Asian Indians in Saint Domingue: An Early Indo-Caribbean Population

While researching the presence of indigenous peoples of the Americas in Saint Domingue, in an attempt to come to some kind of historical understanding of the relationship between "Amerindian" peoples and Haiti, one comes across numerous references to Asian Indians in the sources. Although their numbers must have been even tinier than those of free and enslaved indigenous peoples in the French colony, attempting to enumerate and study their presence in Saint Domingue highlights the global dimensions of French Empire in the 18th century. Moreover, the "East Indian" slaves and free people of color also push back the origins of the Indo-Caribbean, placing them deeper into the historical panorama of the region. This post will attempt a brief look at this minority of the captive population to see what it reveals about the nature of Saint Domingue, its heterogeneous enslaved population, and the global networks in the crown jewel of 18th century French colonialism.

Some of the best evidence for East Indian captives in Saint Domingue are newspaper advertisements for goods from ships arriving from India. Like the above, le Confiant, appearing in Affiches Americaines, East Indian slaves were probably small in number and part of a mixed cargo of various textiles, teas and goods from the East. In this case, about 40 "beaux" blacks are part of the goods for sale. It is possible some of the French ships coming from India stopped in the Mascarenes, Mozambique or Madagascar to pick up slaves or resupply before crossing the Atlantic. However, the easiest explanation is that the 40 captives on the Confiant were from India, presumably purchased in or near the French comtpoirs on the Indian coast. Indians were also sold or kidnapped from territories under English East India Company rule and put on French or Dutch ships.

First, one must begin with the origins of East Indian slaves. There is evidence that the Portuguese were already selling slaves from Goa and other regions of the subcontinent as early as the 16th century. Europeans were also bringing African or Asian slaves to serve in cities like Portuguese Goa, while also purchasing local Indians who were either sold by their families during times of famine or crisis or kidnapped by greedy local merchants. Relatively early on, Asian captives found their way to Europe and, likely, the Americas. Indeed, according to the work of Forbes, Asian Indian captives were present in Seville, Lisbon and other parts of the Iberian peninsula, alongside West African, North African, indigenous peoples from the Americas and Canary Islanders. The Dutch were also engaged in the slave trade in the East Indies, importing a large number of slaves from the coasts of India to the Cape Colony.

Runaway slave ad for a Creole Indian barber named Aly. It's very possible that Aly was not of East Indian origin, but his occupation and name may be more likely references to Asian Indians. Some Asian Indian slaves were Muslims, like the Lascars. If Aly was his chosen name then he may have been a Lascar. The fact that he is identified as being born in the colony demonstrates Asian Indian captives lived long enough to reproduce.

  

By the time the French were engaging in Indian slave trading in the 18th century, captives were purchased or kidnapped (probably both) from Bengal, Coromandel, Malabar, and sold to ships at the various French comptoirs on the coast. A few of their captives came from other parts of the subcontinent, like Goa. According to various sources, 18th century Bengal suffered from slave trading, but Malabar and Coromandel were also active ports. Bengal was particularly associated with the sale of children, often exported on Dutch and French ships. Megan Vaughan's work on Mauritius tells us Indian slaves were Lascars, Topas, Malabar, Bengali, Talinga, but there were likely other groups represented. While the French East Indian Company was primarily interested in purchasing Indian textiles and other goods, which were also sold in Africa (for more slaves) and in France and its colonies, Indian peoples were up for sale. The total numbers of Indian slaves carried on French ships was surely quite small, as the captives must have usually been part of a mixed cargo consisting of various commodities. For a reliable estimate on the estimated number of Indian captives brought by the French to their colonies in the Mascarenes, between 1670-1810, historian Richard B. Allen suggests 21,000. Not counted in that estimate is the number of free Indian artisans and sailors who went to Mauritius voluntarily, as Indian artisans were prized a a cheaper source of labor in the than European "skilled labor." By the time of the Haitian Revolution, the French slave trade in India was interrupted by war with Britain that ended large-scale slave trading from that region. Therefore, it is likely that most Indians in Saint Domingue had arrived by the early 1790s.

Runaway slave ad for Charlot, a "natif des grandes Indes." Charlot's origins in India and status as a carpenter further suggest a connection of Asian Indian captives with trades or "skilled occupations" in Saint Domingue and other French colonies.

Of course, 21,000 is a tiny number compared to the much larger quantities of captives from Africa (Mozambique, East Africa, Madagascar, and, to a lesser extent, West Africa) in the Mascarenes. Yet a significant minority of the total slave population in Mauritius and Reunion were Indians. Considering the vast distances separating Saint Domingue and India, and the intra-imperial networks connecting the Mascarenes and French slave trading networks in nearby Mozambique, the total number of East Indian captives who made it to the French Caribbean was probably a small fraction of the estimated total of 21,000. This is backed up by various advertisements in Saint Domingue newspapers of the arrival of ships from India and runaway slave advertisements for Indian maroons from Mauritius and Reunion. Most of the Indians who came on ships directly from India were part of mixed a mixed cargo with small numbers of slaves, ranging in number from as low as 16 to 40. The only possible exception to this is the case of La Cibele, identified by Richard B. Allen as a slave ship that arrived in Saint Domingue in 1778. Reaching Saint Domingue from the coasts of India, with 258 men, 49 women, 57 boys and 22 girls for sale, it must have been a particularly long and hellish voyage.  One cannot help but wonder if this ship actually picked up slaves from India then stopped to resupply in the Mascarenes before acquiring more from Mozambique or East Africa. Either way, it seems to the only example of a French slave that may have carried hundreds of Indians to Saint Domingue in a single voyage.

Sometimes, runaway slave ads specifically mention places in India that make it clear said maroon was from the East Indies, like Zamor.

 

Other sources from within Saint Domingue also suggest the East Indian presence was quite small. According to Moreau de Saint-Méry's encyclopedic tome on the colony, the "Oriental Indians" were fewer than the "Western" Indians. He also used a Creole-sounding word to designate them, zingre. Their racial mixtures with Africans in the colony, "qui sont aussi infiniment rares dans la colonie," suggests not only a small population but one that, perhaps, rarely intermarried with the African majority of the enslaved population.  In addition, David Geggus's exhaustive research on plantation inventories in Saint Domingue also point to a very small "Indien" presence, less than 1% of the total captive population. In his definition of Indian were included "Amerindians" and East Indians, and Saint-Méry has already indicated that the former outnumbered the latter. Another scholar, McClellan, estimated about 500 Indians were in Saint Domingue by the late 18th century, although this could have been mostly "Amerindian" people. Unfortunately, it does not take into account the numbers of "Indians" in Saint Domingue at various moments in the late 1600s and early 1700s, which, if one counts descendants who were "reclassified" as free people of color, makes 500 probably an underestimate. 

 

Michel, a "Mulatto Indian" from what is now Mauritius, is a perfect example of the ways in which slaves from French Indian ocean colonies were sometimes transported to the Caribbean.

 

Thus, in consideration of the above sources, this blog will suggest the total number of East Indians in Saint Domingue was likely in the hundreds, perhaps no more than 500 or 600, across the 18th century. With the exception of La Cibele in 1778, when several hundred arrived, most were likely arriving in the colony as parts of the mixed cargo of ships from India. Some may have been sold or transferred from the Mascarenes on other vessels. This small-scale trade, perhaps most consistent in the period of 1770-1793, leads one to think the total numbers of East Indians must have been low. Of course, some may have arrived on ships that also acquired slaves at Mozambique or the Swahili Coast. To what extent were Asian captives from the Mascarenes part of that traffic is unknown, but likely minimal compared to the thousands of "Mozambiques" who appear in Saint Domingue during the later decades of the 18th century. Nonetheless, all the above suggests Indians were a minuscule part of the total slave population, vastly outnumbered by hundreds of thousands of West, Central, and, increasingly, East Africans.

Etienne is identified as a black Indian creole of what is now Reunion. Clearly, at least a few East Indian slaves from the Mascarenes were sold in Saint-Domingue or brought there by the French. Some, like Etienne, were singled out for speaking French.

Now that it is established that the East Indian presence was very minimal, and probably more concentrated in Saint Domingue than other French colonies in the Antilles (perhaps the greatest concentration of East Indians in the Caribbean during the 18th century?), which the runaway slave ads seem to suggest, what can one say of their presence in the colony? Since written sources alluding to them are rare, one can look to conditions of Indian enslavement in the Masacarenes for possible hints. In the Mascarene colonies, Indians were often stereotyped as more obedient and intelligent than their Malagasy and African counterparts. And it is true that Indian slaves were often employed in trades that slaves from Madagascar and Mozambique were less likely to perform. However, the stereotypes of slaves, as provided by French planters and colonial authorities, were not always based in reality. One must also account for the differences in "national" or ethnic stereotypes that various plantation societies developed about the same groups of people. Those caveats aside, it is likely that French stereotypes in Saint Domingue of "blacks" and "Indians" from the subcontinent were similar to those of their planter counterparts in the Mascarenes, or at least influenced by them. Further, if the association of Indian captives with domestic labor, added to the fact that many were children or young adults, was true for Saint Domingue as well, then Indians in Saint Domingue probably served similar functions as domestic slaves in the towns and plantation homes. Moreover, Indian captives may have also worked as sailors and in urban trades in Le Cap and other towns of Saint Domingue. Perhaps many worked as barbers, servants, cooks, fishermen, bakers, blacksmiths and assistants, if runaway slave ads are reliable indications. A few were listed as speaking French or had traveled to France, suggesting that some would have been valued as fluent speakers of the dominant language and perhaps well traveled across the French Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds.

 

Francois, identified as an Indian from the Coromandel coast, was clearly from the subcontinent.

 

 

Unfortunately, it is difficult to say what, if any, were the relations between these and African or Creole slaves of the colony. If free, they were, in theory, entitled to the rights of whites, like those of "Amerindian" descent. Free Indians may have been quite similar to free people of African descent, but evidence from Mauritius suggests at least a partial separation of the free people of color population in Port-Louis (Camp des Malabars was an "Indian" quarter, though Indians also lived in the free black African quarter and vice versa). But scholars also point out the porous nature of borders between Indian, Malagasy and Africans in Mauritius. While some of the Indians retained their sense of identity and continued to wear clothes affiliated with their regional origins, many probably shaped or joined the burgeoning "Creole" culture of the enslaved and free "black" population of the island. For Saint Domingue, where the Indian population was far smaller, there is no evidence of a "Camp des Malabars" and they might have merged into the general slave and free people of color categories rather quickly. Those who were free may have become slaveholders themselves, if "Indien" owners identified in runaway ads were indeed Asian.

 

Jean-Louis, of the "Malabar nation" in India, is associated with a ship captain coming from Mozambique. This illustrates how French slaving in the Indian Ocean sometimes brought captives from different parts of Africa, Madagascar, and India to Saint Domingue.

Besides the evidence of a limited residential separation of the racial "castes" in Mauritius's Port-Louis, there is evidence in France itself of Indian slaves suing for their freedom on the basis of non-African origin. There may have been, by the late 18th century, a sense among some Indians and Europeans that enslavement was only to be associated with those bearing the "indelible stain" of African ancestry.  This was the case with "Amerindian" peoples, who were supposed to be given the rights of whites and be exempt from racial prejudice. Therefore, Indians, despite their dark skin, were not to be associated with Africans and should be emancipated or enjoy the rights of whites. This development is tied to the growth of racial ideology \ might have appealed to Indians living in the Mascarenes and Saint Domingue as grounds for their freedom and claims to the rights and privileges of the white population. Increasingly discriminatory laws against free people of color in Saint Domingue may have also pressured those of "Indien" origin to distinguish themselves from African-descended people. It certainly led to some free people of color in Saint Domingue claiming Indian descent in response to discriminatory laws. Of course, the remaining question is to what extent were Indians, of the occidental and oriental types, actually receiving the rights and privileges of whites? Those who were "unmixed" with Africans may have had an easier time attaining the aforementioned privileges, but free people of color who claimed "Indien" origin (in this case, almost always "Amerindian") were refused patents recognizing that heritage. What were things actually like for people of East Indian origin remains to be seen. If the example of Mauritius gives any indication, some may have been able to become landowners like other free people of color. 

Some of the runaway slaves who found their way to Saint Domingue embodied all the vast influences, cultures, and imperial rivalries of the Indian Ocean. This example, of a black cook and baker, a "Creole of Goa," is mentioned as someone who not only speaks French, Portuguese, and English, but nearly all the languages of Africa's eastern littoral. This means this "Creole of Goa" may have been of African origin, and probably spoke Swahili. A perfect example of the complex inter-imperial slave trade networks that connected India and Africa via Portuguese and French trade in the Indian Ocean.

So, what became of Asian Indians in Saint Domingue during and after the Haitian Revolution? Runaway slave ads before and during the early 1790s attest to their presence. One would think most merged into the general population, and were given the same rights as other citizens. In fact, the case of Benjamin Fruneau, according to Madiou, who came to Haiti after independence, indicates Haiti's willingness to grant citizenship rights to people of Indian descent included Asians. But during the course of the Haitian revolution, some East Indian captives from Saint Domingue were brought to the US by their fleeing French owners. Runaway slave advertisements from Virginia in the 1790s reference an East Indian who may have been trying to return to Saint Domingue. The case of Crispin, who was in brought to Philadelphia in 1791, answers some of our questions. Crispin, on the run in Virginia, was allegedly waiting for passage to Saint Domingue, where, in 1794, slavery was abolished. That he wished to return to the island indicates his wish to live as an emancipated person, and put his hopes in a free Saint Domingue.

Twenty Dollars Reward. Run away from his Master in the City of Philadelphia, on Saturday the 15th of November last, a kind of Mulatto East-India Boy named CRISPIN, about 16 years old, 5 feet 4 inches high, slender built; he has been in the city for about 3 years speaks French and broken English; has straight black hair, which he sometimes ties; well made and walks upright; had on when he went away an almost new black hat, new short Jacket, and a pair of French fashioned trousers with feet to them, made of grey coating with plated buttons, white shirt, French neck handkerchief, and an almost new pair of shoes tied with ribbon, and wears sometime a National Cockade. There is reason to believe he has been brought into the state by a Frenchman, and is at present somewhere in or about Williamsburg or Norfolk waiting for a passage to St. Domingo. Whoever will secure the said boy in jail of this state so that his Master may get him again, shall have the above reward of twenty Dollars paid by the Printer of this Paper, with reasonable charges.--Norfolk, Dec. 9, 1794.

In some rare cases, East Indian captives owned by the French were brought to the US. In Norfolk, Virginia, a Frenchman posted an ad for his runaway "East India mulatto" boy, Crispin, who is identified as waiting for a passage to St. Domingo. 

 

 

 As for other East Indians from Saint Domingue, the case of African American John Pierre Burr's mother demonstrates the East Indian/Saint Domingue presence in Philadelphia's free black population. Burr's sister would later join the Haitian emigration movement in the 1820s, perhaps remembering their mother's Saint Domingue roots. Jack Forbes also mentioned, in passing, a family of East Indian and white origin from Saint Domingue living in South Carolina in 1817. Thus, 'mixed-race' Saint Domingue and Haitian families of Indian origin were found among the Saint Domingue diaspora in the US, and may have returned to Haiti during the 1820s and other periods. Similar families almost surely existed in post-1804 Haiti, but tracking them after the colonial period is difficult. Considering their small numbers and younger profile, one would assume they rather quickly merged into the general population. Those who were free before the Haitian Revolution may have married into similar families, and perhaps would have been met by Benjamin Fruneau in France and Haiti. While Madiou's account of Fruneau's origins suggest he heard about Haiti while living in Europe, it is possible he was already familiar with Saint Domingue as an important French colony where Asian Indians were present. This is pure speculation, but possible, given the circulation of people and goods between the two corners of the French colonial world. 

 

An advertisement for more goods for sale brought by La Parfait-Union. Included among its merchandise were 16 "beaux" Negroes, one of whom was a cook. This is another example of the fact that French ships coming from India included slaves in the cargo, albeit at much lower numbers than those coming directly from Africa. 

Since there are limitations to the sources used here, and a reliance on argument by analogy with regards to the Mascarenes, this post barely scratches the surface of a topic germane to the history of Indo-Caribbean peoples. While focusing on the territory with no known association with Indian immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, baring a few exemptions (Dadlani from Jamaica, Fruneau from Mauritius/France), this post attempted to uncover and, in a limited way, analyze the presence of Indian slaves in the most important plantation colony of the 18th century.  While East Indians were in the Americas in the 16th century, and appear in various colonies and territories of the Caribbean-region during the colonial period, this blog post attempted to highlight those of Saint Domingue, postulating a perhaps greater number of them in this particular colony. The presence of East Indian slaves in the Caribbean may also yield insights into the nature of indentured Indian worker programs in the 19th and 20th centuries, demonstrating the long association of Indian people with coercive labor in parts of the Indian Ocean World and the Caribbean. Their presence also points to the interlocking nature of French colonialism and trade in the 18th century. For instance, French ships carried Indian textiles (and captives) for consumers in France and Africa (for additional slaves), and Indian textiles were key to clothing enslaved subjects in the Caribbean. The presence of actual Indian slaves in Saint Domingue adds another dimension to this, with intercontinental trade, migration, and coercive labor systems joining together European encroachment and hegemony in the two Indies.

Bibliography

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Garrigus, John D. Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French Saint-Domingue. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

 

Geggus, David. "The Naming Of Haiti." NWIG: New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 71, no. 1/2 (1997): 43-68. Accessed November 4, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41849817.

 

Hooper, Jane & David Eltis."The Indian Ocean in Transatlantic Slavery." Slavery & Abolition, 34 no. 3 (2013): 353-375.

Major, Andrea. Slavery, Abolitionism and Empire in India, 1772-1843. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2012.

McClellan, James E. (James Edward). Colonialism and Science: Saint Domingue in the Old Regime. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. 

Moreau de Saint-Méry, Méderic Louis Élie. Description topographique, physique, civile, politique et historique de la partie françoise de l'isle Saint-Domingue. 3 vols. Philadelphia:  1797.

Shell, Robert Carl-Heinz. Children of Bondage: A Social History of the Slave Society At the Cape of Good Hope, 1652-1838. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1994.

Vaughan, Megan. Creating the Creole Island: Slavery in Eighteenth-century Mauritius. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005. 

 

---. "Slavery and Colonial Identity in Eighteenth-Century Mauritius." Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 8 (1998): 189-214. Accessed November 4, 2020. doi:10.2307/3679294.