A British Labor Settlement Experiment and the Socioeconomic Experience of the Chuah Tamil Settlement in British Malaya
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-1-2024
Abstract
We explore the socioeconomic experience of a group of south Indian Tamil laborers and their families who established the Chuah Tamil agricultural settlement in British Malaya during the Great Depression. These were laborers who, though unemployed, refused to be repatriated to south India. Progressing from subsistence farming to small-scale agricultural production, their settlement evolved into an organized, socioeconomic system. It was also a critical field experiment for the British to assess the viability of a self-generating labor pool. In this article, we examine the social history of the settlers and the development of the Chuah Tamil colony within the context of Britain's overarching desire to create a labor source. Our study contributes to the reconciliation of microsocial history and colonialism, as well as to global labor history more broadly, by situating the settlers' experience and the settlement itself in relation to historical contemporaries.
Keywords
Tamil laborers, settlement, land colonization, Great Depression, Federated Malay States, British Malaya
Divisions
History
Publication Title
International Labor and Working-Class History
Volume
105
Issue
SI
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Publisher Location
EDINBURGH BLDG, SHAFTESBURY RD, CB2 8RU CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND