Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The 19th century has witnessed the movement of factors of production on a very large scale specially marked my movement of men, primarily the movement of labour class. Migration was majorly an outcome of poverty. Peasant migration was a combination of poverty and end of the feudal forms of exploitation. Poverty, lack of livelihood and the requirement of labour my colonizers contributed to the internal and international migration to plantations and mines on a large scale. The British Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833 to abolish slavery throughout British Empire1 . After abolition of slavery British faced shortage of labour in their colonies. To compensate for the slaves emancipation, there was a compulsory apprenticeship to be done by all ex-slaves for four to five years because the planters were then short of labour. So, this shortage of labour encouraged labour migration across the colonies. This was called the “Great Experiment” because, they were going to experiment the working and profitability with the free labour and not in the previous method of slavery. The first batches of Indian unskilled labourers were sent to Mauritius for sugar plantation. After that, labour was transported to work on tea, rubber, palm, sugarcane plantations and mines. Mauritius had an advantage than many other areas due to its proximity to many potentially labour abundant areas. It was generally males who migrated to different parts and hence this was temporary migration. But from 20th century women also started migrating and got migration a permanent character.
Author: Charu Latha Tadaka
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4412468760