Slaves, Freedmen and Indentured Laborers in Colonial Mauritius: 99 (African Studies, Series Number 99)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: First Edition, 10/14/1999
EAN 9780521641258, ISBN10: 052164125X
Hardcover, 242 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm
Language: English
In this wide-ranging social and economic history of the island of Mauritius, from French colonization in 1721 to the beginnings of modern political life in the colony in the mid-1930s, Richard Allen brings out the importance of domestic capital formation, particularly in the sugar industry. He describes the changing relationship between different elements in the society - slave, free and maroon, and East Indian indentured populations - and shows how these were conditioned by demographic changes, world markets and local institutions. Based on thorough archival research, and thoroughly attuned to contemporary debates, this 1999 book will bring the Mauritian case to the attention of scholars engaged in the comparative study of slavery and plantation systems.
1. Introduction
2. Creating a garden of sugar
land, labor and capital, 1721–1936
Part I. Labor and Labor Relations
3. A state of continual disquietude and hostility
maroonage and slave labor, 1721–1835
4. Indentured labor and the legacy of maroonage
illegal absence
desertion, and vagrancy, 1835–1900
Part II. Land and the Mobilization of Domestic Capital
5. Becoming an appropriated people
the rise of the free population of color, 1729–1830
6. The general desire to possess land
ex-apprentices and the post-emancipation era, 1839–51
7. The regenerators of agricultural prosperity
Indian immigrants and their descendants, 1834–1936
8. Conclusion.