Colonial Emigration Nineteenth, Twentieth Centuries : Annual Reports from the Port of Calcutta to the British and Foreign Colonies, Vol. III
"Steps were taken towards the end of the eighteenth century to bring slavery to an end, which culminated in 1833, only in the British colonies. The following gives an insight to the matter as well as inland immigration, a precursor to the Foreign Immigration.
The movement for abolition of slavery in the British colonies started around the latter part of the eighteenth century. A motion was tabled in the British Parliament in 1807. The House of Commons approved the prohibition of Slave Trade and by 1823, envisaged abolition of slavery and issued a circular for better treatment of slaves. In 1828, Colour Bar was abolished in the British Colonies. Finally, in 1833, slavery throughout the British Empire was abolished. On August First 1834, twenty millions pound sterling was approved by the Imperial Treasury to be released as compensation to the owners of the slaves. The slave owners of Mauritius received a little over two millions pound sterling and in other British Colonies, 19 was paid for the release of each slave. Perhaps this humanitarian gesture has no parallel in history, yet, at the same time when steps for abolition of slavery was being taken in England, the British were successful in destroying the handloom industry in India, depriving thousands and thousands of weavers of their livelihood. Up to the first quarter of the nineteenth century, India was exporting cotton fabrics but by mid nineteenth century, India was importing only.
Earlier, from about 1828 to 1833, private agents also took a few slaves from India to Mauritius, which was basically a colony of slaves till 1834. In 1835, 61,045 slaves were released in Mauritius. In 1897, there were 60,000 black slaves in the colony, brought mostly from Mozambique on the east coast of Africa, by the French settlers.
Emigration, started by the East India Company, whose European soldiers and Indian sepoys actually annexed Mauritius in 1810, became a matter of pride for the British Crown from 1860 onwards. The British first came to India in the early seventeenth century for trading only, which lasted for 220 years, from about 1610 to when the Monopoly of trade of the East India Company was abolished in 1833. In 1765, the East India Company received the Diwani or revenueship of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Governance of parts of India by the East India Company lasted only 25 years (1833-1858) though the company was annexing state after state within India, from about 1800 to 1857. The British Crown actually ruled India for only 89 years, within which time they annexed surrounding countries, to make India one of the largest empire in the world.
The Indian natives became their subjects and sending them under the garb of emigration by creating manmade famine conditions became a routine. Anyway, it was a blessing in disguise." (jacket)
