‘Sterile Citizens’ & ‘Excellent Disbursers’: Opium and the Representations of Indentured Migrant Consumption in British Guiana and Trinidad

Abstract

This article examines the representation of Asian indentured migrants as ‘consumers’ in colonial British Guiana and Trinidad. Focusing on the specific case of opium, it explores how attitudes towards the drug fed into broader debates about socio-economic responsibilities of these labouring communities. After first establishing the considerable revenues which colonial authorities derived from the taxation of opium, the article illustrates the growing calls for migrants to ‘pay back’ to the colonies which had shouldered the cost of their introduction. It also explores how stereotypical representations of Chinese and Indian consumption informed debates about the economic viability of continuing to import various forms of migrant labour. The article argues that migrant consumption mattered, and that understanding why it mattered necessitates a broader understanding of how indentured migration shaped the economic and social histories of various British colonies following emancipation.