Afro-Asian Histories after Abolition in the South Atlantic

Having originated in Calcutta and docked in St. Helena, the Sea Park arrived in colonial Guyana in March 1848. The 263 indentured Indian migrants onboard had traveled for eighty-seven days. At St. Helena, they had been joined by eighty-six liberated Africans, with whom they shared the final weeks of the journey. Around 700 liberated Africans lived on the island at the time, having been seized by the British navy. According to liberal frameworks of the period, the Indian migrants onboard the Sea Park were part of a project to supersede chattel slavery, and the liberated Africans were apparent proof of abolitionism’s success. As such, the two groups were supposed to represent different labor regimes: the former, having ostensibly consented to a contract, were in the process of being indentured and the latter, having not consented to any contract, were in the process of “liberation.” Yet, both found themselves in the same ship hold headed toward the same British plantations in the Caribbean. This paper considers the conjuncture of African and Asian peoples in the South Atlantic after abolition in order to grapple with liberal genres of the period. As such, it attends to the new hierarchies of unfreedom occasioned by abolition.