Indo-Caribbean or Indian-Caribbean people are people in the Caribbean who trace their ancestry to the Indian subcontinent. They are descendants of the Jahaji indentured laborers from British India, who were brought by the British, Dutch, and French during the colonial era from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century. A minority of them are descendants from people who immigrated as entrepreneurs, businesspeople, merchants, engineers, doctors, religious leaders, students, and other professional occupations beginning in the mid-20th century and continuing to the present.
Indo-Caribbean people largely trace their ancestry back to the Bhojpur and Awadh regions of the Hindi Belt and the Bengal region in North India[16][17], in the present-day states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Bengal and Jharkhand, with a significant minority coming from the Madras Presidency, especially present-day Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Other notable regions of origin include Western Uttar Pradesh, Mithila, Magadh, Chota Nagpur, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Pashtunistan, Punjab, and Kashmir.[18][19] Most Indians in the French West Indies are of South Indian origin and Indians in Barbados are mostly of Bengali and Gujarati origin.[20] Later immigrants to the Caribbean came from Sindh, Kutch, Gujarat, Punjab, Bengal, Maharashtra, South India, and other parts of South Asia as free immigrants.[21]
Most Indo-Caribbean people live in the English-speaking Caribbean nations of Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and Guyana, the Dutch-speaking Suriname and the French overseas departments of Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana, with smaller numbers in other Caribbean countries including Belize and the islands of the Lesser Antilles. Large Indo-Caribbean immigrant populations are found in North America and Europe, specifically in the United States, the Netherlands, Canada, and the United Kingdom. These countries have some of the largest Indo-Caribbean populations in the world, and Indo-Caribbeans in these countries have largely congregated in urban areas such as New York City, The Hague, Toronto, Rotterdam, London, Miami/Fort Lauderdale/West Palm Beach, Orlando/Ocala, Houston, Birmingham, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Montreal, Schenectady/Albany, Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Manchester, Washington D.C., and Paris.
Indo-Caribbean people may also be referred to as Caribbean Indians, East Indian West Indians,[a] Caribbean Hindustanis, South Asian Caribbean people,[29] or Caribbean Desis,[30] while first-generation Indo-Caribbean people were called Girmitya, Desi, Hindustani, Kantraki, Mulki (m.) / Mulkin (f.),[31] or Jahaji (m.) / Jahajin (f.). Coolie, meaning hired laborer, was used in the plantation society of the late 19th to early 20th century, however in the present-day it is considered a derogatory way to refer to Indo-Caribbean people and is considered a pejorative.[32]
- ^ "TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO 2011 POPULATION AND HOUSING CENSUS DEMOGRAPHIC REPORT" (PDF). Guardian.co.tt. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 October 2017. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
- ^ "Final 2012 Census Compendium 2". July 2016.
- ^ a b c "Indo-Caribbean Times December 2007 - Kidnapping - Venezuela". Scribd. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
- ^ "Suriname Indians in the Netherlands – the Indian in Them Lives on".
- ^ "Statistiques ethniques". Insee.fr. Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE). Retrieved 24 June 2022.
- ^ "The World Factbook – Central Intelligence Agency". Cia.gov. Archived from the original on 24 January 2021. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
- ^ [1] mea.gov.in
- ^ [2] mea.gov.in
- ^ "Ethnic Groups - Cayman Islands Headline News" (PDF). Cayman Islands Ethnic Groups. 2022-02-25. Retrieved 2022-05-25.
- ^ [3] mea.gov.in
- ^ [4]
- ^ [5] mea.gov.in
- ^ Foreign Relation Bahamas
- ^ "Indo-Dominican Republic Relations". Indian Ministry of External Affairs.
- ^ [6] mea.gov.in
- ^ Dabydeen, David (1995-04-01). "A Passage From India". Caribbean Beat Magazine. Retrieved 2025-01-23.
- ^ "Misleide migranten". Caraïbisch Uitzicht (in Dutch). Retrieved 2025-01-23. [Most Hindustani indentured laborers in Suriname came from the north of British India, especially from (modern) Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal.]
- ^ "HISTORY OF MY PEOPLE: The Afghan Muslims of Guyana". www.islamawareness.net. Retrieved 2024-05-22.
- ^ Chickrie, Raymond (2007-08-17). "The Afghan Muslims of Guyana and Suriname - Caribbean Muslims". Retrieved 2024-05-22.
- ^ "who are the indo-caribbeans". Rajkumari Cultural Center. Retrieved 2024-05-22.
- ^ Duttagupta, Ishani (2013-02-11). "Feisty community of Indian origin entrepreneurs making its presence felt in Curacao". The Economic Times. ISSN 0013-0389. Retrieved 2024-10-30.
- ^ "Bedessee East West Indian Foods". New Times Broward-Palm Beach.
- ^ "SILAR'S EAST AND WEST FASHIONS". Visit Fort Lauderdale.
- ^ Wallace, David (24 February 1987). "TRINIDAD NATIVE'S GROCERY STORE CATERS TO HIS CUSTOMERS' CULTURES". Sun-Sentinel.
- ^ "New East & West Fashion". Yellowpages.com.
- ^ "D. Pokhai American East and West Indian Grocery". Chamberofcommerce.com.
- ^ "Homeland East & West Indian Supermarket". Yelp.
- ^ "Priyas East West Indian & Sri Lankan Grocery". Looktamil.
- ^ Venkatraman, Sakshi (6 October 2021). "Brown, Desi, South Asian: Diaspora reflects on the terms that represent, erase them". NBC News.
- ^ "Caribbean desis aren't feelin' the love | Sepia Mutiny".
- ^ Clarke, C. (24 May 2010). Post-Colonial Trinidad: An Ethnographic Journal. Springer. ISBN 9780230106857.
- ^ Gandhi, Lakshmi (25 November 2013). "A History of Indentured Labor Gives 'Coolie' Its Sting". NPR.
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