The history of my Country has a lot to do with racism and prejudice. The two major ethnic groups were brought into the Country in entirely different ways. The Africans were victims of the slave trade and were forced to work without payment, their working conditions were poor and punishment was the order of the day if they refused to work or performed poorly, they were separated from their families and forced to follow the religious beliefs of their owners, whilst the East Indians came as indentured laborers when slavery was abolished in 1938. They were paid for the work they performed, provided with housing so that the family unit remained intact, and were able to practice their own culture and religious beliefs. As such, this created a false belief that the East Indians were a better and more efficient race than the Africans and this thought process exists even today. Stefano Harney in his book, Nationalism and Identity, Culture and the Imagination of a Caribbean Diaspora, quoted Bridget Brereton, and she said that when the East Indians arrived during the period 1845 to 1917, many different classes of people, including “creoles” did not approve of the introduction of the East Indians into the population. (pg 13)