Indo-Caribbean people

Indo-Caribbean or Indian-Caribbean people are people from the Caribbean who trace their ancestry to the Indian subcontinent. They are descendants of the Jahaji indentured laborers from British India, who were brought by the British, Dutch, and French during the colonial era from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century.

Indo-Caribbean people largely trace their ancestry back to the Bhojpur and Awadh regions of the Hindi Belt and the Bengal region in North India, in the present-day states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Bengal and Jharkhand, with a significant minority coming from the Madras Presidency in South India, especially present-day Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Other notable regions of origin include Western Uttar Pradesh, Mithila, Magadh, Chota Nagpur, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Pashtunistan, Punjab, Sindh, Kutch, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Kashmir. Most Indians in the French West Indies are of South Indian origin and Indians in Barbados are mostly of Bengali and Gujarati origin.

Most Indo-Caribbean people live in the English-speaking Caribbean nations of Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, the Dutch-speaking Suriname and the French overseas departments of Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana. With smaller numbers in other Caribbean countries including Jamaica, Belize and the islands of the Lesser Antilles. Large Indo-Caribbean immigrant populations are found in North America and Europe, specifically in the United States, the Netherlands, Canada, and the United Kingdom. These countries have some of the largest Indo-Caribbean populations in the world, and Indo-Caribbeans in these countries have largely congregated in urban areas such as New York City, The Hague, Toronto, Rotterdam, London, Miami/Ft. Lauderdale/West Palm Beach, Orlando/Ocala, Tampa, Houston, Birmingham, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Montreal, Schenectady/Albany, Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Manchester, Washington D.C., Leicester, and Paris.

Indo-Caribbean people may also be referred to as Caribbean Indians, East Indian West Indians, Caribbean Hindustanis, South Asian Caribbean people, or Caribbean Desis, while first-generation Indo-Caribbean people were called Girmitya, Desi, Hindustani, Kantraki, Mulki (m.) / Mulkin (f.), or Jahaji (m.) / Jahajin (f.). Coolie, meaning hired laborer, was used in the plantation society of the late 19th to early 20th century, however in the present-day it is considered a derogatory way to refer to Indo-Caribbean people and is considered a pejorative.