Introduction

The arrival of indentured labourers from India indicates the second large-scale importation of workers brought to Mauritius in support of the colonial project, and an important piece in the “assembly process” of what would eventually lead to the composition of Mauritian society as it is known today.

In the Mauritian context, it is important to understand that indentured labour was introduced within the context of slavery and more importantly, by reference to its structure. The fact that the abolition of slavery and the large-scale intro­duction of indentured labour occurred simultaneously means that the period of apprenticeship of former slaves and the acclimatization period of indentured labourers took place at the same time, thus presenting a phase of adaptation for both. How the two labour regimes worked in relation to each other is discussed in this chapter.

The sugar industry was driving the political economy of the island. This steady development caused the metropolis to be considerably more attentive to its Indian Ocean possession, as discussed previously. While the first two dec­ades of British colonization had been predominantly defined by the regime of slavery issue which had proven divisive, with the island's rise as an important sugar-producer, economic considerations had moved to the forefront.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003313366-7

This chapter deals specifically with the “first phase” of indentured labour in Mauritius, which here refers to the period in the aftermath of the abolition of slavery, but before indenture immigration to the island became formalized. These early years, which saw indenture being organized on a private basis, tend to be ignored in accounts of Mauritian indentured labour, with academic emphasis placed predominantly on the state-regulated scheme that took place from 1842 onwards.^[488] In this study, the formal, “second phase” of indentured immigration is discussed separately in Chapter 6. It is submitted that a thorough understand­ing of early immigration is necessary for a comprehensive analysis of the latter period, because the subsequent structures of immigration developed in response to the failures of the informal system. Exclusive focus on the latter period masks the serious shortcomings that accompanied the indenture experience as a whole, and neglects the fact that the new labour regime was not a static, once-conceived arrangement, but rather an evolving process.

Further, the period in question is of fundamental importance in the colonial narrative of Mauritius, since for the first time in the island's history, all inhabitants were nominally free. It thus changed the footing on which the colonial project would be undertaken. British colonization, which first brought the slave trade to an end (Chapter 3), and then slavery itself (Chapter 4), came to oversee the final part in the “assembly process” of Mauritian society by allowing large-scale indentured immigration.

Before addressing the issues of early indenture and post-emancipation appren­ticeship, this chapter will first situate the events at Mauritius in the wider context of colonial labour migration more generally. This chapter aims to address how the transition from slavery to indentured labour took place legally and culturally. An examination of the local politics of the early 1830s is then followed by an analysis of the legal frameworks for indentured labour and apprenticeships in Mauritius. The nature of coercion in the new labour regime, particularly in the context of recruit­ment, is examined before concluding with a study of cultural issues which were relevant for Indian emigration and pertinent in identity formation on the island.

5.2