Indian South Africans: The story of indentured labourers

Indian South Africans: The story of indentured labourers




Durban, South Africa is home to the largest concentration of Indians outside India. Today the diversity within the coastal city is celebrated, but it was not always that way. For centuries, Indians were taken to South Africa as slaves and indentured slaves. Indians spent years living under strict rules stripping them of their rights and freedoms. As Nelson Mandela became an icon for freedom and justice for Black South Africans in the mid-to-late 20th century, there was a similarly popular figure who travelled from India to the African nation half a century earlier to become an icon for indentured labourers.