Arrival of Indentured Labourers

Arrival of Indentured Labourers commemorates 2 November 1834, when 36 workers from India landed at the site later called Aapravasi Ghat under the early scheme known as the 'Great Experiment'. It marks the institutional expansion of indenture after slavery, not the first presence of Indian people or labour on Mauritius.

Nearly half a million indentured immigrants passed through the immigration depot between 1849 and 1923 before being sent to sugar estates in Mauritius or onward to other colonies. Contracts distinguished indenture legally from chattel slavery, but coercive recruitment, harsh work, restricted mobility and unequal power make celebratory migration language alone inadequate; the commemoration holds hardship, agency, family formation and cultural transformation together.

Its legal status comes from the Public Holidays Act as restructured in 2015 and the Government's annual date notice. Sundays are themselves public holidays under the First Schedule, but Mauritius does not automatically transfer a named festival that falls on Sunday to Monday. The Workers' Rights Act governs pay and work entitlements and expressly distinguishes a public holiday that is also Sunday from other public holidays.