Indo-Caribbean people or Indian-Caribbean people are people in the Caribbean who trace their ancestry to the Indian subcontinent. They are descendants of the Jahaji indentured laborers from British India, who were brought by the British, Dutch, and French during the colonial era from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century. A minority of them are descendants from people who immigrated as entrepreneurs, businesspeople, merchants, engineers, doctors, religious leaders, students, and other professional occupations beginning in the mid-20th century.
Indo-Caribbean people largely trace their ancestry back to the Bhojpur and Awadh regions of the Hindi Belt in North India, in the present-day states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand, with a significant minority coming from the South Indian regions, mostly present-day Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Other notable regions of origin may include Bengal, Western Uttar Pradesh, Mithila, Magadh, Chota Nagpur, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Pashtunistan, Punjab, and Kashmir.[15][16] Most of the Indians in the French West Indies are of South Indian origin.[17] Later immigrants to the Caribbean came from Sindh, Kutch, Gujarat, Punjab, Bengal, Maharashtra, South India, and other parts of South Asia as free immigrants.
Most Indo-Caribbean people live in the English-speaking Caribbean nations, the Dutch-speaking Suriname and the French overseas departments of Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana, with smaller numbers in other Caribbean countries and, following further migration, in North America and Europe.
Indo-Caribbean people may also be referred to as Caribbean Indians, East Indian West Indians,[a] Caribbean Hindustanis, South Asian Caribbean people,[25] or Caribbean Desis,[26] while first-generation Indo-Caribbean people were called Girmitya, Desi, Hindustani, Kantraki, Mulki (m.) / Mulkin (f.),[27] or Jahaji (m.) / Jahajin (f.). Coolie, meaning hired laborer, was used in the plantation society of the late 19th to early 20th century, however in the present-day it is considered a derogatory way to refer to Indo-Caribbean people and is considered a pejorative.[28]
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