Harris, Karen Leigh2014-06-122013Karen Leigh Harris (2013) Indentured “coolie” labours in South Africa: the Indian and Chinese schemes in comparative perspective, Diaspora Studies, 6:2, 92-102, DOI: 10.1080/09739572.2013.853440.0973-9572 (print )0976-3457 (online)10.1080/09739572.2013.853440http://hdl.handle.net/2263/40116This article is partway based on two papers presented at the GOPIO conference held in 2010 and the ODI conference held in 2013 and is a reworked version of parts of an article published in the Journal of Social Sciences, vol. 11, 2010.In twenty-first century South Africa, the Indian and Chinese populations are both classified as minority groups. However, in British colonial South Africa of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, these two communities comprised key components in the burgeoning agricultural and mining sectors, respectively. This article particularly revisits this period to compare the two systems introduced to import and indenture 1,52,184 Indians into the Colony of Natal between 1860 and 1911 and 63,695 Chinese into the Transvaal Colony between 1904 and 1910. While these two labour schemes did not serve a similar sector and were not directly coterminous, it will be shown that a comparison of their differing features shows how the one predicated the other. Moreover, it will be argued that the disparity between the two schemes partly contributes to an explanation of the different places these two diasporic “Asian” communities ultimately occupied in later South African history.en© 2013 Organisation for Diaspora Initiatives, New Delhi. This is an electronic version of an article published in Diaspora Studies, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 92-102, 2013. doi : 10.1080/09739572.2013.853440. Diaspora Studies is available online at : http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rdst20IndentureIndiansChineseColony of NatalTransvaal ColonyPostprint Article