Aapravasi Ghat
| Aapravasi Ghat | |
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UNESCO world heritage 
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| Latrines of the Aapravasi Ghat |
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| National territory: |
 Mauritius
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| Type: | Culture |
| Criteria : | vi |
| Surface: | 0.16 ha |
| Reference No .: | 1227 |
| UNESCO region : | Africa |
| History of enrollment | |
| Enrollment: | 2006 (session 30) |
Aapravasi Ghat ( Hindi for immigration limit ) was a camp for Indian immigrants to Mauritius in Port Louis . From 1834 it served as a stopover for 450,000 people who had accepted work as debt servants on the island's sugar cane plantations and were supposed to replace the slaves there after the abolition of slavery .
2006 Immigration Depot was in the UNESCO the list World Heritage received and is in Mauritius under monument protection . According to the World Heritage Committee, it represents
"One of the first manifestations of what a global economic system should become, as well as one of the greatest migrations in history."
history
Debt bondage ( English indentured labor ) describes a system in which emigrants committed themselves as workers for several years in return for payment of the passage, a low wage as well as room and board. It was not a new phenomenon in the 19th century. Most European settlers in the Caribbean and North America had signed such treaties in the 16th and 17th centuries.
When the plantation owners sought new forms of cheap labor after the ban on slavery in the British Empire , the old institution was revived. The emerging economy of Mauritius should initially serve as a model for other colonies . The workers were mainly recruited in Bihar and the Indian north-west provinces and were given five-year contracts. Until it was banned in 1918, the system extended to other British colonies, such as Guyana , South Africa , Trinidad and many others.
The Aapravasi Ghat transit camp was established in 1849 and expanded rapidly in the following years to accommodate up to a thousand people at a time. When an immigration ban for contract workers to Mauritius was imposed in 1871, migrants who were on their way to Réunion , South and East Africa, the Caribbean or Australia were accommodated there. In 1923 the camp was closed. In 1987 the original name Coolie Ghat was changed to Aapravasi Ghat, which in Hindi means roughly the landing point of the immigrants.
Today the descendants of Indian immigrants make up 68% of the population of Mauritius.
Attractions
Only a few remains of Aapravasi Ghat are left today: the entrance gate and the infirmary, the wall of a residential hut and the remains of a bath and toilet house. They date from the 1860s. There is also the quay wall with its 14-step narrow staircase that all newcomers had to pass. Nowadays, the quay no longer borders on water. It is precisely these stages that can be interpreted as symbols for the entire history of immigrants: whoever climbed them was on the way to a new life - for better or for worse.
Commemoration
In memory of the day the first contract workers arrived in 1834, November 2nd is a national holiday in Mauritius.
Web links
- Entry on the UNESCO World Heritage Center website ( English and French ).
- Aapravasi Ghat Trust Fund ( Memento from September 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- Description and pictures ( Memento of March 21, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (French)
Cultural Heritage: Aapravasi Ghat (2006) | Le Morne cultural landscape (2008)
Coordinates: 20 ° 9 ′ 31 ″ S , 57 ° 30 ′ 11 ″ E