02/06/2026
Question: Did your Indian indentured labourer ancestors receive five acres of land after their contracts had ended?
It is widely believed Indian indentured labourers received five acres of land upon completion of their five or ten year work contracts. This notion that “Indians geh land” is often used to downplay the injustices of Indian indentureship. But did everyone get land? Let us look at Trinidad as an example. Scholars like Dr. Rhoda Reddock and Dr. Bridget Brereton from Trinidad and Tobago have noted that between 1869 and 1880 East Indian men (not women) upon completion of contracts were granted five acres of crown land in return for forfeiting repatriation back to India. Returning to India was not always an assured right for those who were interested. There was no guarantee they would be taken back to India and not dropped off somewhere along the way or perhaps brought to a place in India that was not their original point of departure. Many had no way of navigating themselves to their ancestral villages or establishing contact with relatives who had been left behind. In total 2,643 adult men received 19,055 acres of Crown Land under the scheme mentioned by Reddock and Brereton. Much of this was lower quality land, far from resources, closer to the sugar estates, and had poor access roads. While Indian indentureship lasted for 72 years from 1845 to 1917, there was only an 11 year period where land was given to some. Between 1880 to 1920, more Crown Land was opened up for purchase to adult men of different ethnic groups and the select minority with money who had been residing in Trinidad for a while were able to expand their land holdings. These were often the persons who had streets and/or traces named after them. But just how many of our families got those five acres of land? There are plenty Indians from Caroni, in central Trinidad, who were granted a couple lots of land which is less than one acre let alone five acres. This land was also leased, needing to be renewed every one hundred years, and therefore Indians do not technically own it. There are so many who were not able to accumulate wealth through land and some who ended up as beggars in the capital Port of Spain after their contacts.
📸: East Indian Women, Men and Children. Trinidad and Tobago. Circa 1890-1896. Felix Morin. DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University.
Sources: Dates and figures referenced from Dr. Rhoda Reddock’s article “Understanding ourselves: Confronting shame, blame and internalised racisms: Reimagining the future?” (2021) in Stabroek News.
