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Abstract Between 1845 and 1920, under the British colonial scheme of Indian indenture, 38,681 Indians arrived in Jamaica as labourers, of whom 62 % opted to make the island their home. Like most diaspora communities, the journey from migration to settlement of this almost 2 % minority group within the context of a multifariously divergent society was quite chequered. This paper seeks to trace the experiences of the Indian community in Jamaica through its transformation from immigrant to Indo-Jamaican, between 1845 and 1950. It explores key facets that contributed to the shaping of this community: life as indentured labourers; movement away from plantation life; reconstitution of elements of Indian social, religious and cultural life as allowed by the Jamaican landscape; navigation of the larger Jamaican community as a small minority group; interaction with and integration into Jamaican society; and sentiments and manifested behaviour of the Indians towards the larger Jamaican society, and vice versa.