Route du Coolie

The road of the Coolie finds his high-place with the Mauritius, in the past named island of France. They is here that the immigrants, especially Indian, left the Indies to settle in the sugar plantocraties of Maurice, then in other indiaconeanic spaces, then with the the Antilles.

Coming mainly from Calcutta or, to a lesser extent, French counters established with Pondichéry or Karikal, these candidates with the economic exile posed the bases of the Coolie trade, trade of brown arms of disaster report, which was to take so inhuman turnings that revolts and cases of vagrancy, suicides or " deaths; by nostalgie" were frequent.

Mestries or recruiters were sent to the the Indies, to promise, often, mounts and wonders with coolies or other Indians, especially those which were the victims of the revolts of the cipayes and the subsequent famines. Many believed that while coming to Maurice, it was enough to raise stones to find Or…

Provided with a five year old contract and a ticket " gratuit" (that they were to refund by working a certain number of months) on board the slave ship reconverted for the new needs, they embarked per hundreds of thousands towards the promised lands, to discover trickery.

Many died of diseases and ill treatments.

The number relatively low women explains the dépréciatives conduits of the Engagés, which, little by little, were organized to resist and acquire an economic and political independence.

It is only about the first decades of the 20th century that this practice was abolished.

The road of the coolie connects the the Indies, the China, of the islands of the Indian Ocean, the African countries, spaces carribéens, Fiji and the Americas.

Nowadays, the Coolie Museum of Mocha coffee, is a place highlighting documents and artefacts bound at that time, that an English historian, Hugh Tinker, indicated like " a new form of esclavage" , although the Coolie trade or the Engagement was the first form of Salariat after the Esclavage.

In 2006, UNESCO classified the ex-coolie ghat, famous in Aapravasi Ghat, with the World heritage of Humanity, recognizing its contribution with possibilities of convergence between the milked négrières and the Engagisme.

Reference books

  • PC Campbell, Chinese Coolie Emigration to Countries within the British Worsens (1923, repr. 1971).

  • Khal Torabully, Marina Careter, Coolitude: Year Anthology off the Indian Ploughing Diaspora, Anthem Near, 2002, ISBN 1843310031

External bond

  • Article in English on the coolitude

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