Making the transition from slavery

Before analyzing the legal framework that governed early indentured labour, and how it related to the apprenticeship system which in Mauritius ran concurrently, it is important to address certain issues which underpinned the introduction of Indian workers to the island.

From Table 5.2, it is evident that what started as an experiment in 1834 was the beginning of an extraordinary project of migration which changed the face of Mauritian society permanently. It also marked the move from slavery to a different labour system. This transition occurring in 19th-century Mauritius is a direct reversal of the American experience of the 17th century. Prior to the introduction of African slavery, labour in the New World consisted primarily of British indentured workers. Russell Menard explains that in some places, such as Barbados, the transition to slavery was effected quickly, while occurring as a

Informal indenture and apprenticeships 115 more gradual process in areas like Chesapeake, where tobacco was being culti­vated.^[521] Scholars take different views on the precise causes leading to the move from indentured labour to slavery. Menard divides the arguments into two broad schools of thought. On the one hand, there are those who regard the transition as predominantly an economic process, occurring as a consequence of changes in the supply in labour.^[522] On the other hand, the change has been rationalized as having been driven by “planter preference”. In this view, the practical differences in keeping “slaves” as opposed to “labourers”^[523] is regarded as fundamental, with political and cultural considerations given more relevance. Menard himself sup­ports both approaches and combines them by suggesting that what occurred was a two-stage process. He argues that the transition was lead by an elite, particularly around Chesapeake.

It is not within the ambit of this thesis to analyze the American experience in detail, but the reversed transition from indentured labour to slavery presents an interesting contrast to the Mauritian example. Specifically, Menard's synthesis of arguments and framework for understanding the change may be borrowed. Applying the categories of either (a) an economically-driven transition or (b) one which occurred through the preference of the planters, it is clear that in the case of Mauritius, in the beginning at least, the change was externally imposed. Slavery was being abolished by imperial law, and thus was no longer available to the plant­ers. The fact that indentured labour immigration began in 1834, the same year in which the Abolition of Slavery Act took effect in the other colonies, suggests that recourse to the new form of labour was a direct result of the end of slavery. It is unlikely that had slavery not been abolished, planters would have sought to replace it with another labour system, at least not at that precise moment in time.

Later developments however reveal that beyond the initial impetus of having to seek alternative labour, planter preference played an important role in the transition, especially with regard to the new workforce's ethnicity. Research has shown that the preference for a specifically Indian workforce manifested itself at different levels, and for different reasons. Taken together, they were responsible for the large influx of Indian workers and thus the subsequent size of the Indian presence in Mauritius.

5.4.1 Preferences in ethnicity

In the first instance, it appears that Indian workers were favoured over other ethnicities as a consequence of government policy. A frequently forgotten, yet notable part of the experiment with indentured labour involved the immigra­tion of workers from China.

Several years prior, in 1834 with the abolition of slavery pending, the pro­posal was made to introduce African indentured labour to Mauritius. Charles Letord, a local inhabitant, made an elaborate appeal to the governor for a scheme which would allow for the introduction of workers from the eastern coast of Africa, extolling the advantages of the project in great detail.^[528] The idea was

Informal indenture and apprenticeships 117 however emphatically rejected with an “unqualified Refusal”, as the governor felt that “however speciously coloured”, it amounted to “neither more nor less than a Renewal of the Slave Trade, and therefore entirely inadmissible.”^[529] Mon­sieur Letord's proposal may have invited rejection, given his reputation as having been formerly active as a trafficker known by the alias Dorval, a slave dealer of some notoriety during the early years of British occupation.^[530] But the fact that his detailed proposal was curtly dismissed and no further attempt was made to introduce African workers at the time^[531] demonstrates that in Mauritius, black indenture had been considered as too reminiscent of slavery, and the potential recruitment deemed as resembling too closely the trade in slaves, which in its own time had proven very difficult to suppress, as will be recalled from Chapter 3.

If, in the first place the choice of Indian labour was the result of government policy, it then became a self-sustaining policy. Plantation owners had their own reason for encouraging a large influx of workers from the subcontinent, as will become evident when the correlation of the two systems of indentured labour and apprenticeship is considered in the next section.

5.5