List of Ships to Fiji

Between 1879 and 1916, a total of 42 ships made 87 voyages, carrying Indian indentured labourers to Fiji. Initially, the ships brought labourers from Calcutta, but from 1903 all ships except two also brought labourers from Madras.

A total of 60,965 passengers left India but 60,553 (including births at sea) arrived in Fiji. A total of 45,439 boarded ships in Calcutta and 15,114 in Madras. Sailing ships took, on average, seventy-three days for the trip while steamers took 30 days. The shipping companies associated with the labour trade were Nourse Line and British-India Steam Navigation Company.

The most important man on these ships was the Surgeon-Superintendent, who supervised the medical care, ventilation, clothing, cleanliness and exercise of the passengers and his authority extended over the Captain. He inspected the stores before departure and reported on any defects during the trip. The Surgeon-Superintendent also intervened to prevent passengers from being mistreated by the crew. He was paid a bonus for each laborer landed alive.  The table below shows brief details of the two ships, Howrah and Rhone II.

From the early 1900s, Indians started arriving in Fiji as free agents. Many of these paid their own way and had previously served in Fiji or other British colonies or had been born in Fiji. Amongst the early free migrants, there were religious teachers, missionaries and at least one lawyer. The government and other employers brought clerks, policemen, artisans, gardeners, experienced agricultural workers, a doctor and a school teacher. Punjabi farmers and Gujarati craftsmen also paid their own way to Fiji and in later year years formed an influential minority amongst the Fiji Indians.

According to Clause 10 of each labourer’s indenture agreement:

10. After ten years continuous residence every Emigrant who was above the age of twelve on introduction to the Colony and who during that period has completed an industrial residence of five years, shall be entitled to a free-return passage if he claims it within two years after the completion of the ten years’ continuous residence. If the Emigrant was under twelve years of age when he was introduced into the colony, he will be entitled to a free return passage if he claims it before he reaches 24 years of age and fulfills the other conditions as to residence. A child of an Emigrant born within the colony will be entitled to a free return passage until he reaches the age of twelve, and must be accompanied on the voyage by his parents or guardian.

Due to the high cost involved in returning after only 5 years of servitude, of the indentured immigrants returning to India, most left Fiji under the free-return passage option 10–12 years after arrival. As the first ship carrying indentured Indians to Fiji “the Leonidas” arrived in 1879, the first ship to take Indians back “the British Peer” set sail just over 12 years after in 1892.

Given the steady influx of ships carrying indentured Indians to Fiji up until 1916, repatriated Indians generally boarded these same ships on their return voyage 10-15 days after arrival.

The total number of repatriates under the Fiji indenture system is recorded as 39,261, while the number of arrivals is said to have been 60,553. As a proportion, this works out to be 64.8% which appears quite high.

However, this figure includes children born in Fiji so the actual percentage is significantly lower.

After 1951 return voyages by ship ceased and arrangements were made for flights from Sydney to Bombay, the first of which departed in July 1955. Ship charter was however organised for Fiji to Sydney leg of the journey.