Cuba was a Spanish colony when it began importing indentured labour. The colony had been of relatively minor economic importance until an influx of capital and knowledge from French planters fleeing the Haitian revolution allowed the Cuban planters to fully develop Cuba’s potential. They helped to develop the island’s large and fertile tracts of land, specifically for sugar production. Cuba’s productivity was also aided by the proximity of the North American market and capital investments, and most of its exports became directed to the United States rather than to Spain as its economy developed. The labour required for such development originally came from slaves, and slavery persisted in Cuba until 1886. However, other sources of labour were sought before the end of slavery, including a small number of Mayan prisoners from Mexico under ten-year bonds. The most important source of contract labour, however, came from China, where from 1847 until 1873, over 120,000 were employed on the island. From 1901 to 1924, another 18,000 Chinese indentured workers entered Cuba after China lifted its ban on emigration. Planters looked to China largely because the cost of indentured Chinese workers was less than that of African slaves. Labourers in Cuba worked primarily in the sugar industry and in other plantation crops such as coffee, tobacco, and rubber, but also worked on the British-financed railroads.

Conditions in Cuba for Chinese indentured labourers were often extremely harsh. They were generally forced to work long hours, were inadequately fed, suffered beatings which could be crippling or fatal, and were often coerced into renewing their contracts, abuses which led to the Chinese taking action to halt the movement of Chinese to the island. From 1861, Chinese workers in Cuba were forced to either return home or to accept another term of indenture after the end of their first term. Since few Chinese had the resources to afford return passage, most were forced to continue working, usually for another eight-year term. Efforts to remedy the worst abuses were largely ineffectual as local governments tended to side more with the economic needs of planters than with those of the labourers. As one historian has noted; “it is not surprising that the provisions of the law which sought to protect the Chinese labourer from personal abuse and injustices were ignored or violated with impunity.” Despite these difficulties, the system in Cuba generally improved after the 1870’s with the institution of several important reforms, and official supervision began to take effect.

British planters in the Caribbean were also looking abroad for labour after the abolition of the slave trade. Planters here, however, were faced with other problems in addition to lack of labour. Years of harvesting in Jamaica had depleted the soil and resulted in lower sugar yields for the island. In response, England began looking to other colonies to supply much-demanded luxury crops, colonies such as the island of Trinidad, and Mauritius in the Indian Ocean [map], which began outproducing the older island of Jamaica during this period. Because of this shift in focus, considerably more labour was channelled into Trinidad and Mauritius, especially from India, where British planters first looked to fill their labour needs. Although the importation of labour into Mauritius was initially very high, a great enough population of resident labourers, as well as lowered demand for Mauritian sugar after its initial boom, resulted in a decreased need for new imports. On the other hand, almost 145,000 Indians were indentured to work in Trinidad, 120,000 of whom had arrived by 1850, whereas there were only 36,000 Indians indentured in Jamaica and just over 10,000 employed in other British Caribbean colonies. Sugar production in Trinidad increased from 1850 to 1880 by almost 300 per cent, due in large part to the numbers of indentured labourers employed, as well as better technology and more efficient farming techniques. By the turn of the century, ex-indentured Indians living in Trinidad outnumbered their indentured countrymen, and the British government offered many Indians crown lands in lieu of a return passage to India, and so brought into cultivation even more unsettled land.

In 1850, British West Indian planters began importing Chinese labourers, sought after because they were perceived as superior workers, although their numbers never reached the level of labour from India. Only 1,100 Chinese labourers entered Jamaica under indenture, and just over 2,500 entered Trinidad. Other sources of labour into the British Caribbean included small numbers of Europeans, and significantly larger numbers of African labour, although as in other colonies this latter group became less viable as the slave trade drew to a close and the numbers of recaptured slaves declined. Over 11,000 Africans went to Jamaica, and over 18,000 to Trinidad during the period of indentured labour, as opposed to just 4,500 and 900 Europeans, respectively.

Conditions throughout the French Caribbean were similar to those which existed in French Guiana, and planters turned initially to direct access to British labour markets in India to alleviate labour shortages on their plantations. The British, however, were reluctant to concede such access, fearing that the rights of the Indians, now under their care, would be compromised. Long negotiations with the British left the French looking to other areas for much-needed labour. Subsidised French migrants and indentured Madeiran workers were initially sought, but insufficient numbers due to the fact that such migrants would receive no long-term benefits from their move forced the French to turn elsewhere. From their small coastal establishment at Pondicherry, in India, they recruited some Indian labour, and looked also to China and to their colonies in Africa to augment their work force. Although the indenturing of Africans was viewed by contemporaries as little different than a continuation of the slave trade, African imports to the French colonies rose in numbers, to a high of 10,000 in 1858, due to a reduction in the numbers of available labourers from India. As previously mentioned, abuses with the African system prompted the British to allow the French into British Indian markets in 1862. The French were allowed to engage workers in five-year periods of indenture (longer than British contracts), but had to ensure free return passage at the end of that time. As well as facing shortages of labour, the French sugar planters in the Caribbean also had to contend with increased competition from sugar beet production in France, as well as the development of other French colonies such as Madagascar.