Slavery by the French under British Rule

Table 4.1 Slave population, 1812-1822²⁴

Table 4.2 Manumissions, 1 January 1808-22 July 1822²⁵

In tandem with the inconsistent slave numbers, whether gleaned from reg­istration entries or the tax collectors’ roll, data on manumissions also varies by source.^[390] [391] For the sake of continuity, the numbers for Table 4.2 have been calculated from another return also originally provided and signed by Gover­nor Farquhar.

These numbers should be regarded as illustrative only, since counts subsequent to the legal abolition of the slave trade cannot be relied upon with confidence. They do however indicate a very low level of manumission in a colony with a significant slave presence. It is evident that 1,704 manumissions over a 15-year period is a meagre amount for a slave population anywhere between 60,000 to 80,000. It should be noted that Farquhar’s data does not fit well with a later return, made by the Acting Registrar of Slaves in 1830, who gives the number of slaves counted in 1826 as 69,472, and in 1830 as 66,183. The latter excludes

1,164 manumissions effected from 16 October 1826 until 31 December 1829, a number which contrasts dispiritingly with 6,475 slave deaths recorded during the same period.^[392]

The rules relating to manumission were certainly onerous, as an analysis of Ordinance No. 21 of 1827 demonstrates.^[393] The title of the ordinance stated its purpose clearly: to modify and consolidate all previous rules regarding eman­cipation by establishing through “a fixed Regulation, and in one and the same ordinance, all that regards such Emancipation”. Article I stated unequivocally that no slave should be emancipated without the permission of the governor and must be sought via a petition, and such petition was to include the motives for emancipation. If permission was granted, the petitioner was obliged to fulfil a series of “formalities”.

In the first instance, three consecutive weekly advertisements in the Mauritius Gazette outlining certain details regarding master and slave were required, the purpose being “the prevention of any Emancipation prejudicial to the right of Creditors or to public order”. Further, “all Persons are to notify, to the Pro- cureur General, the Grounds of opposition which, to their knowledge, may exist against the intended Emancipations”.^[394] The three advertisements had to be certified by a declaration of the Government Printers, and together with a Certificate of the Procureur General that no oppositions to the intended Eman­cipation existed, in the eight days following the final advertisement, “the Master shall make known, in writing, to His Honour the Chief Judge and Commissary of Justice, the means he purposes placing at the disposal of the Slave he wishes to emancipate”.^[395] The reason for such provision was to avoid the emancipated slave becoming “a burden to the Colony”.

After these steps had been satisfied, a second petition to the governor was required to obtain confirmation of the emancipation. The petition had to be accompanied with: (1) the certificate confirming the three advertisements in the Gazette; (2) the certificate of the Procureur General confirming that no opposi­tion to emancipation existed; (3) the decision of the chief justice regarding the means of subsistence; (4) a copy of the notarial Act granting the means of sub­sistence to the emancipated person; (5) the receipt showing the payment to the Caisse de Bienfaisance had been made.^[397] Confirmation of Emancipation was then delivered and registered free of charge.^[398]

These formalities undoubtedly represented veritable hurdles, particularly given the obligation for slave holders to pay £5 for each emancipated slave and the fact that anyone could register an opposition with the Procureur. In these circum­stances, it is surprising that any slaves at all achieved manumission through this procedure.

Emancipation by marriage appears to have been slightly easier.^[399] While Ordinance No. 21 did not prohibit marriage between whites and slaves explicitly, Article VIII envisaged the potential marriage of a slave as only tak­ing place to either a former slave or a free person of colour. In either instance, emancipation of the enslaved partner was said to take place “de jure”. The £5 payment to the charitable fund was not required, however confirmation of the three advertisements, the absence of any opposition and a certificate from the Chief Commissary of the Police verifying the means of subsistence of the free partner to the proposed marriage were required to obtain confirmation of the Emancipation.

From the data and the regulations, it thus transpires that the slave-holders of Mauritius did not easily relinquish their slaves. A clear picture of the reason for this emerges when the development of the sugar industry of the period is investigated.

4.3.2 An incentive for slavery: the sugar industry

In 1825 a decided impetus for the cultivation of sugar was created with the equal­ization of Mauritian tariffs with those of West Indies,^[400] the result of a sustained appeal by local planters during the two preceding years.^[401] The measure has been described in a parliamentary report as “so efficacious and so prompt in its result, that within six years from that date, the supply from Mauritius was increased six-fold.”^[402] It was thus the equal access granted to the British sugar market that provided the incentive to a large-scale retention of slaves for plantation owners in Mauritius, in a development that baffled officials at the Colonial Department in London.^[403]

How could have the importance of slavery have increased in the aftermath of the abolition of the slave trade? As noted in Chapter 2, the existence of slavery had been part of the colonial project in Mauritius from the earliest point. Unlike in the United States, where slavery was preceded by an indenture system,^[404] the colonists in Mauritius employed slavery first, and only resorted to indentured labour after its abolition by imperial law. The question “What causes slavery?” must be modified in the Mauritian context to: “What caused the retention of slavery?”

Following his extensive ethnological research on slavery as an industrial sys­tem, Nieboer identified several factors necessary for the existence of slavery and grouped them into internal and external causes.^[405]-⁰ The former may be properly described as “motive forces”, covering aspects that provide the incentive for slave­keeping, whereas the latter are better defined as conditions, such as the opportu­nity to obtain slaves in the first place.

The “most important result” of his research appears to be the observation that the incidence of slavery is related to “the division... of all peoples of the earth, into peopled with open and closed resources.” For, he was to explain “the princi­pal internal cause which prevents the rise of slavery, or where slavery exists, tends to make it disappear, is the dependence of subsistence upon closed resources.”^[407] Nieboer claims, as a consequence, that it is the availability of limitless resources which would motivate a slave-holder to increase his number of slaves in order to augment his income accordingly, whereas “a man who owns a limited capital, or a limited quantity of land, can only employ a limited number of labourers”.^[408]

Nieboer's ideas were later reframed by Evsey Domar, who proposed a hypoth­esis which correlated the availability of free land with the existence of serfdom or slavery.^[409] Domar's formula however is highly unreliable, since in its clearest state­ment, it completely disregards factors such as politics, capital and management.^[410] By his own admission, “the presence of this exogenous political variable seriously weakens the effectiveness of my model”,^[411] which in essence renders it unworkable.

The case of Mauritius demonstrates that the political element can prove deci­sive. Had it not been for the 1825 tariff equalization, it is unlikely that sugar production would have developed in the manner it did. The dramatic increase

Table 4.3 Sugar mills imported to be erected in Mauritius, 1824-1828⁴⁷

in the erection of sugar mills during the latter part of the 1820s suggests that heightened production was indeed the result of the 1825 adjustment in duties payable on exporting sugar to Britain, as Table 4.3 indicates.

Further records indicate the extent to which that the sugar industry had expanded. With only about 9,000 arpent under sugar cane cultivation in the period from 1812 to 1820, by the next decade, 1821 to 1830, this number had nearly tripled, to 26,000 arpent.⁴

Nieboer's requirements regarding internal and external causes for slavery must thus be qualified. In the Mauritian context, the motivating force for the expan­sion of slavery was not, as he stipulates, internal, but external: tariff equalization. His argument regarding “closed resources” as a discouragement for slave-keeping equally proves not applicable: at a territorial size of just over 2,000 square kilo­metres, natural resources in Mauritius were certainly finite. An argument can be made that during the early decades, much land was still unused, however this does not negate the clear limits to potential growth. Additionally, Mauritius was not a wealthy colony. In an early dispatch, Governor Farquhar stated that “nothing could be more deplorable than the state of poverty and wretchedness to which this colony was reduced previously to its surrender to His Majesty.............................................

We found all the inhabitants involved in debt bordering on a state of general bankruptcy.”^{[412] [413] [414]}

The decision to focus on sugar cultivation did not improve the situation the governor described. On the contrary, it made Mauritius highly dependent on the British market for income and returns of investment which, “with deep

The abolition of slavery 89 indebtedness and personal resources stretched to the utmost”, rendered the economic situation on the island precarious indeed, as any profits were yet to materialize.^[415] Additionally, the emphasis on sugar cane came at the expense of other crops, such as coffee or spices, and was carried on to such an extent that Mauritius, previously almost self-sufficient, came to be dependent on imports for essential food supplies.^[416] Research revealed that 1828 was the year in which, for the first time since British conquest, revenue exceeded the government expenditures (fixed military and civil).^[417] In effect, Mauritius had been administered at a loss for nearly two decades. It was in this environment of a finally improved economic standing, and heavy reliance on future profits, that plantation owners were to implement amelioration policies regarding slave-holding.

4.4