This article focuses on the remarkable journey of people from the Bhojpur region of North India (which now includes parts of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh) to Trinidad during the 1800s. It discusses how this migration happened due to the British Colonial system after the abolition of slavery. With insufficient labor to work the sugar plantations, the British introduced indentured servitude or ‘girmit.’The article traces the story of people leaving India under harsh conditions with a fake sense of better opportunities beckoning them. The piece outlines the entire oceanic voyage, the establishment of indentured servitude in Trinidad, and the rise of the Indo-Trinidadian community. This diaspora is incredibly important, and this article shows how the cultural and linguistic (notably, the Bhojpuri dialect) ties from this migration in the 19th century shaped modern Trinidad and Tobago are deeply intertwined with this migration.
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