The word coolie , meaning a laborer, has a variety of other implications and is sometimes regarded as offensive or a pejorative, depending upon the historical and geographical context. Coolies are semi-coerced laborers. Many coolies were first deceived or kidnapped and, then kept in detention centers or loading vessels in the ports of departure, as were African slaves  In the 1800s, it was used to name Chinese and Indian indentured servitude. This was mostly done in the British empire

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Chinese Coolies

Workers from China were mainly transported to work in Peru and Cuba. However, many Chinese laborers worked in British colonies such as Singapore, Jamaica, British Guiana (now Guyana), British Malaya, Trinidad and Tobago, British Honduras. In 1875, British commissioners estimated that approximately eighty percent of the workers had been abducted.

Indian Coolies

By the 1820s, many Indians Coolie were voluntarily enlisting to go abroad for work, in the hopes of a better life. European merchants and businessmen quickly took advantage of this and began recruiting them for work as a cheap source of labor.  The British began shipping Indians to colonies around the world, including: British Fiji, British East Africa, British Uganada, Jamaica, Grenada the rest of the British West Indies,  British Malaya, etc.