Particularities of the Mauritian context

It is submitted that any discussion of colonialism in Mauritius must be acutely aware of the idiosyncrasies the island presents as a case study. Hereby, the obser­vation that Mauritius does not possess an indigenous population is not merely a factual note, but presents a salient issue in understanding the setting in which colonization was carried out, and ultimately, how different segments of society came to relate to each other.

The particularities of the Mauritian context are illustrated by considering Jur­gen Osterhammel's frequently quoted definition of colonialism:^[12]

Colonialism is a relationship of domination between an indigenous (or for­cibly imported) majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the colonized people are made and imple­mented by the colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are often defined in a distant metropolis. Rejecting cultural compromises with the colonized population, the colonizers are convinced of their own superiority and of their ordained mandate to rule.

This definition throws up a number of questions in the context of Mauritius. During the French period, slaves were introduced, which would arguably fall into Osterhammel's classification of a “forcibly imported” majority, but the relationship cannot with certainty be so characterized during British occupation, when slavery was soon abolished and former slaves gained the status of “apprentices”. The incon­gruence is even stronger in the case of indentured labourers, who despite the varied shortcomings in the recruitment process, were in legal terms contract workers and cannot collectively be described as “forcibly imported”. And what of the unseated French colonist, who remained the ruling class? Given their continued influence post British capture, which was indeed the result of cultural compromises with the new colonists, their characterization as “the colonized” is hardly convincing.

How then should a relationship be described that involved domination of a people who were neither forcibly retained nor indigenous? It falls outside Oster- hammel's definition of colonialism, and even though he identifies colonies without it, he limits that paradigm to societies which, lacking an indigenous population, were “homogenously �white' ”, namely “colonies of the �New England' type.”^[13] Mauritius, of course, was no such colony.

It is evident that the colonial situation as it existed in Mauritius does not fall within the more common paradigms of European colonialism. Colonialism how­ever is more than a “relationship” as defined by Osterhammel. More accurately, it is a system of various components. “And when we talk of the �colonial system', we must be clear about what we mean. It is not an abstract mechanism. The sys­tem exists, it functions; the infernal cycle of colonialism is a reality...................................................................................................... For the

colonist is fabricated like the native; he is made by his function and his interest”, as observed by Jean-Paul Sartre.^[14] What then, is the function and interest of the colonist? With the concern being primarily economic, the colony is regarded as a source of supply for the empire. The tandem of capitalist and colonial expansion caused this perception to become institutionalized, with “the colonizer and colo­nized locked into a rigid hierarchy of difference deeply resistant to fair and equi­table exchanges, whether economic, cultural or social.”^[15]

This is indeed how the imported workers in Mauritius, irrespective of their legal status or ethnic origin, became fixed into the position of being “colonized”: defined largely by their function to toil on the plantations, whether as field-hands or in the households, they were economically and socially beneath the “coloniz­ers”, meaning those who represented imperial interests, whether they were British administrators or French oligarchs.

Mauritius as a nation is a “direct result of its colonial history,... having been entirely created by European colonisation”, as Jean Houbert observed.^[18] “In Mauritius, colonialism was not something which came from outside; it was built into the fabric of the whole society.”^[19] Mauritius was a colony constructed not through the subjugation of an indigenous population but through subordina­tion of an imported one. Ethnic divisions underpinned the relations of capital and labour which drove the system designed for profit extraction, creating in the process a new society ex nihilo.

The case of Mauritius embodies in the truest sense the abused concept of “uninhabited territory”. The idea exerted such a pull on the European imagina­tion that elements of it can be traced in nearly every aspect of colonialism, and consequently also in the beginnings of an organized body of international law, the backing of which was employed to rationalize the colonial endeavour.^[20] [21] In the context of “land belonging to no-one”, the term terra nullius has become fairly common, however it must be distinguished from the concept of territorium nul­lius!⁹ The former, Andrew Fitzmaurice explains, signifies “a complete absence of rights”, whereas the latter “denied rights only of territorial sovereignty.”^[22] While neither term gathered much popularity in the either the 18 th or 19th century,^[23] the idea was used to dispossess indigenous populations of their land, creating a legal fiction which provided justification for European occupation. While its actual legal application has been limited to Australia and New Zealand, the sym­bolic power of terra nullius drove colonization in many regions, and arguably remains an undercurrent of modern globalization to this day.^[24]

Whitney Bauman has highlighted the biblical foundations of the concept, view­ing it as an “re-enactment of the Christian European beginning”, since it builds on the view embedded in the civilizing mission that God created the world ex nihilo, and that “the Europeans were heirs to this knowledge, whether as divine law or natural law”.^[25] Part of the civilizing mission was also the perceived duty to cultivate lands, particularly where they were deemed under-utilized.

The European colonizer in Mauritius thus fulfilled his directive, acquiring new territory and making it his own. But lacking an indigenous population to exploit or civilize, the colonizer had to create the colony from ground up, importing a “native” population so the colony could be managed “as if” they had always been there. How relevant, if at all, is this to the French colonists who were the first permanent residents?

The production of the Mauritian “native” was such as to enable the colonist to assume the role of “settler”, because as Mahmood Mamdani points out, “you cannot have one without the other, for it is the relationship between them that makes one a settler and the other a native.”^[28] Since, however, both settler and native were themselves imports, this raises the important question: when does a settler become a native, and when do they remain a settler? Mamdani answers that question by differentiating between civic and ethnic citizenship.^[29] Whilst according to him, the former status can be acquired swiftly, depending solely on relevant legislation, the latter remains forever elusive. Ethnicity is that which accounts for the permanent division between settler and native, colonizer and colonized.

The dichotomy of civic and ethnic citizenship does not sit well in the context of Mauritius.

It is clear, in that sense, that Mamdani's reasoning must be limited to the con­text of the more common paradigm which involves foreign settlers and indigenous populations. In the case of Mauritius, while the situation may have replicated the usual power balance, the “settler” was in fact no more foreign than the worker cast as a “native”. By the same token, the “settler” was also no more “native” than the worker who accompanied him.

The above considerations are particularly relevant from an epistemological point of view and serve to reveal certain biases present in Mauritian historiog­raphy. It is not uncommon to encounter scholarship of the period in question wherein the French inhabitants are referred to as “Mauritians”, to the exclusion of other racial groups.^[30] This choice, while seemingly innocuous, is of serious conse­quence. The implication is one in which greater legitimacy is conferred upon one segment of society, which in the context of an originally uninhabited island popu­lated solely through the process of colonization is profoundly difficult to sustain. Given that their arrival was more or less simultaneous, it is submitted that white inhabitants had no greater claim to ethnic citizenship than black inhabitants. To confer early Mauritian citizenship to the colonists at the exclusion of the slaves is to subscribe to the legitimacy of the colonial project which sought to appropriate uninhabited territory by divine right. While the fallacy of European claims may be more readily apparent in the case of a fictional terra nullius, in the instance of an actual terra nullius too, at least in the case of Mauritius, European claims to “nativeness” cannot be supported.

Sensitivity in this matter is required, for through the use of language, dif­ferent images and messages are conveyed. Thus the choice may be to view the deserting field worker as a “maroon” menacing “Mauritian” plantation owners,^[31] or he may be identified as a slave who escaped the conditions in which he was held and now seeks to reverse the power balance by engaging in law-breaking behaviour. This work seeks to be conscious of the use of language and imagery. As a consequence, the terminology of “slave-holding” is preferred as opposed to “slave-ownership”, amongst other choices. The reference to “slaves” has been maintained for coherence with original source materials quoted, though the author fully recognizes the validity of some scholars preferring the term “the enslaved” in general discourse.

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