This year the Government of Mauritius is commemorating the 188th anniversary marking the arrival of the indentured labourers to Mauritian shores. For the first time in almost four decades, or since September 1984, the commemoration ceremony is being observed at a national level at Antoinette-Phooliyar, near the village of Barlow, where the 2nd November 1834 indentured workers were taken to work when they arrived in our country.
ANTOINETTE SUGAR ESTATE & ITS LABOURERS
Antoinette Sugar Estate, formerly known as Naud Estate and Belle Alliance Estate and also known as Phooliyar, is one of the most famous sugar estates in Mauritian history. It is intimately linked with the arrival of the 36 Bihari male indentured workers from Calcutta, India, and with the genesis of the indentured labour system in our country. It is a place of shared history and heritage where between the late 18th century and the mid-20th centuries, hundreds of slaves and thousands of Indian and non-Indian indentured workers and their descendants labored their entire lives.
Between the 1770s and 1830s, more than 400 Mozambican, Malagasy, and Indian slaves worked and lived on Antoinette Sugar Estate where they started the long and complex process of transforming a barren land into a garden of sugar. This process was continued between the 1830s and the early 1900s, by more than 4,000 Indian indentured workers and some non-Indian workers such as the Chinese and the Liberated Africans. Between the 1870s and the 1950s, this economic process was completed by more than 3,000 Mauritian workers who made it one of the most important and profitable sugar estates in Riviere du Rempart district.
Between 1770 and 1939, Antoinette had ten different owners who contributed in one way or another to its rich its history and heritage. There were five owners in particular namely, Louis Naud, Joseph Diore, George Arbuthnot, Raoul de Maroussem, and Gustave Martin, who played a key role in the transformation of Antoinette into one of the most important sugar estates in Riviere du Rempart District. At the same time, Arbuthnot, de Maroussem, and Martin also brought hundreds of Indian indentured labourers and some Chinese contract workers and Liberated Africans to work on their sugar estates between the 1830s and early 1900s.
THE GENESIS OF ANTOINETTE SUGAR ESTATE DURING
THE LATE 18TH AND EARLY 19TH CENTURIES
The origins of Antoinette or Belle Alliance Sugar Estate can be traced to December 1770 when Chevalier de Chermont, a French military officer and aristocrat, was given a land concession of 112 arpents of land by Governor Descroches with the support of Intendant Pierre Poivre through the colony’s Land Commission. Therefore, this year also marks the 252nd anniversary of the founding of Antoinette Sugar Estate which has a long, rich, and complex history.
During the 1770s and the early 1780s, it consisted mainly of land covered by dense forest and bushes and remained undeveloped by Chevalier de Chermont. According to historical records, Antoinette was officially founded in November 1782 by Mr. Louis Naud, a French settler and high-ranking member of the local colonial government, when he was given Chermont’s land concession by the then Governor Viscount de Souillac.
Between the 1780s and early 1800s, Naud used his slaves to develop the land and transformed it into a small estate where he grew some sugar, spices, and vegetables and the rest of the land was used for grazing by livestock. During the early 1800s, he turned it into a sugar estate with a small sugar factory and alcohol was also manufactured. He employed scores of slaves and made enough profits to purchase land adjacent to the estate and also obtained some land concessions. The size of the land increased from 112 arpents to more than 500 arpents.
In 1815, Naud passed away and his wife and children divided the land into 17 smaller plots of land and sold them to different buyers. However, several years later, in 1828, Emilien Dupuy and Joseph Diore and Mrs. Diore purchased all the 17 plots of land and created a new estate and gave it the name of Belle Alliance in honor of their close financial cooperation. Between 1828 and 1830, the new owners constructed a small stone sugar mill, a rum distillery, and had their slaves clear more than 300 arpents of land for sugar cane cultivation.
But, by 1832, Mr. Diore passed away and Dupuy and Widow Diore were unable to manage the sugar estate and sold it to Mr. Arbuthnot who represented Hunter and Arbuthnot Company, a newly formed British company based in Mauritius. His company invested thousands of pound sterlings into the sugar estate and transformed it into one of the most important in Riviere du Rempart with one of the most important distilleries.
The Arrival of the Pioneer Indentured Workers of 2nd November 1834 of Antoinette
In 1832, there was a total of 190 slaves and by 1834, they were joined by 36 indentured Indian workers who were also laboring in its sugar cane fields. Between the mid-1830s and early 1840s, sugar production reaching 300 to 400 tons each year and almost 200 arpents of land were added to Belle Alliance. The arrival of the Arbuthnot contract workers marked the genesis of the long and complex historic relationship between indentured labourers and the history of that particular sugar estate. It also symbolically heralded the coming of hundreds of thousands of contract workers to Mauritian shores and the beginning of the Age of Indenture in British Mauritius.
The ship the Atlas arrived on Sunday, 2nd November 1834 in Port Louis harbour. The story of these pioneer Indian labourers began almost two months earlier in Calcutta, India. On 10th September 1834, 36 Hill Coolies of the Dhangar caste (originally from the hills of Bihar in eastern India who were then living in Calcutta) signed a five-year labour contract with George Charles Arbuthnot of Gillanders-Ogilvie (an important British commercial firm based in British India) and acting on behalf of Hunter-Arbuthnot & Company, a major British trading company in Mauritius, in the presence of C. McFarlan, at the Calcutta Police Head Office. MacFarlan, the Chief Magistrate of Calcutta, read and explained in detail the contract to the Indian labourers with the help of an Indian interpreter.
One of the conditions in the contract clearly stated: “The natives agree to proceed to Mauritius to work as labourers there upon a sugar estate, the property of Hunter Arbuthnot & Co. and to remain there as required for the term of 5 years”.Once the labourers agreed to the terms and conditions, they placed their thumb mark on the contract and on a separate list, which contained the names of the 36 Coolies, they placed an ‘X’ next to their names. The sirdar of these labourers was called Sooroop who was assisted by Subaram. In all, there were 30 males and 6 females among Arbuthnot’s coolies, some of their names were Callachaund, Dookhun, Bhomarah, Bhoodhoo, Lungon, and Bhudhram. The life stories of Immigrants Dookhun and Bhoodhoo will shortly be explored in this short article.
The labour contract, which these labourers signed, was written in Bengali. Furthermore, the salary for the males was five rupees per month and for the females only four rupees per month. The sirdar was paid ten rupees per month and the assistant sirdar around eight rupees per month. In fact, they all received six months’ pay in advance before boarding the Atlas. It was Hunter Arbuthnot & Company that paid for their journey from Calcutta to Port Louis. As a result, one rupee was deducted from their monthly wages by that British company for the return passage to India and they were also going to be provided with food, clothing, lodging and medical care. 
On the same day that the labour contract was signed, MacFarlan sent a letter to H. Prinsep, the Secretary to the Government of the Bengal Presidency, informing him of the agreement. The Chief Magistrate requested the Vice-President and Governing Council of the Bengal Presidency to give their stamp of approval to the contract and to allow the labourers to sail for Mauritius.
On 15th September, the Vice-President in Council gave his assent to the contract. On the very same day, the 36 Hill Coolies embarked on the Atlas and began their historic voyage to British Mauritius. The Atlas was under command of Captain Hustwick and was also transporting George Arbuthnot and other passengers as well as a large cargo of rice. It should be noted that G. Arbuthnot lived in different parts of India during the late 1820s and early 1830s was very familiar with the working and living conditions of Indian workers.After a long voyage of more than six weeks, the Atlas sailed into Port Louis harbour on Sunday afternoon, 2nd November 1834. However, George Arbuthnot had to wait until the following day before starting the formalities in order for his labourers to be landed on Mauritian soil. On Monday morning, 3rd November, Arbuthnot, wrote an official letter on behalf of Hunter-Arbuthnot & Company to Governor Nicolay, which requested that: “they be allowed to land 36 Hill Coolies from the ship Atlas, whom they intend to employ on their Estate, under guarantee that they shall not become a charge on the Colony”.
Hunter-Arbuthnot & Company provided Governor Nicolay with a financial guarantee which was kept in trust by the local colonial government in the Colonial Treasury and would be returned to that British company after the five-year contract of the labourers had expired. As a result, during the afternoon of 3rd November, permission for the landing of the labourers was given by the British governor. However, it was only on Tuesday morning, 4th November, that the 36 Hill Coolies were landed close to Her Majesty’s Customs House, located today next to the Caudan Waterfront and behind the General Post Office. Later that same day, Arbuthnot’s coolies were taken to Belle Alliance Sugar Estate in Rivière du Rempart.
A Brief Profile of the 2nd November 1834 Immigrants of Antoinette
Recent research at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute Indian Immigration Archives and the Mauritius National Archives has provided new information on some of the Arbuthnot indentured workers who arrived in Mauritius on 2nd November 1834 such as Immigrants Soroop or Sooroop the sirdar, Bhoodhoo and Dookhun. They were the pioneers of a migration which forever altered the history, economy, and demography of not only Antoinette Sugar Estate and its immediate vicinity but Mauritius as a whole over a period of more than a century.