The 'Apprenticeship' System in Mauritius: Its Character and Its Impact on Race Relations in the Immediate Post-Emancipation Period, 1839-1879

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Title:	The 'Apprenticeship' System in Mauritius: Its Character and Its Impact on Race Relations in the Immediate Post-Emancipation Period, 1839-1879
Author:	Nmulia, Moses D.E.
Year:	1978
Periodical:	African Studies Review
Volume:	21
Issue:	1
Period:	April
Pages:	89-101
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Mauritius
Subjects:	abolition of slavery colonialism History and Exploration Labor and Employment Ethnic and Race Relations
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/523765
Abstract:	The Abolition Act, which the British Parliament passes into law in 1833, conferred freedom on all slave children in the plantation colonies, who were not over six years of age, and declared as free persons children born after the passage of the act. All persons over six years of age became free but were required to work for their former onwers as 'apprentices' for a limited period. The apprenticeship system was inaugurated in Mauritius and dependencies on 1 February 1835. It came to an end there in 1839. There are several evaluations of that system. This paper re-examines the 'apprenticeship' system in Mauritius in the light of these evaluations, and offers the modified interpretation that the system converted chattel slaves into serfs. The paper also explores the effects of the system. The paper starts with the legal and administrative framework, then proceeds to a discussion of the working of the system and its termination, and finally attempts an assessment of its effects. Ref.