HYDERABAD: They came by the sea, on long voyages, clutching bundles of their hopes and belongings. Sons of another soil, they travelled for months on the rough seas to toil on a strange land, to raise crops and make it rich. They spent nearly 50 days on the sea, travelling from India to Mauritius. While many died in transit, few survived to climb the momentous 16 steps in the “Aapravasi Ghat” in Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius. That was 183 years ago, to be precise. I stood on the same historic flight of steps and went back in time.
Aapravasi Ghat, as the first site chosen by the British Government in 1834 for the use of indentured (debt bondage), rather than slave labour, is strongly associated with memories of almost half a million indentured labours moving from India to Mauritius to work on sugar cane plantations or to be transhipped to other parts of the World.
In 1834, the British Government selected the island of Mauritius for their ‘great experiment’ to use ‘free’ labour to replace slaves. Between 1834 and 1920, almost half a million Indian indentured labourers arrived at Aapravasi Ghat to work in the sugar plantations of Mauritius, or to be transferred to Reunion Island, Australia, Southern and Eastern Africa and the Caribbean. It was one of the greatest migrations in history, later adopted by other colonial powers, resulting in a massive migration of two million people around the world. Those who are curious and want to know more about the history of the British Raj and their very congenial and kind treatment of their subjects, we need to dig further I suppose!
The British were actively involved in the transatlantic slave trade. Forms of slavery were practised in British settlements and colonies, particularly in the Caribbean and North America, for around 200 years. Britain was not the first country to enter the slave trade itself, nor the last to leave it. But during the time that Britain was involved (between 1660 and 1807) it turned the trade into a profitable business more than any other nation.
At the height of the trade in the 18th century British ships carried more Africans than those of any other maritime nation, transporting shiploads of Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas. Approximately 2.7 million arrived – the others died during the notorious Middle Passage. Slaves were not particularly well treated by the colonists, and revolts or the act of organising one were severely repressed and punished. Some punishments consisted of amputation of various parts of the body and exposure in the open air for a day as example to others, eventually culminating in condemned slaves’ execution at sunset. Those who survived the voyage were sold into enslavement in the plantations, estates, mines and households of mainly European settlers.
When slavery was abolished in 1834, an attempt was made to secure a cheap source of adaptable labour for intensive sugar plantations in Mauritius. Indentured labour began with Chinese, Malay, African and Malagasy labourers, but ultimately, it was India which supplied the much needed labourers to Mauritius. This period of intensive use of Indian labour took place during British rule, with many brutal episodes and a long struggle by the indentured for respect. The term applied to the indentured during this period, and which has since become a derogatory term for Mauritians of Asian decent, was “Coolie”. The island soon became the key-point in the trade of indentured labourers, as thousands of Indians set forth from Indian shores.
The first attempt at importing Indian labour into Mauritius, in 1829, ended in failure, but by 1834, with abolition throughout most of the British Empire, transportation of Indian labour to the island gained pace. By 1838, 25,000 Indian labourers had been shipped to Mauritius.
Colonial British Government of India’s written statement of the terms of the contract: the length of service was to be five years, renewable for further five-year terms. The emigrant was to be returned at the end of his service to the port of departure. Each emigrant vessel was required to conform to certain standards of space, diet etc. and carry a medical officer.
The frantic rate of migration to Mauritius to meet its labour shortages continued along with their women who were wives and daughters of the male migrants. The repatriation of Indians who had completed indenture remained a problem with a high death rate and investigations revealed that regulations for the return voyages were not being satisfactorily followed. Without enough recruits from Calcutta to satisfy the demands of Mauritius planters, permission was granted in 1847 to reopen emigration from Madras with the first ship leaving for Mauritius in 1850.
Today, Aapravasi Ghat is a tourist attraction in Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius. In the midst of a fast paced city, stands this silent spectator. A guided tour around the site captures the emotional and historical essence of the period. Juxtaposed with busy traffic and concrete buildings all around, Aapravasi Ghat today is a sad reminder of poverty, exploitation and quiet suffering. A must visit for every Indian to go back into history to learn about those civilizations that were exploited and also about those civilizations that exploited.
(The author is a documentary filmmakerand travel writer; she blogs at vijayaprataptravelandbeyond.com)