Many are probably aware of the first lot of Indian indentured labourers arriving on board the Leonidas destined for sugarcane plantations in Fiji.
But there is much more to this famous journey 135 years ago.
In fact, extraordinarily, there were five iTaukei men who also made the long voyage over from Calcutta.
The men, who had somehow found themselves thousands of miles away in the Indian sub-continent, had been desperate to get back to Fiji.
They managed to eventually find their passage back to their homeland on board the Leonidas which brought the first wave of Indian labourers to our shores.
These men, who were from Kadavu, have been the subject of a paper published in the Journal of Pacific History by University of the South Pacific (USP) academic Professor Sudesh Mishra who stumbled across their case while reading a book on Fiji’s Indian Migrants by KL Gillion.
In the book, Gillion remarked on five Fijians who travelled with the first batch of Indian coolies from Calcutta to Fiji in 1879.
They left Calcutta on March 3 and arrived in Fiji on May 14 carrying 373 male and 149 female labourers.
“These men were recruited to work as topazes, or menials answerable to the ship’s surgeon, aboard the ship Leonidas, in exchange for a passage home,” writes Mishra, who is Head of USP’s School of Languages, Arts and Media.
“While Gillion fails to dwell on the presence in Calcutta of these Islanders from the South Seas, his provocative aside troubles the popular view of Fijians as sedentary subjects of a colonial policy that discouraged the disruption of traditional life-worlds,” he remarks.
Prof Mishra points out that the presence of the men in India calls into question the general perception that girmit or “indentured service” was an exclusively Indian affair.
“Although they were not indentured to colonial plantations, the Islanders shared with the coolies the micro-political spaces of the depot, the ship and the quarantine station.”
The five iTaukei also participated in the regimes and regulations of the indenture system.
“These Fijians,” says Mishra, “unsettle two distinct accounts of history by not conforming to either. They furnish another instance of Islander mobility in the time of modernity.”
Prof Mishra remarks that his intention to write a paper on the five iTaukei who travelled with the first shipment of Indian workers to Fiji in 1879 was, in some quarters, treated with outright scepticism.
“The scepticism irked me at first, as I had irrefutable archival proof in my possession, but then I started to wonder at the assumption behind the disbelief.
“It struck me that the doubters were incapable of imagining their forefathers as mobile subjects of a past that cast them as characters in a history both fixed and monumentalised.”
Prof Mishra says it has always been presumed that “all the uprooting and voyaging was done by sullen coolies, rascally colonials and gullible kanakas.”
Supposedly “those famously sheltered subjects of an experimental colonial policy — the iTaukei or indigenous Fijians — did not have cause or means or the inclination to venture beyond the vanua (landed unit) and the dalo patch”.
He adds that the men opened a “crack…in the neat history of the iTaukei as grounded subjects of colonial paternalism”.
It is also, he points out, “impossible to commemorate the voyage of the Leonidas in exclusively Indian terms.”
The five iTaukei men are figures of an exception.
“They exist inside/outside two major events, namely, late 19th century Fijian history and the history of Indian indentured labour.”
According to Prof Mishra, the Leonidas Fijians were not the only iTaukei to have made the voyage to India in the 1870s. When in 1877, Governor Arthur Gordon sent his envoy, Charles Mitchell to Calcutta to seek permission from the Government of India to recruit coolie workers, he took along with him a native man servant.
The voyage of the Leonidas was arranged, under official instruction, by another Mitchell, Robert WS, who was the emigration agent for Fiji.
“It was his responsibility to attract tenders from shipping companies to draw up a charter party, to appoint the surgeon superintendent and formally to contract compounders (mixers of medicine), interpreters and topazes.
“In addition, he had oversight with respect to the purchase of suitable stores and provisions — food, water, clothing, medicine, livestock and recreational articles — for a journey lasting 70 days.
“The bill of lading for the Leonidas is a fascinating exercise in micro-history, as it documents the transhipment of cultural and culinary effects that continue to feature prominently in contemporary life-worlds.”
Aboard the Leonidas were food supplies such as dhal (urhur, gram, moong and muskullie), flour, turmeric powder, chilli, ghee, potato, coriander, garlic, tamarind, sheep, onion, pumpkin, dried fish, brandy, suji, mustard seed and black pepper.
The ship also carried dhoti, saris, packs of sindoor (red cosmetic powder) for married women, woollen trousers, flannel jackets, blankets and caps assigned to the recruits to keep them warm on the trip.
Recreational objects like the dholak (hand drum), hookah and chillum (pipes) along with an amount of tobacco and opium were also transhipped.
“It also merits noting that the stock masala used in Indo-Fijian households is a direct legacy of the standardisation of spices in the ration culture of depots, ships and plantations.”
“On the lookout for candidates to fill the positions stipulated by law, Mitchell stumbled upon five Fijians waiting patiently in the Trinidad Depot in full view of the River Hugli.”
Mitchell had made arrangements to use the Trinidad Depot for the Fiji-bound recruits.
And apparently the men had become trilingual, probably out of necessity.
“We can infer from their prior presence in the depot that the Fijians were not unaware of the impending voyage to Fiji — an inference reinforced by their knowledge … of English and Hindustani.”
But why the five iTaukei men were in India in the first place is a mystery.
“Mitchell’s letter to the colonial secretary sheds no light on the purpose of the men’s Indian sojourn (perhaps because Calcutta was, by then, at the centre of global maritime traffic), but it does tell us something about their moral fibre,” comments Mishra.
The five were subsequently engaged as topazes and thus provided with return passages to the Colony free of expense.
One of the men showed extraordinary honesty prior to boarding the Leonidas.
“… finding himself unwell a few days previous to the sailing of the vessel, he declined to receive any advance of wages, lest he should be unable to earn it afterwards on board, although his outfit for the voyage depended mainly on obtaining this advance,” reads part of Mitchell’s letter to the Colonial Secretary.
Along with the opportunities for socialisation, given their proximity to the Indians and their knowledge of Hindi, they would have been exposed to the same regulatory mechanisms involving a “routine of meals, inspections, documentation and the issue of kit”.
An important codifying legal apparatus was the agreement form that they eventually signed.
“A material symbol of coolie servitude was the thumbprint on the emigration pass,” said Mishra.
“The passes were handed over to the ship’s master as the coolies boarded the vessel via the gangplank.
“Hired topazes were issued different contracts, but the process, and no doubt the experience, was fundamentally the same.
“The Leonidas Fijians — and we can only imagine this uncanny moment in history — pressed their inked thumbs to the Topaz’s Instructions and Agreement form at approximately the same time as the Leonidas Indians were smudging their passes. All this took place in the month of February 1879, on the grounds of No. 9 Garden Reach.”
Formal documentation was an important feature of colonial policy for reasons of evidence, bureaucratic record and consultation among parties situated in three or more far-flung locations.
“It was the emigration agent’s duty to keep the colonial secretary apprised of all transactions taken on behalf of the importing colony.
Among the documents Robert Mitchell submitted to J.B. Thurston was a report on the tender taken for a suitable vessel, the hiring of assorted personnel, the engineer surveyor’s certificate, list of sirdars, cooks and nurses, the purchase of supplies and a statement on the departure of the Leonidas.
Papers of the Colonial Secretary’s Office held in the National Archives of Fiji include a copy of the agreement signed by the topazes.
As the forms were specifically prepared for those bound for the West Indies, the emigration agent had to pen in the amendments manually.
The single sheet, dated 25 February 1879, reveals the following names in Mitchell’s rolling cursive: Sonia, Tom, Billi, George and Johnee.
The men, according to the terms of their employment, were under the exclusive command of the surgeon superintendent, Dr Inman Welsh.
Each of them was paid 20 rupees at the start of the voyage and one pound sterling at its termination.
Apart from their excellent timing in selecting the Trinidad Depot, the Fijians were fortunate in other respects.
They were the correct number in terms of the legal stipulation regarding the ratio of topaz to coolie: 1 to 100. The ship carried 498 bodies (of which 273 were men, 146 women, 42 boys, 20 girls and 17 infants) and had to, by law, engage the services of five topazes or mehters.
The maritime topaz was responsible for the general cleanliness aboard ships under instruction from the surgeon superintendent.
Ship topazes had to be able to communicate with the coolies, and the Fijians appeared to have some knowledge of Hindustani.
An additional factor in their favour was Dr Inman Welsh. The surgeon superintendent was opposed to the employment of coolies as topazes and wanted the latter placed on the ship’s articles.
Doubtless this was because a number of recruits refused to perform any work that violated their caste injunctions. It is more than likely that Dr Welsh’s view influenced the engagement of the iTaukei.
“The surgeon superintendent of the ship Zenobia, returning to Madras from Mauritius in 1880,complained that he had enormous trouble in getting the cooks and topazes to work.”
At any rate, the five men were duly recruited and placed in the regulatory micro-political assemblage of the coolie ship.
Academic Prof Brij Lal in Chalo Jahaji, provides a visual account of a normal day aboard the Leonidas:
“A typical day began at 6am when the migrants rose, arranged their bedding and breakfasted between 8 and 8.30am while between decks was being cleaned by topazes.
The men helped draw water for cooking and drinking, while women worked in the kitchen, although food itself was cooked by bhandarries appointed by the Surgeon Superintendent.
When not working, migrants were encouraged to enjoy themselves by wrestling, playing cards, singing, playing drums, to prevent depression and melancholy.
The voyage fostered a sense of community among the migrants, irrespective of their social position in India: they were “coolies” all.
The topazes would have slept between decks with the single men, ate the same fare as the coolies and observed routine by performing their assigned tasks as cleaners.
In his classified summary of significant events on board the ship, Dr Welsh notes that the ‘Sirdars and Topazes worked well, but of course required sharp lookingafter”.
Mitchell’s report to the colonial secretary makes two further references to the Leonidas Fijians.
They appear on the list of sirdars, cooks, topazes and nurses and in the official notification of the departure of the vessel for Levuka.
The references are vital in that they register, in four of the five cases, the men’s surnames as derived from their fathers, partly dispelling the reservations one might have with respect to their provenance as a result of the Anglicisation of their names.
It pays to remember that Fijian names in this period were habitually distorted and mispronounced because of a lack of familiarity and standardisation. The names, in any event, appear in the following order: Sonia f/n Chaipus; Tom f/n Machua; Bill f/n Toma; George f/n unknown; Johnee f/n Illimatama.
According to the academic, there are no further references to the men in official records until after the ship’s arrival in Fiji on May 14, 1879.
“It turned out to be far from an eventless homecoming. Smallpox had broken out on board a few days after the Leonidas hauled anchor and sailed into the Bay of Bengal, followed by dysentery and the dreaded cholera.
Seventeen lives had been lost on the voyage, and several more were to be lost in quarantine.
Thurston went out in the yacht Victoria to meet the stricken vessel.
Because of the threat of disease the coolies together with the five topazes were placed in quarantine at Yanuca Lailai Island, between Moturiki and Ovalau.
It was must have been agonising for the Fiji men not being able to go home, despite being within touching distance.
“So tantalisingly close to home and familiar life-worlds, the topazes were sent into quarantine with the coolies,” Mishra writes.
“For the third time in the course of their journey from Calcutta, the men were placed inside a regulatory micro-political arena that had the effect, as I have argued elsewhere, of producing a new kind of subject and subjectivity.”
“Although never exposed to hard plantation labour in the manner of the Indians, an inference we can draw from the terms of their employment, they were co-sharers in and witnesses to an event in modernity known as girmit.”
“In other words, they too were exemplary subaltern subjects of 19th-century history, moved hither and thither by colonial forms of surplus accumulation. Their lowly status, swappable with that of the coolie, as insinuated in their contract, rendered them jahajis or shipmates in that landmark voyage.”
On August 15, 1879, The Fiji Argus carried a report on the men.
“Six Kadavu natives returned to Fiji by the Leonidas, after spending several years rambling about the world. They proceeded to the colonies by one of the mail steamers that used formerly to call in at Galoa Bay.
“From Sydney they proceeded to America, from there to India, and returned as above.
“During their absence they have picked up English and Hindustani and by their countrymen are looked upon with considerable estimation.
“The stories they will now be able to spin to their friends about papalagi lands will, among the Fijians, be as wonderful as the Arabian Nights.
“Though they have not had bad times of it abroad, they profess to be very glad to return to Fiji again.”
“The Fiji Argus tells us that the men had roamed about the world for several years and spoke English as well as Hindustani,” comments Prof Mishra.
“The second assertion has to be predicated on the first. The acquisition of a new language takes time, sometimes considerable lengths of time.
“We can infer from the men’s familiarity with Hindustani and English that they had been detained for protracted periods in the company of native speakers whether on land or ship.”
“Certainly, ships of this period were often crewed by Indian lascars. It is impossible to know exactly how long they stayed in Sydney or California or Calcutta, but obviously long enough to have acquired a working knowledge of local language systems.”
The Fiji Argus notes that the men were picked up by a mail steamer in the Bay of Galoa in Kadavu and made their way to Sydney. From Sydney, they went to America and thence to India, returning to Fiji on May 14, 1879 aboard the Leonidas,” remarks Mishra.
“Galoa was a cosmopolitan hub for several years and the locals were accustomed to a variety of sojourning ships and transiting passengers. It seems perfectly logical in the context of this background for the Leonidas Fijians to have hailed from Kadavu,” he explains.
Moreover on July 3, 1874, The Sydney Morning Herald published a news article entitled ‘The Cruise of the Mikado’ R.M.S. Mikado was a steamboat that plied the San Francisco-Sydney route via Honolulu and Kadavu.
The article goes onto describe how at “the request of the native chief, the Mikado took on board four natives of Kadavu. Two were employed in the engineer’s department and two among the crew.”
A few months later, in an open letter urging Commodore James C. Goodenough to distinguish native crew from unlicensed native labourers, George R. Dibbs, secretary of the New South Wales Shipowners’ Association, cites, in support of his case, “six natives of Kadavu, sent here by the native chief” on the Mikado.
While approaching all these newspaper reports with some caution, Mishra observes: “It is worth noting that the Mikado Fijians were on the correct path to chart the route described so vividly in The Fiji Argus.”
Two months after arriving in Fiji, the girmityas and the five Kadavu men were allowed to leave Yanuca Lailai and permitted entry into Levuka.
Prof Mishra concludes his account with the remark:
“Thereafter, these witnesses and subjects of colonial modernity simply disappeared from recorded history, but not without posing some sharp questions both with respect to the exclusivist history of indenture and with regard to the philosophy of gradualism that contributed to a sheltered, sedentary view of late 19th century Fijians.
“One would like to imagine that these exemplary cosmopolitans returned to Kadavu, spun endless tales of strange cities around the kava bowl, and, occasionally, had dreams in English as well as Hindustani.”
Prof Mishra wants to take his research further by collecting oral accounts, if any exist, of these five remarkable travellers from Kadavu.
It will go some way toward shedding further light on the amazing voyage of these men.
The journey of the Leonidas Fijians should change long-held perceptions of Fijians as being confined to their land because of government policy of that era and of girmit as being an exclusively Indian affair.
