By Satyendra Peerthum,
Historian, Lecturer, & Researcher
The First Indentured Labourers &
Genesis of Indentured Labour in Reunion Island
On Saturday, 11th November 2023, an official ceremony was held at the Grande Chaloupe on the north western coast of Reunion Island, just like each year for several years now, to remember the arrival and the role the indentured labourers played in the fashioning of the history of that small Indian Ocean island.
Between 1822 and 1827, Governor Louis-Henri de Freycinet and the Bourbon or La Reunion Council of Government made several proposals as they tried to bring Malagasy, Comorian, and East Africans labourers to work on the sugar estates in La Reunion. However, they were faced with suspicions of disguised trafficking and the vigilance of the French and British imperial authorities.
Therefore, Governor de Freycinet and his officials looked more actively at the possibility of bringing the Indian workers who during the 1700s were brought by the thousands as slaves and in their hundreds as skilled contract workers. In December1827, an official request was sent by Governor Comte de Cheffontaines to Charles Desbassayns, the Administrator-General of the French Establishments in India based in Pondicherry. As a result, Desbassayns sent the schooner La Turquoise to Yanaon in southern India to make the experience a reality.
On 16th March 1828, with their indenture contracts signed with 15 Talinga indentured workers left the small port of Yanaon in southern India on the La Turquoise. They were mostly unskilled labourers emanating from the lower castes. After a journey of more than two and a half months, with a stopover of several days at Pondicherry, on 3rd June 1828, these first 15 workers arrived in La Reunion and they were sent to work on a sugar estate close to the village of Sainte Marie near to Saint Denis. They were provided with wages, rations, clothing, a place to stay, and the possibility of returning to India after their indentureship. This year marks 195th anniversary of their arrival in Reunion Island. By December 1828, there were already around 1100 Indian indentured workers in that small French colony. (Table 1)
Table 1 :List of the First Indian Indentured Labourers of La Turquoise, Yanaon late April 1828
Between April 1828 and 28 September 1830, it is estimated around 3211 coolies were recruited from Karikal, Yanaon, the Coromandel coast and Orissa and brought on 19 ships to this small Indian Ocean island. These Indian immigrants were mostly Hindus and tribals with some belonging to the Muslim and Christian faiths. For some of these early Indian indentured workers, the arrival in La Réunion was an opportunity to improve their lives and these engagements can be viewed as having limited success. After all, there were some irregularities in the implementation of their contracts, late payment of their wages, and mistreatment by their employers. This sad state of affairs encouraged many of these early Indian immigrants to run away from their sugar estates and they were arrested as vagrants and deserters.
After 1830, the arrival of new immigrants dropped sharply and many were even repatriated to India. The recruitment of Indian workers was officially suspended between 1839 and 1848, and resumed after the abolition of slavery in 1848. This early indentured labour experiment in La Reunion proved to be a failure and less than five years later, Mauritius would successfully embark on its own labour experiment. This complex and long term historic process became known as the‘Great Experiment’ which served as a model to its nearby neighbour during the late 1840s and later including Reunion Island.
Sugar Cane Boom and Significant Increase in the Number of Indian Immigrants to the Island
Between the 1840s and the 1860s, there was a sugar boom in La Reunion which required a large and malleable work force as the ex-slaves left the sugar estates in large numbers after its abolition on 20th December 1848. From December 1848 and December 1849, small batches of Indian immigrants from south India were introduced for a total of more than 4200 labourers. By 1858, around 64,400 Indian labourers were already working and living on the sugar estates, also in the towns, and villages of the island. At the same time, during this period, the local planters also brought thousands of contract workers from East Africa, other parts of Asia such as China, and sometimes even from islands in the South Pacific such as Vanuatu.
In 1862, the recruitment of Indians was regulated by a new convention between France and Great Britain. The employees signed a five to six year contract, some came with their families including their wives, children, and parents. Upon arrival, they were distributed to sugar estates across the entire island. The male-female imbalance is important. Between the late 1840s and the 1860s, these Indian immigrant men, women, and children endured difficult living and working conditions. During this period, vagrancy, desertion, group and individual protests and complaints frequently occurred as some of them rejected their terrible condition on the sugar estates.
After a Franco-British Commission of Inquiry in 1882 for complaints and ill-treatment of the workers, Indian immigration was temporarily suspended. Out of 43,631 foreign workers, there are 18,520 Indian workers. It should be noted that between the late 1840s and the early 1880s, tens of thousands of Mozambican, Comorian, Malagasy, Vietnamese, Javanese, and South Pacific islander labourers were also brought to work on the sugar estates of the island.
In 1893, the Muir Mackenzie Commission, asked that there be no more catch bonus for the engaged Indian deserters. Immigrants renewed their contracts at the end of their contracts, some opened small businesses, sell vegetables, became artisans, traders, hawkers, and shopkeepers. A small number was repatriated to the countries of origin.
Between the 1880s and the 1940s, thousands of former immigrants and their children took advantage of the fragmentation of large sugar estates and vacant land as they became landowners, small sugar cane, vanilla, and coffee growers, cultivators, farmers, metayers, and squatters. During more than six decades, it is estimated that between 5,000 and 6,000 former Indian, Malagasy, Comorian, and Mozambican indentured workers and their children purchased land and became small property-owners and farmers.
Countries of Origin & Ports of Embarkation of the Indentured Labourers in La Réunion
- India (1828-1905) Madras, Calcutta, Orissa, Mahé, Yanaon, Karikal, Pondicherry
2.Vietnam (1863-1900) North Tonkin, South Tonkin
3.China (1841-1907)
4.Madagascar (1818-1919) Nossi-Bé, Sainte-Marie, Fort-Dauphin
5.Rodrigues (1933), Comoros, Mayotte
6.African Coast (1843-1904), Mozambique
7.Cochinchina (1859-1880)
Oceania, Indonesia (1857-1859), Java
Yemen (1903)
After the cessation of Indian emigration, the last major importation of indentured labourers were the Malagasies, Vietnamese, Comorians, and Rodriguans. In 1919, after the Spanish Flu Epidemic, 3,000 Madagascans were recruited at Fort-Dauphin in eastern Madagascar. During the 1920s and 1930s, small batches of Malagasy contract workers continued to arrive into the island as they supplemented the already existing workforce. In 1933, more than 500 Rodriguans were brought to work in La Reunion as indentured workers on the sugar estates. Between 1935 and 1936, hundreds of Malagasies were brought from the coastal regions of Madagascar such as Saint Marie Island to work in La Reunion under 2-year contracts. Their arrival marked the end of the importations of indentured workers into the island.
Even between the early 1900s and 1930s, indentured labour still offered, to a certain extent, an opportunity for the majority of these immigrants who founded families, achieved some measure of social and economic mobility on the island as gradually, they integrated into the Reunionese society which had become cosmopolitan. Between 1828 and 1936, it is estimated that between 147,000 and 165,000 Indian and non-Indian indentured workers were introduced into this small Indian Ocean island.
Even between the early 1900s and 1930s, indentured labour still offered, to a certain extent, an opportunity for the majority of these immigrants who founded families, achieved some measure of social and economic mobility on the island as gradually, they integrated into the Reunionese society which had become cosmopolitan. Between 1828 and 1936, it is estimated that between 147,000 and 165,000 Indian and non-Indian indentured workers were introduced into this small Indian Ocean island.
*Research and pictures for this article were carried out and obtained in November 2018 at the Regional Archives of Reunion Island.