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Mauritians of Indian origin

Mauritians who trace their ethnic ancestry from India

  • 5 min read
  • 6 chapters

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History

During the administration of the French East India Company until 1767 and subsequent French rule at least 12,000 workers arrived from India between 1721 and 1810 before the abolition of slavery. These first Indian immigrants came from various parts of India such as Pondicherry, Karikal, Yanaon, Chandernagor and others. They worked under contract as skilled stonemasons, blacksmiths, and carpenters although hundreds of them were slaves. Some Malbars from Reunion (Bourbon) Island were also brought to work with them. After the legislative changes of 1767, these Indian immigrants were allowed to start their own businesses, buy land and own slaves.

Following the November 1810 British Invasion from the northern coast, the island came under British rule. With the liberation of about 65,000 African and Malagasy slaves after the 1833 abolition of slavery the Franco-Mauritian plantation owners and sugar oligarchs resorted to indentured labourers, or Coolies, from various parts of India to work in their fields. Between 1834 and 1920, nearly 700,000 Indian indentured labourers arrived at Aapravasi Ghat, an embankment located in the harbour of Port-Louis. Mauritius thus became the British colony's largest recipient of Indian indentured migrants. Indentured labourers were mostly brought from the Bhojpuri speaking regions of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, with a large number of Tamils, Telugus and Marathis amongst them. The descendants of these indentured labourers make up two-thirds of the island's current population.

As free immigrants, these later arrivals were commonly employed by the British in the armed forces, police forces, as security personnel with a substantial portion of immigrants from Gujarat and Sindh arriving as traders, businessmen, and merchants.

In the late 19th to early 20th century, Chinese men in Mauritius married Indian women due to both a lack of Chinese women and the higher numbers of Indian women on the island. The 1921 census in Mauritius counted that Indian women there had a total of 148 children fathered by Chinese men. These Chinese immigrants were mostly traders.

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