This paper uses debates about Indian migrant labour that took place in New South Wales in 1836–38 to problematize enduring tropes about indenture and the ‘typical’ Indian labour migrant, which have their roots in British anti-slavery discourse of the late 1830s. By juxtaposing abolitionist assumptions against ongoing debates about Indian labour migration in other parts of the British Empire, it explores the economic, political, and moral/ideological imperatives that underpinned the representation of indenture during this formative period. By placing metropolitan British anti-indenture literature alongside arguments for Indian migration made by settlers from the Australian periphery of empire, it explores the ways in which racial, imperial, and commercial discourses intersected in the representation of the so-called ‘hill coolie’ as the quintessential Indian labour migrant. In doing so, it seeks to destabilize persistent representations of the Indian migrant as passive victim of indenture and suggest a more complex set of identities and interactions.

中文翻译：

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“山苦力”：印度契约劳工和殖民想象，1836-38

本文利用 1836-38 年在新南威尔士州发生的关于印度移民劳工的辩论来质疑关于契约和“典型”印度劳工移民的经久不衰的比喻，这些比喻根源于 1830 年代后期的英国反奴隶制话语。通过将废奴主义假设与大英帝国其他地区正在进行的关于印度劳工移民的辩论并置，它探讨了在这个形成时期支撑契约表现的经济、政治和道德/意识形态要求。通过将大都市英国反契约文学与来自帝国边缘的澳大利亚定居者提出的印度移民论点放在一起，它探索了种族、帝国、在将所谓的“山地苦力”描绘成典型的印度劳工移民的过程中，商业话语相互交织。在这样做时，它试图破坏印度移民作为契约被动受害者的持续表现，并提出一套更复杂的身份和互动。