THE IMPORTANCE OF 2ND NOVEMBER 1834 REVISITED? : “They Came to Mauritian Shores” (1), The Genesis of the Indentured Labour System and the Life-Story of Immigrant Mahamod

Ever since 2^nd November 2001, the arrival of the indentured labourers has been
commemorated at the Aapravasi Ghat World Heritage Site as an official national public holiday. Each year, a lot of emphasis is placed on the 36 Indian indentured workers who reached Mauritian shores on the ship the Atlas on 2^nd November 1834 and the more than 25,000 who followed in their footsteps during the following five years. In the process, Mauritians and Mauritian and overseas scholars of indentured labour have largely ignored the arrival of hundreds of Indian and Chinese indentured workers from the mid-1820s until the mid-1830s.