Empire of Labor

Empire of Labortells the story of how hired workers experienced and responded to the rise to power over the long eighteenth century of the English East India Company (EIC), which perennially hired thousands of people in and around its settlements in Bengal.Focusing on boatmen and silk reelers as well as sailors and soldiers-a remarkablelook atboth indigenous and European workers-the story begins with the earliest accounts of the EIC's dealings with hired labor in the region, from 1651. Prior to EIC dominance, hired workers drove hard bargains with their employers, making demands that drew upontheir own notions of wages, work rhythms, and time. When their demands were not met, they ran away, often to rival indigenous or European employers.Empire of Laborexplores these demands and how they conflicted with the EIC's notions of discipline. Analyzing Bengali literary sources and Dutch and English archival materials, the book rethinks the ascendancy of the company state as a violent processinvolving removing competing employers, imposing army and police power, introducing new production technologies, and instituting draconian regulationswhich eliminated indigenous cultures of work.Most importantly, it depicts the lifeworlds of these recalcitrant workers, showing how they lived and resisted. A major intervention in histories of colonialism, labor, migration, and law,Empire of Laborultimately recasts colonial rule as a novel form of state-labor relationship.