Lascars
Encyclopedia
See also Lashkar
, Laskar
A lascar (Lashkar
, Laskar
) and (Bengali
) was a sailor
or militiaman from the Indian Subcontinent
or other countries east of the Cape of Good Hope
, employed on Europe
an ships from the 16th century until the beginning of the 20th century. The word comes from the Persian
Lashkar
, meaning military camp or army, and al-askar
, the Arabic word for a guard or soldier. The Portuguese
adapted this term to lascarim, meaning an Asian
militiaman or seaman, especially those from the Indian Subcontinent
. Lascars served on British
ships under 'lascar' agreements. These agreements allowed shipowners more control than was the case in ordinary articles of agreement. The sailors could be transferred from one ship to another and retained in service for up to three years at one time. The name lascar was also used to refer to Indian servants, typically engaged by British military officers.
, the first European to reach India by sea (in 1498), hired an Indian pilot at Malindi
(a coastal settlement in what is now Kenya
) to steer the Portuguese
ship across the Indian Ocean
to the Malabar Coast
in southwestern India. Portuguese ships continued to employ lascars from the Subcontinent in large numbers throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, mainly from Goa
and other Portuguese colonies in India
.
The number of Indian seamen employed on British
ships was so great that the British tried to restrict this by the Navigation Acts
in force from 1660, which required that 75 percent of the crew of a British-registered ship importing goods from Asia had to be British. Initially, the need arose because of the high sickness and death rates of European sailors on India-bound ships, and their frequent desertions in India, which left ships short of crew for the return voyage. Another reason was war when conscription of British sailors by the Royal Navy
was particularly heavy from Company ships in India.
In 1786, the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor
was originally set up thanks to concern over Lascars left in London
. However, in a report made after one month of the Committee's existence, it was found that only 35 of the 250 recipients of aid were Lascars, while the remainining recipients were Africa
ns and former slaves from the Americas.
The British East India Company
recruited seamen from Bengal
, Assam
, Gujarat and Yemen
. They were known by the British as ‘Lascars’, and a number of these created small settlements in port towns and cities in Britain. Most of these sailors settled down and took local white British
wives, due to a lack of Asian women in Britain at the time. By 1813, there were more than 10,000 Indian Lascars living in Britain. By 1842, 3,000 lascars visited the UK every year, and by 1855, 12,000 lascars arrived annually to Britain. In 1872 and 1873, 3,271 Lascars arrived annually to Britain. Throughout the early 19th century, lascars from the Indian Subcontinent arrived to Britain at a rate of 1,000 every year, which increased to a rate of 10,000 to 12,000 every year throughout the late 19th century. In 1891, there were 24,037 Lascars employed on British merchant ships, and on the eve of World War I
, there were 51,616 Lascars in Britain.
Lascars were also used by ships plying other routes. For example, the New South Wales
government record of the ship Massilia en route from London
to Sydney
in 1891 lists more than half of its crew as being either Lascar or Indian.
The term Lascar is also used in Mauritius
, Réunion
and the Seychelles
to refer to Muslim
s, by both Muslims and Non-Muslims. The preferred spelling in modern times is "Lashkar."
was fairly common in Britain since the 17th century, when the British East India Company
began bringing over thousands of Sylheti
scholars, lascars and workers (mostly Bengali
Muslim
) to Britain, most of whom married and cohabited with local white British
women and girls, due to the lack of Indian women in Britain at the time.
This later became an issue, as a magistrate of the London Tower Hamlets
area in 1817 expressed "disgust" at how the local English
women and girls in the area were marrying and cohabiting almost exclusively with foreign Indian
lascar seamen. Nevertheless, there were no legal restrictions against 'mixed' marriages in Britain. Families with Indian
lascar fathers and white
mothers established interracial communities in Britain's dock areas.
This led to a growing number of "mixed race
" children being born in the country, which challenged the British elite efforts to "define them using simple dichotomies of British versus Indian, ruler versus ruled." The number of women of colour
in Britain were often outnumbered by "half-caste Indian" daughters born from white mothers and Indian fathers.
Lashkar
Lashkar , a Persian word for army, may refer to:* Lascar, a type of sailor or Militiaman employed by the British in South Asia.* A town in Madhya Pradesh that is now part of the Gwalior municipality in India...
, Laskar
Laskar
Laskar may refer to:* Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India* Lascars, Indian sailors who worked for the East India Company in the 17-18 centuries* Lashkar-e-Taiba, a terrorist organization based in Pakistan...
A lascar (Lashkar
Lashkar
Lashkar , a Persian word for army, may refer to:* Lascar, a type of sailor or Militiaman employed by the British in South Asia.* A town in Madhya Pradesh that is now part of the Gwalior municipality in India...
, Laskar
Laskar
Laskar may refer to:* Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India* Lascars, Indian sailors who worked for the East India Company in the 17-18 centuries* Lashkar-e-Taiba, a terrorist organization based in Pakistan...
) and (Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
) was a sailor
Sailor
A sailor, mariner, or seaman is a person who navigates water-borne vessels or assists in their operation, maintenance, or service. The term can apply to professional mariners, military personnel, and recreational sailors as well as a plethora of other uses...
or militiaman from the Indian Subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
or other countries east of the Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
, employed on Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an ships from the 16th century until the beginning of the 20th century. The word comes from the Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
Lashkar
Lashkar
Lashkar , a Persian word for army, may refer to:* Lascar, a type of sailor or Militiaman employed by the British in South Asia.* A town in Madhya Pradesh that is now part of the Gwalior municipality in India...
, meaning military camp or army, and al-askar
Al-Askar
al-‘Askar was the capital of Egypt from 750-868 AD, when the Abbasid caliphate was in power in Egypt.-History:After the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 641, Rashidun commander Amr ibn al-As established Fustat just north of Coptic Cairo...
, the Arabic word for a guard or soldier. The Portuguese
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
adapted this term to lascarim, meaning an Asian
Asian people
Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.- Central Asia :...
militiaman or seaman, especially those from the Indian Subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
. Lascars served on British
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
ships under 'lascar' agreements. These agreements allowed shipowners more control than was the case in ordinary articles of agreement. The sailors could be transferred from one ship to another and retained in service for up to three years at one time. The name lascar was also used to refer to Indian servants, typically engaged by British military officers.
History
Indian seamen had been employed on European ships since the first European made the sea voyage to India. Vasco da GamaVasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira was a Portuguese explorer, one of the most successful in the Age of Discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India...
, the first European to reach India by sea (in 1498), hired an Indian pilot at Malindi
Malindi
Malindi is a town on Malindi Bay at the mouth of the Galana River, lying on the Indian Ocean coast of Kenya. It is 120 kilometres northeast of Mombasa. The population of Malindi is 117,735 . It is the capital of the Malindi District.Tourism is the major industry in Malindi. The city is...
(a coastal settlement in what is now Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
) to steer the Portuguese
Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire , also known as the Portuguese Overseas Empire or the Portuguese Colonial Empire , was the first global empire in history...
ship across the Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
to the Malabar Coast
Malabar Coast
The Malabar Coast is a long and narrow coastline on the south-western shore line of the mainland Indian subcontinent. Geographically, it comprises the wettest regions of southern India, as the Western Ghats intercept the moisture-laden monsoon rains, especially on their westward-facing mountain...
in southwestern India. Portuguese ships continued to employ lascars from the Subcontinent in large numbers throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, mainly from Goa
Goa
Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...
and other Portuguese colonies in India
Portuguese India
The Portuguese Viceroyalty of India , later the Portuguese State of India , was the aggregate of Portugal's colonial holdings in India.The government started in 1505, six years after the discovery of a sea route to India by Vasco da Gama, with the nomination of the first Viceroy Francisco de...
.
The number of Indian seamen employed on British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
ships was so great that the British tried to restrict this by the Navigation Acts
Navigation Acts
The English Navigation Acts were a series of laws that restricted the use of foreign shipping for trade between England and its colonies, a process which had started in 1651. Their goal was to force colonial development into lines favorable to England, and stop direct colonial trade with the...
in force from 1660, which required that 75 percent of the crew of a British-registered ship importing goods from Asia had to be British. Initially, the need arose because of the high sickness and death rates of European sailors on India-bound ships, and their frequent desertions in India, which left ships short of crew for the return voyage. Another reason was war when conscription of British sailors by the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
was particularly heavy from Company ships in India.
In 1786, the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor
Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor
The Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor was a charitable organization founded in London in 1786 to provide sustenance for distressed people of African and Asian origin...
was originally set up thanks to concern over Lascars left in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. However, in a report made after one month of the Committee's existence, it was found that only 35 of the 250 recipients of aid were Lascars, while the remainining recipients were Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
ns and former slaves from the Americas.
The British East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
recruited seamen from Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
, Assam
Assam
Assam , also, rarely, Assam Valley and formerly the Assam Province , is a northeastern state of India and is one of the most culturally and geographically distinct regions of the country...
, Gujarat and Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
. They were known by the British as ‘Lascars’, and a number of these created small settlements in port towns and cities in Britain. Most of these sailors settled down and took local white British
White British
White British was an ethnicity classification used in the 2001 United Kingdom Census. As a result of the census, 50,366,497 people in the United Kingdom were classified as White British. In Scotland the classification was broken down into two different categories: White Scottish and Other White...
wives, due to a lack of Asian women in Britain at the time. By 1813, there were more than 10,000 Indian Lascars living in Britain. By 1842, 3,000 lascars visited the UK every year, and by 1855, 12,000 lascars arrived annually to Britain. In 1872 and 1873, 3,271 Lascars arrived annually to Britain. Throughout the early 19th century, lascars from the Indian Subcontinent arrived to Britain at a rate of 1,000 every year, which increased to a rate of 10,000 to 12,000 every year throughout the late 19th century. In 1891, there were 24,037 Lascars employed on British merchant ships, and on the eve of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, there were 51,616 Lascars in Britain.
Lascars were also used by ships plying other routes. For example, the New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
government record of the ship Massilia en route from London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
in 1891 lists more than half of its crew as being either Lascar or Indian.
The term Lascar is also used in Mauritius
Mauritius
Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...
, Réunion
Réunion
Réunion is a French island with a population of about 800,000 located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about south west of Mauritius, the nearest island.Administratively, Réunion is one of the overseas departments of France...
and the Seychelles
Seychelles
Seychelles , officially the Republic of Seychelles , is an island country spanning an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar....
to refer to Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s, by both Muslims and Non-Muslims. The preferred spelling in modern times is "Lashkar."
Interracial marriage
Interracial marriageInterracial marriage
Interracial marriage occurs when two people of differing racial groups marry. This is a form of exogamy and can be seen in the broader context of miscegenation .-Legality of interracial marriage:In the Western world certain jurisdictions have had regulations...
was fairly common in Britain since the 17th century, when the British East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
began bringing over thousands of Sylheti
Sylhet
Sylhet , is a major city in north-eastern Bangladesh. It is the main city of Sylhet Division and Sylhet District, and was granted metropolitan city status in March 2009. Sylhet is located on the banks of the Surma Valley and is surrounded by the Jaintia, Khasi and Tripura hills...
scholars, lascars and workers (mostly Bengali
British Bangladeshi
A British Bangladeshi is a person of Bangladeshi origin who resides in the United Kingdom having emigrated to the UK and attained citizenship through naturalisation or whose parents did so; they are also known as British Bengalis...
Muslim
Islam in the United Kingdom
Islam has been present in the United Kingdom since its formation in 1707, though it was not legally recognised until the Trinitarian Act in 1812. Today it is the second largest religion in the country with estimates suggesting that by 2010 the total Muslim population had reached 2.869 million.The...
) to Britain, most of whom married and cohabited with local white British
White British
White British was an ethnicity classification used in the 2001 United Kingdom Census. As a result of the census, 50,366,497 people in the United Kingdom were classified as White British. In Scotland the classification was broken down into two different categories: White Scottish and Other White...
women and girls, due to the lack of Indian women in Britain at the time.
This later became an issue, as a magistrate of the London Tower Hamlets
London Borough of Tower Hamlets
The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London borough to the east of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It is in the eastern part of London and covers much of the traditional East End. It also includes much of the redeveloped Docklands region of London, including West India Docks...
area in 1817 expressed "disgust" at how the local English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
women and girls in the area were marrying and cohabiting almost exclusively with foreign Indian
British Asian
British Asian is a term used to describe British citizens who descended from mainly South Asia, also known as South Asians in the United Kingdom...
lascar seamen. Nevertheless, there were no legal restrictions against 'mixed' marriages in Britain. Families with Indian
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
lascar fathers and white
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
mothers established interracial communities in Britain's dock areas.
This led to a growing number of "mixed race
British Mixed-Race
Mixed is an ethnicity category that has been used by the United Kingdom's Office for National Statistics since the 1991 Census. Colloquially it refers to British citizens or residents whose parents are of two or more different races or ethnic backgrounds...
" children being born in the country, which challenged the British elite efforts to "define them using simple dichotomies of British versus Indian, ruler versus ruled." The number of women of colour
Person of color
Person of color is a term used, primarily in the United States, to describe all people who are not white. The term is meant to be inclusive among non-white groups, emphasizing common experiences of racism...
in Britain were often outnumbered by "half-caste Indian" daughters born from white mothers and Indian fathers.