Slavery in Mauritius

3.3.1 The Indian Ocean

Situated in the southwest Indian Ocean, the slave trade in Mauritius was not part of the Atlantic paradigm, the primary model in the academic literature on slavery.^[225] In the Americas, plantation slavery predominantly involved the removal of persons from western Africa, through what has become known as a “triangular trade”, describing the route from Europe to Africa, to the Americas, and back.^[226]

By contrast, the context of the Indian Ocean slave trade was more complex, with the traffic being “multidirectional”.^[227] Dating back 4,000 years, here the slave trade involved both overland and maritime passages that carried slaves from east­ern Africa, India and the Arab states far across the region.

Slave-holding around the IOW took various forms, such as debt bond­age and other types of servitude.^[231] It was the ascent of the sugar economy in

Mauritius and Reunion which brought the plantation system to the region.^[232] The Mascarene islands presented the exception in the Indian Ocean by employ­ing chattel slavery in a practice which mirrored the structure prevalent in the Americas.^[233]

A further observation must be made with reference to the various sections of the Indian Ocean. It is important to note that while Britain dominated the northern part, including the Arab Gulf and the Red Sea,^[234] the southwestern aspect, where Mauritius is located, was in fact controlled by the French.^[235] This is of notable relevance because the persistence of the slave trade after abolition is at least partially a consequence of the island's geographical location, and more specifically, the French influence in the region, which resonated more with the Franco-Mauritian oligarchy than orders from the imperial government in Britain.

3.3.2 Slavery during French colonization

As discussed in Chapter 2, slavery in Mauritius dates back to Dutch occupa­tion, but became a significant component of the French period of colonization. Historical studies indicate that a wide array of ethnicities existed among slaves, including Mozambican, Malagasy and Indian.^[236] It has been noted that “racial and ethnic diversity [was] the most distinctive feature of Mauritius slavery.”^[237]

Table 3.1 indicates that slaves formed by far the largest group of inhabitants during the late 18th and early 19th century.

Table 3.1 Early censuses of Mauritius²⁴

Harold Adolphe, former archivist of Mauritius, provides the following explanations:^{[238] [239]}

The “Whites” came from French provinces or possessions, and very rarely, other European countries (though Adolphe does not specify which coun­tries, and in what quantity they had arrived, indicating a negligible amount). The “Slaves” had been imported from Africa, Madagascar and India.

The “Free People” (in records interchangeably called “Libres” or “ Gens de Couleur”) were composed of locally manumissioned slaves and other free­born non-white inhabitants, predominantly of Indian origin.

In an appraisal of the economic situation of Mauritius during French rule, Megan Vaughan observes: “for the free inhabitants of the Ile de France, by far the most valuable commodity they possessed was that of slaves and by far the most important trade was that which ensured them a regular supply of this commodity.”^[240] She explains that without slaves, subsistence depended on long­distance shipping, capital invested in land would lay dormant, and the colony as a whole could not have been maintained. “To exist as a free person on Ile de France depended utterly on the possession of unfree persons - those who pos­sessed none (and there were some throughout the 18th Century) were reduced to vagrancy.”^[241]

3.4