From 1600s to 1840s slavery of Indians existed as they were forcibly removed from their families and made to work in different parts of the empire. Yale, founder of Yale University was initially the Governor of Madras Presidency (Tamilnadu, Kerala, Southern Karnataka, AP, Telengana and Southern Odisa.)
"In 1687 (Yale’s first year as Governor), however, the trade was sanctioned under regulation, a duty of one pagoda being exacted for each slave sent from Madras by sea.” In September that year, 665 slaves were exported, giving an idea of the trade. The next year, the export of slaves was prohibited. The Council’s policy kept chopping and changing till, in 1790, the Council “resolved that any Traffic in the sale or purchase of Slaves be prohibited by public Proclamation”. https://www.thehindu.com/society/history-and-culture/the-dark-secret-of-elihu-yale/article17375815.ece
Slavery was removed by the 1843 Indian Slavery Act by the British. After this, you would think they would stop but the British found a way around it, calling it indentured labour. In French, Portuguese, German and Dutch occupied parts of the Indian subcontinent, slavery continued. All of this lasted till early 1920s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_indenture_system
I was told by a former Fijian who ancestors were from India, that the British East India Company changed their last names to Bahadur, irrespective of which part of the subcontinent they came from to keep track of the slaves and indentured laborers - work without pay. Only overseers from Uttar Pradesh, not all of them were allowed to keep their surnames.
Rushcourt71 
19-3-2021 05:26 AM