Beyond Slavery

Next door to Port Louis’ Slavery Museum is a building illustrating what followed the release from chains and manacles after the slave trade was abolished in 1835. It’s Aapravasi Ghat, now a UNESCO world heritage site, and consists of the remains of an immigration depot where indentured labourers, mainly from India, were received.

The British colonial government chose Mauritius as the first site for what it called ‘The Great Experiment’: the use of indentured labour to replace the slaves. The indentured labour force had to work on contract for up to five years and the scheme’s success prompted its adoption in other parts of the Empire. Between 1834 and 1920 labourers were shipped here from India, Madagascar, Mozambique, the Comoros, Yemen and China to work on the sugar cane plantations. Almost half a million landed at Aapravasi Ghat and over two million indentured labourers arrived around the world in the Carribbean, South America and south east Asia.

Regrettably a large number of these indentured labourers were treated very badly by the colonialists. They were subject to poor working conditions and made to labour very long hours. They were often maltreated and even whipped. Moreover they were in a situation where their work contracts were obfuscated forcing them.to work for years before they managed to pay off the terms of their indenture. It was largely thanks to the intervention of human rights champions like Ghandi,at that time a legal beagle in South Africa that efforts were finally made to alleviate the hard lives of the indentured, semi-slave workers in the colonies.

Since the majority of Mauritians descend from these souls it’s clear and very fitting that Aapravasi Ghat has been approved of as the island’s major heritage site .

The museum is very well laid out and documented detailing the procedures dealing with one of the greatest migrations the world has seen.

I am not sure if the famous ‘Windrush’ generation, too many of whomhave been appallingly treated in another recent Tory scandal, belongs to the indentured class of immigrants. One thing is sure in the two cases: both helped to save island economies threatened by labour shortages. Perhaps brexiticianists should bear this in mind before they continue to pontificate about their absurd policies.