Working the salterns. Convict workers in the natural salt pans of Hambantota, in British colonial Sri Lanka

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn the early 19th century, the British colonial state in Sri Lanka embarked on an experiment in deploying convict labour for salt collecting. ‘Criminals’ from all parts of the island region convicted mainly for robbery and vagrancy and sentenced to hard labour by various courts of justice, were sent to an isolated outpost in the district of Hambantota in the deep south of Sri Lanka to labour at a naturally formed saltern known as the Maha Levaya. Executive, judicial, and administrative actors of the state played a key role in mobilising and immobilising the convicts at the saltern in order to fulfil the dual functions of punishment and profit. This paper contends that the inter-regional and local practice of im/mobilizing convicts to worksites as seen in Hambantota was a micro-spatial process of punishment, exile and labour extraction that was integral to larger processes of social control and labour coercion. However, despite the attempts at confining the convict labour force at the saltern through military and judicial means, the men condemned to labour for salt resisted the conditions of servitude through multiple strategies ranging from flight to evasion.KEYWORDS: Saltconvict labourSri Lankalabour coercionsocial controlresistance, disciplined mobility Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.Notes1. Between 1796–1825, the British used the rix dollar as currency in Sri Lanka. It was derived from the Dutch rijksdaalder and stuiver.2. Supreme Court, Criminal Jurisdiction Colombo Second Session, Citation1806, July 16, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 81/464.3. The Supreme Court functioned in a circuit (holding sessions in various locations of the island) and had full criminal jurisdiction over the Maritime Provinces in Sri Lanka, while the Sitting Magistrate’s courts functioned in local areas such as districts.4. I use the term labour extraction to imply the means through which labour effort was extracted by means of supervision, discipline, technology, punishment (Maxwell-Stewart, Citation2015).5. The term site of labour coercion indicates a workplace such as a factory, plantation or mine as opposed to a field of coercion which would mean the study of labour relations in sites situated along the production, distribution and consumption chains of a single commodity (De Vitto et al., Citation2020, p.652)6. The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act came in 1807. For a comprehensive study of slavery a subaltern experience in early British colonial Sri Lanka see Wickramasinghe, N. 2021; For the British abolition of slavery in Sri Lanka see Wickramasinghe, C. 2010, pp. 315–335.7. Kangani is a Tamil word meaning supervisor or overseer.8. Letters from the Chief Secretary, Letters from Tho Eden to the Collector of Jaffna, 1828, November 18 and 27, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 7/322, p. 158 and p. 162.9. The term ‘coolie’ is often associated with indentured contract labour migrants from India and China, its use was in fact far more ubiquitous and ambiguous. As Van Rossum (Citation2016) has indicated in Dutch controlled Sri Lanka, ‘coolie’ could cover wage labour, specific types of work or even specific types of covee labour. In British Sri Lanka, the term appears to be widespread and used to denote unskilled forms of labour.10. Diary of the Salt Agent, Letter from Joseph Smith to Robert Arbuthnot, Citation1806, July 18, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 6/92.11. The British used the word brigandage to mean highway robbery in Sri Lanka.12. Diary of the Salt Agent, Letter from John Rodney to Joseph Smith, 1806, December 11 and Diary of the Salt Agent, Letter from John Dean to Smitz (sic), 1806, December 18, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 6/92.13. Diary of the Fiscal Trincomalee, Letter from John George Kerby to Alex Cadell, Citation1807, January 5, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group, 6/129.14. Letters from the Chief Secretary, Letter from John Dean to Joseph Smith, Citation1806, December 12, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 7/110, pp. 12–13.15. Diary of the Salt Agent, ‘List of the Following prisoners under the charge of the Agent for Salt,’ 1808, February, 29, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 6/92.16. Diary of the Salt Agent, ‘List of the following prisoners for the month of December,’ 1810, December, 31, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 6/92.17. Diary of the Salt Agent, ‘List of the Prisoners under the charge of the Sitting Magistrate Hambangtotta,’ 1811, March 31, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 6/92.18. Supreme Court, Criminal Jurisdiction Galle, Citation1806, June 2, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 81/506.19. Supreme Court, Criminal Jurisdiction Matara, Citation1810, April 28, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 81/506.20. Supreme Court, Criminal Jurisdiction Matara, 1810, May 11, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 81/506.21. Despatches of the Governor. Despatch from Thomas Maitland to Windham, Citation1807, February 28, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 5/77.22. Diary of the Fiscal Trincomalee, Letter from John George Kerby to Alex Cadell, Citation1807, January 5.23. Diary of the Salt Agent, Letter from Joseph Smith to John Rodney, 1807, February n.d., Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 6/92.24. Diary of the Salt Agent, Letter from Joseph Smith to John Rodney, 1807, January, 3, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 6/92.25. Diary of the Salt Agent, Letter from Joseph Smith to John Rodney, 1807, February 4, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 6/92.26. Diary of the Salt Agent. ‘List of the following prisoners under the charge of the Agent for salt,’ 1807, August n.d., Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 6/92.27. Diary of the Salt Agent. ‘List of the following prisoners under the charge of the Agent for the salt,’ 1807, February 28, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 6/92.28. Letters from the Chief Secretary, Letter from John Dean to Joseph Smith, 1807, November 19. Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 7/71, p. 139.29. Diary of the Salt Agent, Letter from Joseph Smith to John Rodney, 1807, November 25, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 6/92.30. Diary of the Salt Agent, ‘Report of the names of the respective leways,’ n.d., Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 6/92.31. Approximately 24.9 kilograms.32. Despatches of the Governor. Fredrick North to Lord Hobart, Citation1802, September 10, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 5/1.33. Diary of the Salt Agent, ‘Report of the names of the respective leways,’ n.d., Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 6/92.34. Diary of the Salt Agent, Letter from Joseph Smith to John Rodney 1807, March 15, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 6/92.35. Diary of the Salt Agent, Report of the names of the respective leways, n.d, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 6/92; Letters from the Chief Secretary, John Dean to Joseph Smith, 1807, November 5, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 7/71.36. Diary of the Salt Agent, Letter from Joseph Smith to John Dean, 1807, July 6, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 6/92.37. Diary of the Salt Agent, Letter from M. J. Smyth to J. Gay, 1813, August 17, Sri Lanka National Archives, Record Group 6/92.38. Despatches of the Governor, Robert Brownrigg to Liverpool, Citation1812, August 22, Sri Lanka National Archive, Record Group 5/91, Despatch No.15.Additional informationNotes on contributorsSanayi MarcellineSanayi Marcelline MPhil. in Historical Studies, (Cantab), U.K. is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. Her research interests include slave ancestry in late 18th and early 19th century Sri Lanka, and free and unfree labour in British colonial Sri Lanka.