ABSTRACT
The abolition of slavery in the British Empire severely set back the colonial sugar industry, mainly through its impact on labour supply. Of all Britain's sugar-producing colonies, it was Mauritius which most successfully weathered the emancipation storm. Until the 1880s these were organised much on the same lines as in the days of slavery. This chapter focuses on the transition from slavery to indenture in the context of the Mauritian political economy and will examine this process and its broader significance. British colonial slavery was abolished in terms of a law passed on 28 August 1833. The Colonial Office responded favourably to these appeals and, early in 1842, Lord Stanley, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, authorised a resumption of immigration under government supervision. The indentured labour system, as it emerged in Mauritius, was a creation of the colonial ruling class of planters and merchants, assisted by the colonial state.
