Adolphe de plevitz biography of george

They came after the abolition of slavery in the British colonies such as Mauritius, Guyana, Surinam, and Trinidad and so on to replace the African slaves in Ex-slaves cost 50 pounds yearly, the indentured labourers deprived from their own rights were treated as slaves and cost 3 pounds yearly and were given a salary of Rs 5 per month. Indentured labourers came from India to replace the slaves as a source of cheap labour to work in the sugar cane plantation.

They changed the face of Mauritius as a prosperous sugar producer in the British colonies. The 1st batch of Indian artisans came from Pondicherry in during the governorship of Mahe de Labourdonnais. The 2nd batch of about , came as soldiers during the battle between the British and the French in December , most of them were from Madras, Bengal and Bihar.

There were also some prisoners who revolted against the British rule in India. In , he had to obtain a new Old Immigrant ticket and was also photographed after being arrested as a vagrant and imprisoned at the Vagrant Depot because he did not have his identification papers on his person. However, in , , and , Chocalingum was arrested as a vagrant on three additional occasions despite the fact that he had his identification papers.

It was as a clear sign of his protest against the treatment that he and his fellow Indian immigrants endured at the hands of the colonial police and administrators. The Case-Study of Immigrant Roopram. Immigrant Roopram reached Port Louis in at the age of 35 from Calcutta. He was a labourer from Bhagalpur district in eastern Bihar. By , Roopram was labour overseer on Bagatelle Sugar Estate.

In , , and , he was arrested on three occasions as a deserter because he did not have his Old Immigrant ticket on his person and was incarcerated at the Port Louis Prisons. It was done as a sign of individual resistance and protest against his repeated arrests and imprisonment and being treated like a common criminal.

Adolphe de plevitz biography of george

His heart burst on seeing sights of woe when men could be so degraded as to treat his less happier fellow brothers as if they were worse than beasts of burden. His sympathetic nature attracted to him many Indians who found in him one who was always ready to lend an ear to their tales of sufferings. He began to take down notes which helped him to draft the petition and to publish the pamphlet which were to bring the Royal Commission of The colonial papers were loud in denouncing him as an instigator of troubles.

Some of them demanded to the Governor his immediate expulsion or his imprisonment. Many whites were impatient of such measures. A Franco-Mauritian, Jules Lavoquer was bold enough to take the law into his own hands. Helped by some friends he assaulted him cowardly near the Municipal Theatre on the 19th of October Somebody also struck him from behind causing blood to flow.

The attitude of the police in this matter is interesting. It was not the assaulter who was arrested for criminal action but both he and the victim for disturbing the public peace. The hostility shown to De Plevitz did not end there: he was threatened in violent and abusive language by the mob which was headed by a certain Merven. The president of that body Dr lcery, wrote to the Governor that a monster meeting had been held at Montagne Longue, which De Plevitz had presided.

In fact it was not a meeting at all. The Chamber of Agriculture was not always impartial. Indeed, His Excellency is evidently desirous of extinguishing in this colony every means of collective representation on the measures of the local government. Such was the conception of justice of the Chamber of Agriculture. The same law which when applied to the planters was found obnoxious and yet it severely censured Governor Sir Arthur Gordon for not applying against De Plevitz.

To the petition De Plevitz appended his observations. The recruiters of immigrants in India, Protector of Immigrants, the Magistrates, the Legislative Council, the employers, and the police were all of them severely censured for their attitude towards the immigrants. He lamented the fact that the poor Indian had no one to attempt, at a redress of their grievances.

That they should convert the planters to their way of thinking was about as probable as the success of any one who in the days of undisguised slavery should have asked them to liberate their Africans. Redress can only be had from England; to obtain it here is absolutely impossible. He did not rest satisfied with the petition and the observations appended to it.