WI: Caribbean Malays

So, there are a number of Indians in the Caribbean, who speak their own local Indian language(s). After the abolition of slavery in the various European political empires, former slaves left plantations. However, someone needed to work there, and they imported Indian indentured servants, treated not much better than slaves, to work there.

Now, let's say that, instead of importing Indians, the various European empires imported Malays to work on Caribbean plantations. What would be some effects of this?
 
It really depends.

Some will basically be the same as if they were Indian servants. Others, such as the Orang peoples, will be more likely to have lasting cultural change. Even then, it won't be truly significant.
 
So, there are a number of Indians in the Caribbean, who speak their own local Indian language(s). After the abolition of slavery in the various European political empires, former slaves left plantations. However, someone needed to work there, and they imported Indian indentured servants, treated not much better than slaves, to work there.

Now, let's say that, instead of importing Indians, the various European empires imported Malays to work on Caribbean plantations. What would be some effects of this?

Didn't the Dutch import some of them (well, Indonesians; mostly Javanese I believe) to their Caribbean colonies and Suriname?
 
Hm. Speaking of which, it's really strange that there's so little documentation of Filipinos across the Spanish Empire. Are there any Filipino Cuban or Mexican communities of note?

Or maybe it's just that mestizaje worked very well.
 

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I really like this idea. I suspect they'll become mostly middle class middlemen much like the Indians in the Caribbean. But I do wonder though if one could see this becoming the spearhead for greater waves of Asian immigration into the Caribbean as Christian Chinese Malayans start migrating across for better opportunities alongside Indonesians and Filipinos.

I can say at least for Santo Domingo and Cuba, the Asian immigrants would assimilate fairly rapidly and leave their mark on food and general culture. (Although they'd all just be called Chinos :openedeyewink:)

Hm. Speaking of which, it's really strange that there's so little documentation of Filipinos across the Spanish Empire. Are there any Filipino Cuban or Mexican communities of note?

Or maybe it's just that mestizaje worked very well.
None to my knowledge. As far as I know most of the Filipinos who came over to Mexico were during the colonial era, but these were very few. The reverse (Mexican immigration into the Philippines during that time period) is far greater, leading to cool stuff like Aztec troops being used in the conquest of the region.
 
None to my knowledge. As far as I know most of the Filipinos who came over to Mexico were during the colonial era, but these were very few. The reverse (Mexican immigration into the Philippines during that time period) is far greater, leading to cool stuff like Aztec troops being used in the conquest of the region.

As far as I can tell, the Filipinos that did leave never really bothered to establish themselves as Filipino. Just like modern times. :(
 
There are Filipino settlements in Louisiana dating back to Spanish Louisiana. Saint Malo and Manila Village were only a few of the settlements by what were known as the Manilamen who intermarried with local women. It makes sense that Filipinos were in Cuba,Puerto Rico,Dominican Republic and Central America during colonial times considering they were part of the Spanish Empire. I reckon they intermarried with local women and blended in with the local culture.
 
To my memory, even in their colonies, the Dutch mostly imported Indians from the British Empire.
True (a local close relative of Hindi is among the dominant languages in Suriname), but they brought some Indonesians as well.
 
I don't know much about this topic, but reading all of this is very interesting. I wonder if there were any folk religions borne from the Malay-Javanese-Filipino migrants and the local faiths of the Americas.
 
To my memory, even in their colonies, the Dutch mostly imported Indians from the British Empire.

So this is part of the reason why there is so little Malay/Javanese diaspora in the New World compared to Indian diaspora? Although Dutch Indonesia's population was nowhere near as large as India's, there certainly had to be easy labour to find there and bring over.

What would be a simple solution to make the Dutch (or other European nations) start importing Indonesians to their colonies?
 
What would be a simple solution to make the Dutch (or other European nations) start importing Indonesians to their colonies?

Kick off the 1857 rebellion earlier, or delay the abolition of slavery in the European nations. The former, of course, is easier. That way, when new laborers need to be imported, Indians will be seen as too rebellious to be good indentured servants.
 
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