Convicts in the Indian Ocean : Transportation From South Asia to Mauritius, 1815-53

## Preface This book originated as a PhD thesis in the Department of History, University of Edinburgh, under the supervision of Ian Duffield and Crispin Bates. I cannot thank them enough for all their advice and support. The British Academy and Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland were also extremely generous in their financial support of my research in London and Mauritius. My PhD examiners, Rosalind O'Hanlon and Peter Young, suggested a number of ways in which I could take my thesis further. When the British took control of the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius soon after the abolition of the slave trade, they were faced with a labour-hungry and potentially hostile Franco-Mauritian plantocracy. This book explores the context in which Indian convicts were transported to the island and put to work building the infrastructure necessary to fuel the expansion of the sugar industry. Drawing on hitherto unexplored archival material, the book examines the origins of the convicts and their organization as forced labourers. It also shows how convicts experienced transportation and integrated into the Mauritian social and economic fabric Front Matter....Pages i-xii Introduction: Convict Labour and Colonial Expansion....Pages 1-11 ‘The Most Desperate Characters in all India’? The Origins of Transportation in the South Asian Context....Pages 12-33 Punishment, Labour and Reform: the Organisation of the Convict Workforce....Pages 34-58 Violent and ‘Everyday’ Forms of Resistance: Convict Responses to Transportation....Pages 59-84 The Socio-economic Integration of Convicts....Pages 85-110 The End of Transportation and the Liberation of the Convicts....Pages 111-123 Back Matter....Pages 125-192 When the British took control of the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius soon after the abolition of the slave trade, they were faced with a labour-hungry and potentially hostile Franco-Mauritian plantocracy. This book explores the context in which Indian convicts were transported to the island and put to work building the infrastructure necessary to fuel the expansion of the sugar industry. Drawing on hitherto unexplored archival material, it is shown how convicts experienced transportation and integrated into the Mauritian social and economic fabric.