Thank you to all who responded to my query. It would appear to mean a girl of African descent. The document in which I found the term was a will of 1814 written in Chandernagore. In it the testator leaves her coffrey girls to named beneficiaries. Does this, perhaps, imply that although slavery had been abolished by Britain in 1807 there were still instances of it in India 7 years later? David -----Original Message----- From: David Railton [mailto:railton.david@btinternet.com] Sent: 02 July 2008 12:52 To: INDIA-BRITISH-RAJ (INDIA-BRITISH-RAJ@rootsweb.com) Subject: Coffrey girl I have recently found the term 'Coffry girl' in a document from India dated 1814. Can anyone please explain the meaning? David

David, You ask: <Does this, perhaps, imply that although slavery had been abolished by Britain in 1807 there were still instances of it in India 7 years later?> The kind of slavery abolished through the efforts of the anti-slavery movements in the first half of the 19th century - the type, for example, practiced in the Americas, or in North African countries such as Morocco, that brings to mind pictures of slave markets and shackled slaves and advertisements in newspapers for sale of slaves - did not exist in India at any time. That would be the short answer to your question. How does that explain your testator leaving his 'coffrey girls to named beneficiaries'? India did have a form of life-long labour where a person, in most cases a female, would be permanently attached to a family, whom we can, in a loose sense, call as the owners of that person. That person would be a servant of the family, living with it, albeit with a lower status. He or she would come into that situation by many ways. Poor families would, for example, leave their young children with rich persons in times of famine if they were unable to feed them or surrender a child in exchange for remitting a debt. The child grows, and knowing no other type of life and not equipped for anything else, would spend the rest of his or her life with the new family as a servant. They were not, strictly speaking, slaves and would not be bought or sold in an open market. Yet, they could be exchanged or sent away to another house as say, part of dowry with a daughter of the house. This was the class of society called 'Daasa' in the Classical times. The 'Sakhi' (female friend) that you frequently come across in Sanskrit literature or in the Indian classical music as sympathetic companion of the heroine (Sanskrit plays) or as the person who understands the torment caused in the mind of the singer by the absence of her beloved (a very common theme in Indian Classical music) would be a Daasee (female gender of Daasa). Girls, while still in childhood, came into houses of courtesans, were taught singing and dancing, and spent their lives in that profession, which bordered on prostitution, could also be 'sold' or exchanged. It is known that before gentlewomen came to India and brought Victorian morals with them, many of the English 'Nabobs' relaxed in the company of such females and were enthusiastic and appreciative watchers of 'nautches' (Indian dance performances). Looked at from this perspective, one can understand the coffrey girls being left to beneficiaries through a will. 'Coffrey' here may or may not mean African-born. They could just be dark-skinned and included in the generic meaning of coffrey, exactly as some racially-minded Europeans applied the contemptuous N-word to anyone who was dark-skinned and perceived by them to belong to an inferior culture. Arvind Kolhatkar, Toronto, July 02, 2008.