Coolie Woman

The Odyssey of Indenture

Nonfiction, History, Asian, India, Americas, Biography & Memoir
Cover of the book Coolie Woman by Gaiutra Bahadur, University of Chicago Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Gaiutra Bahadur ISBN: 9780226043388
Publisher: University of Chicago Press Publication: November 1, 2013
Imprint: University of Chicago Press Language: English
Author: Gaiutra Bahadur
ISBN: 9780226043388
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication: November 1, 2013
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Language: English

In 1903, a young woman sailed from India to Guiana as a “coolie”—the British name for indentured laborers who replaced the newly emancipated slaves on sugar plantations all around the world. Pregnant and traveling alone, this woman, like so many coolies, disappeared into history. Now, in Coolie Woman, her great-granddaughter Gaiutra Bahadur embarks on a journey into the past to find her. Traversing three continents and trawling through countless colonial archives, Bahadur excavates not only her great-grandmother’s story but also the repressed history of some quarter of a million other coolie women, shining a light on their complex lives.

Shunned by society, and sometimes in mortal danger, many coolie women were either runaways, widows, or outcasts. Many of them left husbands and families behind to migrate alone in epic sea voyages—traumatic “middle passages”—only to face a life of hard labor, dismal living conditions, and, especially, sexual exploitation. As Bahadur explains, however, it is precisely their sexuality that makes coolie women stand out as figures in history. Greatly outnumbered by men, they were able to use sex with their overseers to gain various advantages, an act that often incited fatal retaliations from coolie men and sometimes larger uprisings of laborers against their overlords. Complex and unpredictable, sex was nevertheless a powerful tool.

Examining this and many other facets of these remarkable women’s lives, Coolie Woman is a meditation on survival, a gripping story of a double diaspora—from India to the West Indies in one century, Guyana to the United States in the next—that is at once a search for one’s roots and an exploration of gender and power, peril and opportunity.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

In 1903, a young woman sailed from India to Guiana as a “coolie”—the British name for indentured laborers who replaced the newly emancipated slaves on sugar plantations all around the world. Pregnant and traveling alone, this woman, like so many coolies, disappeared into history. Now, in Coolie Woman, her great-granddaughter Gaiutra Bahadur embarks on a journey into the past to find her. Traversing three continents and trawling through countless colonial archives, Bahadur excavates not only her great-grandmother’s story but also the repressed history of some quarter of a million other coolie women, shining a light on their complex lives.

Shunned by society, and sometimes in mortal danger, many coolie women were either runaways, widows, or outcasts. Many of them left husbands and families behind to migrate alone in epic sea voyages—traumatic “middle passages”—only to face a life of hard labor, dismal living conditions, and, especially, sexual exploitation. As Bahadur explains, however, it is precisely their sexuality that makes coolie women stand out as figures in history. Greatly outnumbered by men, they were able to use sex with their overseers to gain various advantages, an act that often incited fatal retaliations from coolie men and sometimes larger uprisings of laborers against their overlords. Complex and unpredictable, sex was nevertheless a powerful tool.

Examining this and many other facets of these remarkable women’s lives, Coolie Woman is a meditation on survival, a gripping story of a double diaspora—from India to the West Indies in one century, Guyana to the United States in the next—that is at once a search for one’s roots and an exploration of gender and power, peril and opportunity.

More books from University of Chicago Press

Cover of the book A World More Concrete by Gaiutra Bahadur
Cover of the book Aeschylus I by Gaiutra Bahadur
Cover of the book The Ambitious Elementary School by Gaiutra Bahadur
Cover of the book Tax Policy and the Economy by Gaiutra Bahadur
Cover of the book Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe by Gaiutra Bahadur
Cover of the book Manliness and Civilization by Gaiutra Bahadur
Cover of the book Kant's Organicism by Gaiutra Bahadur
Cover of the book Habitual Offenders by Gaiutra Bahadur
Cover of the book Red Revolution, Green Revolution by Gaiutra Bahadur
Cover of the book The Fullness of Time by Gaiutra Bahadur
Cover of the book Singing in the Age of Anxiety by Gaiutra Bahadur
Cover of the book Doctoring Traditions by Gaiutra Bahadur
Cover of the book Outbreak by Gaiutra Bahadur
Cover of the book The Blackbird by Gaiutra Bahadur
Cover of the book A Land of Milk and Butter by Gaiutra Bahadur
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy