Proposition
The intention of this work is to suspend the ethical judgements that inevitably arise from a superficial comparison between slavery and indentured labour and instead consider “desired” and “undesired” outcomes by examining the mechanics of these deeply legal regimes.
The question here is: How did law create the labour markets and thus the emerging identities in 19th century Mauritius? The overarching argument advanced in this work is that Mauritian society emerged as a result of contradictions inherent in the British colonial endeavour which manifested as a series of contestations between various stakeholders. Slavery and indentured labour cannot be merely understood in the conventional historical view as separate political constructs, each born out of the economic necessities of their period. In this study both types of labour are understood as essentially legal relationships, which evolved with changing conditions. The research seeks to demonstrate that during the period of either system, the legal and political dimensions constantly interacted in a process whereby one continuously influenced and reshaped the other. As such, it is argued that the experience of indentured labour in Mauritius was very much the result of preceding experience of slavery. The successive labour systems did not simply supplant one another, but interconnected. Their effect on Mauritian society was not merely formative but in fact constitutive.1.2