A breath of fresh air

chowkedars (watchmen/ guards), and which was unknown to any of us till too late to remedy it.”

He continued, “They had as many Coolies down between decks as they could get, and then would not allow them to come up without paying for it. In the case of the man who died, the chowkedar (whose name I could not learn) had made him pay one rupee for going upon deck, and when he came down again, complaining of illness, not only would not allow him to go up (to the water closet) when he wanted to but prevented his case from being mentioned either to myself or any of the officers. The consequence was, that very violent inflammation of the bowels came on, and the poor fellow was confined there in a state of great misery for 10 or 12 hours, till it was discovered by mere accident; it was, however, too late to reduce the inflammation, he being speechless, and dying rapidly. I have given you the account thus fully, that in case you should send more Coolies away, you may take measures to prevent the like happening again; and I think the chowkedar, whose name you can learn from the others, richly deserves some punishment, and I told him that he might expect it when he got back.”

Richmond added, “I made him refund back the money gained in this way, as well as the others, and gave it to the men who were cheated out of it.”

Initial confusion surfaced in India, over which ship Gopaul died on. An early activist, the clergyman Thomas Boaz, a minister of the Union Chapel in Calcutta would courageously speak out against the abuses. Consequently he would pen a public letter, read out an AntiSlavery public meeting in London about the “Hesperus” suffocation death of the unknown man, later published in full in the Calcutta journals, setting off a campaign and commission of enquiry that led to a temporary ban in Indian labour export.

ID reads the Reverend’s views that the whole of the ‘Hill people’ who “are lively and happy” had “no conception of a sea voyage, or of where they were going” unlike the “low country people” who “seemed to understand perfectly what they were about” and “had no objection to go.” He argued, “It is contrary to the habits of the people of India to leave their own country; and this is more particularly the case with the Hill Coolies, who are supposed to be the aborigines.”