discrete and unconnected factors in the sending and the receiving countries, but of historical connections between the countries. Present-day migration is largely a continuation of the pattern which began about two centuries ago. The presence of the British and the demand for cheap labour in other parts of the empire lay at the root of the phenomenon of migration in those days, a phenomenon which has continued till date. Indentured labour migration to Mauritius, Natal, and Fiji was part of a global process of labour migration from India, which began after the abolition of slavery. In Natal, sugar production, which began in 1852 with the assistance of the experienced planters and Indian workers from Mauritius, was smaller in scale and the sugar industry, marked by lack of capital and technological backwardness, was limited in its significance. The foundation of the migration streams from India had already been laid by the time India attained independence

Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History