''Fatel Razack'' (''Fath Al Razack'', ''Victory of God (Allah) the Provider'', ar, قتح الرزاق, links=no) was the first ship to bring

indentured labour Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an "indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensation or debt repayment, ...

ers from India to

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

. The ship was built in Aprenade for a trader named Ibrahim Bin Yussef, an Indian Muslim merchant in

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

. It was constructed from

teak Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters ( pan ...

and had a carrying capacity of 415 tons. When the British decided they were going to bring Indians to Trinidad in 1845, most of the traditional British ship owners did not wish to be involved. The confusion as to the proper name possibly stems from the name "Futtle Razak", which was on the ship's manifest. The ship was originally named ''Cecrops'', but upon delivery it was renamed to ''Fath Al Razack''. The ship left

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commer ...

on 16 February 1845 and landed in the

Gulf of Paria The Gulf of Paria ( ; es, Golfo de Paria) is a shallow (180 m at its deepest) semi-enclosed inland sea located between the island of Trinidad (Republic of Trinidad and Tobago) and the east coast of Venezuela. It separates the two countries ...

on 30 May 1845, with 227 immigrants.

References

*Klass, Morton (1991). ''Singing with Sai Baba: The Politics of Revitalization in Trinidad''. Boulder: Westview Press. {{reflist Indian indentureship in Trinidad and Tobago 1840s ships India–Trinidad and Tobago relations Migrant ships First arrivals