The sea voyage was a great ordeal, particularly for single women. The easy presumption that single women recruits were usually widows or prostitutes is not supported by statistical evidence. It seems most unlikely that large numbers of women prostitutes had immigrated to Mauritius. Available evidence sourced from immigration registers indicate that the larger proportion of women were not single but travelling in family groups. Moreover, single women were not necessarily prostitutes. Many had come to rejoin male family members in Mauritius. Of greater concern was the extreme vulnerability of single women travellers to the unwanted sexual attentions of men onboard the ship, including crew members.
In the Woodcock Report, it was noted that any young single Indian woman on the ship Drongan to Mauritius in 1836 “was claimed before we had been at sea three days as the property of three persons”. In the event of these unfortunate women contracting any disease, usually cholera, they were mercilessly thrown overboard. In case the ship was nearing Mauritius, they could be thrown into the awaiting ocean before death claimed them. In that event, their orphaned children would be looked after by the remaining jahaji bhais and jahaji behens. Many other women died after arrival in quarantine, at the depot or at the hospital. Those who survived were unaware that their real challenge lay ahead – to confront their harsh exploitation at the hands of 19th-century plantation owners.
Initially, the female indentured were married and came to join their husbands. In the 1840s, married females accounted for around 60–80 per cent of the new arrivals. The remaining women were single. Their compulsions for moving to Mauritius were varied and ranged from extreme poverty to a difficult family environment or broken marriages. Some were forced into prostitution and opted for indenture, there being no other option at that time, except suicide. The latter option was exercised out of desperation even in Mauritius. The single women would wait at the depot for a suitable match in view of the many unmarried Indian males indentured on the island. These were termed “depot marriages”. Marriage on arrival in Mauritius was defined as “marriage migration”.
Invariably, women hoped for spouses from similar castes and the same region of origin. Single women were looked upon with suspicion and usually offered domestic work rather than work in the plantations. Unfortunately, many women were victims of trafficking by unscrupulous returnees or agents who would marry them to one or several men simultaneously. Of greater concern was the gradual infiltration of an informal dowry system by Mauritian Indians who would pay the bride’s family for a wife. This encouraged the abusive treatment of daughters by their fathers and later, of wives by their husbands, sometimes leading to murder. The wife was invariably regarded as chattel.
In one instance, the accused named Virapatrin noted that he had purchased his wife named Thelamey for a substantial amount, part of which had been borrowed. He accused Thelamey of adultery and believed her to be deserving of death. In such marriages, wives had no rights, including remarriage after the death of the spouse. She would forever remain the inalienable property of her spouse. In such situations, many women opted for suicide as salvation. These included single destitute women as well as widows with no means of sustenance. To encourage the recruitment of more women, returnees petitioned the colonial government to allow them to return with their families. To consolidate and increase the Indian indentured, several laws were enacted to allow family reunions. These included the provision of free passages for wives and children of male indentured and the payment of a bonus by the colonial authorities to recruiters bringing married couples or spouses of male indentured. The number of female arrivals went up from 49 in 1842 to 4,380 in 1843.
In addition, women migrants were exempted from signing formal indenture agreements. It was argued that “they were primarily valued for their role in fostering the permanent settlement of the community in Mauritius, as reproducers of labour power force rather than as labourers per se”. The then Governor of Mauritius Sir James Macaulay Higginson even suggested the “creation of resident labour population” considered “indispensable to permanent security”.
Despite these measures, women remained a tiny minority of the total Indian indentured population. According to the 1859 Immigration Report, between 1834 and 1852, about 1,014 women arrived, 244 returned to India, and 210 died in Mauritius. The report also documented the slow trickle of female arrivals. A powerful disincentive to increased women’s recruitment was the harsh and invasive medical examination they were subjected to against their wishes by European doctors and emigration officials.
In 1847, the Protector of Emigrants at Mauritius cautioned against subjecting women “to so close an examination of their persons for the purpose of requesting their bodily marks […] it is evident […] that they are even stripped of their clothes”. Media reports regarding such practices outraged public opinion in India and the practice was discontinued. Plantation owners remained notoriously reluctant to encourage female indenture or spouses of male indenture to be brought to Mauritius. The returnee recruiters were aware of their instructions as well as the emigration agents at Calcutta and Madras. It has been documented that an Indian planter based in Mauritius, Tiroumoudy, recommended that spouses of the indentured be brought to Mauritius.
The Emigration Agent responded in the negative, stating: “[The] returned men all of whom when asked their reason for taking no women invariably replied that their Mauritian masters have forbidden them to bring any, saying their masters require men for their cultivation, not women.” By 1857, this attitude became known to the Protector of Emigrants at Mauritius and to the Mauritian colonial government. It was decided that further measures would be required to encourage female recruitment. Between 1842 and 1860, the recruiters were paid a lump sum if the proportion of male-to-female recruits was respected. The proportion was fixed as 40 women to every 100 men immigrants.
This practice was abolished in 1866, since the Protector in Mauritius complained that the sirdars and returnees had manipulated the system to maximise the cash remuneration by bringing back “two and sometimes three wives”. In some cases, women used to be sold on arrival at Mauritius. This has been documented in the case of a cook named Buskeet who used to work on ships carrying indentured labour as well as women “whom he sold.”
Excerpted with permission from The Indentured and Their Route: A Relentless Quest for Identity, Bhaswati Mukherjee, Rupa Publications.
Limited-time offer: Big stories, small price. Keep independent media alive. Become a Scroll member today!
Our journalism is for everyone. But you can get special privileges by buying an annual Scroll Membership. Sign up today!