Ceylon's tea estates need a completely different…

Ceylon's tea estates need a completely different type of labor force than had been required during the coffee era.

Tea is harvested throughout the year and required a permanent labor force.

Waves of Indian Tamil immigrants settle on the estates and eventually become a large and permanent underclass that endured abominable working conditions and squalid housing.

The census of 1911 recordd the number of Indian laborers in Sri Lanka at about five hundred thousand—about twelve percent of the island's total population.

In the 1980s, the Indian Tamils will make up almost six percent of the island's population.