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Special Note
The application of people from erstwhile French colonies need to be viewed with the bias that these applicants may not have supporting documentary evidence of ancestry going back to the period of indentured labor akin to those Indian emigrants who went to the erstwhile British colonies. The historical reasons for this are provided hereunder.
Historical Background
The French had established themselves in south India and Chandernagore as per enclosed notes.
The French took Indian slaves in the 1760s to Mauritius from south India. No records of the shipment of slaves have been kept anywhere, as these records were systematically destroyed by the French themselves. The French also encouraged the migration of free persons to work independently in Mauritius as jewelers, cobblers, masons, carpenters, etc.
In 1798 protest marches started in England to abolish slavery in the British colonies, but it was only in 1808 that a motion was tabled in parliament in England to abolish slavery. In the same year, the East India Company lost 22 ships in 1 year to the French pirates based at ile de France (Mauritius) and Ile Bourbon (La Reunion).
As a result of this, the east India Company fought the French and occupied both Ile de France and Ile Bourbon in 1810. In 1814 by the Treaty of Versailles, Ile Bourbon was returned to the French.
When the first British governor, Peter Townsend Farquhar was appointed in Mauritius, he was in a quandary as to how to obtain workers to develop the island, which was under the influence of the French planters and their slaves of African origin. Farquhar could neither buy nor borrow the slaves of the French planters. Nor could he ask for slaves from British India. Hence, when he appealed for help to India, Farquhar was sent convicts for life.
The docility and hard work of the Indian convicts in building Mauritius earned them the respect of the French planters, who had trouble with their African slaves. In 1822 and 1828, Parliament passed motions to state that slaves should be better treated, and color bar be removed. Finally in 1833, slavery was abolished in the British colonies.
The French planters from Mauritius and La Reunion, duly impressed with the hard-working abilities of the Indian convicts, went to India to recruit labor to work on their plantations. In 1833, during the renewal of their 20-year contract, the trade monopoly of the EIC was abolished, but in lieu they were given full governance of British India. Hence, the French planters who came to recruit in India had to take the permission of the
EIC.
Hereafter started the indentured labor system for a contract period of 5 years. As this was not under the control of the EIC from 1833 to 1839, this period was known as the ‘unregulated period’ of emigration. When complaints trickled back from Mauritius that Indians were being maltreated like African slaves, the EIC put an embargo on emigration from June 1838 to Nov. 1842, although clandestinely, some vessels still sailed with emigrants up to Dec. 1839.
From Dec. 1842, the EIC adopted Colonial Emigration Acts and allowed emigration in Mauritius under strict control. In 1845, due to the immense progress made in the development of Mauritius by Indian workers, emigration was opened for Trinidad, British Guyana and Jamaica.
When the French failed in all their attempts to take Indian workers to their colonies, they were compelled to abolish slavery in 1848. Thereafter ensued lengthy correspondence between the French and British India to allow Indian workers to be taken under a similar system of indentured labor to the French colonies.
Unfortunately, with unrest and the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857-58 and the taking over of the governance of India by the British Crown, a convention could only be signed in 1860 between Louis Napoleon III and Queen Victoria to allow 6,000 Indian workers to go to La Reunion every year. The French had to give an undertaking that no more African slaves would be imported. Thus, indentured labor to the French colonies started under the regulated system from 1860 and ended in
1887.
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