Indentured servitude

Slave trade had been abolished in the 1830s.

Indian indentured labor was a critically important part of the infrastructure of the 19th century British Empire.

Indian indentured labor helped to develop the business economy of South Africa after the discovery of gold and diamonds.

in the Witwatersrand in the later 19th century.

It was Indian indentured labor who cultivated sugar farms in Natal province.

It was Indians of education who kept the books for the mines in the Witwatersrand in the late 19th century.

And it was Indian indentured labor who built the railway.

The British had set up, in other words, a legal an administrative apparatus to get hold of lots of labor relatively cheaply from South Asia to do public works projects around the British Empire, particularly around the Indian Ocean.