On this day the first indentured labourers from India reached Mauritius on the ship Atlas.
On September 10, 1834, 36 “coolies”, who were also known as “Dhangars”, signed with George Charles Arbuthnot of Hunter-Arbuthnot & Company, a leading British trading company based in Mauritius, a five-year labour contract. The labourers, who were originally from the hills of Bihar but working in Kolkata, signed the contract in the presence of C. MacFarlan at the Kolkata police head office. MacFarlan, the chief magistrate of Kolkata, read and explained in detail the contract to the labourers with the help of an interpreter. There were 30 men and 6 women in the group. They sailed on September 15 from Kolkata. More than 4,55,000 indentured labourers would arrive between January 1835 and August 1910 in Mauritius.
