After the British Empire abolished slavery in 1833 with the Slavery Abolition Act, East Indian indentured laborers were brought to the British Empire’s colonies to work their sugar and rubber plantations, many of which were located in the Caribbean.
Asians, primarily Indians, Chinese and Indonesians, were recruited, often under false pretenses, and transported to the ‘New World’.
This new system of forced labour in many ways resembled enslavement. Organized with a considerable level of fraud and violence by colonial governments, it enabled farm and plantation owners access to and control of a large pool of low-cost wage laborers for the agri-industry. According to British abolitionist George Thompson in an address to the House of Commons in the 1880s about indentureship, “The system of emigration has been false, and to attempt to carry it out extensively would only be to create a new slave trade under the false colors and a modified description.”
Cannabis, which had been in use in India as early as 2000 BCE, was introduced to the island of Jamaica by the East Indian indentured laborers in the 1850s to 1860s during the time of British rule.
The indentured all started out as agricultural workers and domestic servants, often working alongside enslaved Africans and later the formerly enslaved Africans, who in seeking to survive after being freed from slavery, opted for or were driven into indentureship.
Cannabis was eventually adopted as Jamaican folk medicine as Jamaican Africans grew to view cannabis as a beneficial substance, imbued with spiritual and religious properties. The prolonged use of cannabis was thought to build up a workers strength and enabled them to work harder, faster and longer.
Many of the terms used in cannabis culture in Jamaica are based on East Indian terms, including the term ganja. “Ganja,” the preferred moniker for cannabis, is a Hindi word passed down from Sanskrit – “gāñjā” means “hemp” or “hemp resin.”
With the emergence of the religious Rastafarian culture in Jamaica, the culture of cannabis or as it is known in Jamaica, “the holy herb”, was cemented. Rastafarians regularly use cannabis spiritually during ceremonies as a meditation aid.
In Jamaica, Ganja tea, drawn from the young, green plant is commonly drunk by young and old as a form of medicine.
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