07/06/2026
TOWARDS AN INDENTURED LABOUR ROUTE
Selvan Naidoo
HERITAGE experts and government officials gathered in Mauritius for a landmark workshop aimed at strengthening the preservation, documentation, and promotion of indentured labour heritage across the Indian Ocean region.
The Ministry of Arts and Culture of Mauritius, together with aApravasi Ghat, met with UNESCO, ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) representatives, and world heritage professionals in Port Louis, Mauritius, from 27 to 29 May 2026, to discuss indentured labour heritage in the Indian Ocean region. Talks focused on developing a roadmap to strengthen the documentation, preservation, and promotion of the history of indentured labour.
Emphasis was also placed on enhancing understanding of heritage sites and reinforcing links between indenture experiences across the region. The South African perspective on indentured labour heritage, memory, museums, and community heritage was presented by Selvan Naidoo, indentured history author, Director of the 1860 Heritage Centre in Durban, and Dr Mariagrazia Galimberti, a Senior Specialist of World Heritage at The KwaZulu-Natal Amafa and Research Institute.
Held under the theme "A Dialogue on the Heritage of Indentured Labour in the Indian Ocean", the workshop brought together participants from several countries and territories in the Indian Ocean region, as well as Mauritian heritage professionals, institutional representatives, and technical officers.
The International delegation included Gwenaëlle Bourdin, Director of the World Heritage Evaluation Unit at the ICOMOS, Renganaden Andiapen, World Heritage Site Manager at the Aapravasi Ghat Trust Fund, Angelo Happi Joaquim from Mozambique National Directorate of Cultural Heritage, Erick James Kajiru, a member of the UNESCO National Commission of Tanzania, Hoseah Wanderi, a Research Scientist at the National Museums of Kenya, Coraline Ranganayaguy, an art historian, researcher in La Réunion, Ms Jessica Play, Head of the Lazaret de La Grande Chaloupe Reunion, Indian Heritage specialist, Munish Pandit, Head of Sanrakshan Heritage Consultants Pvt. Ltd., Naima Mohamed, a heritage and museum practitioner from Lamu, Kenya, Odile de Comarmond of the Ministry of Education of Seychelles, Peter Nicholls, a historian of Seychelles and Indian Ocean maritime networks. Mr Sanjai Kumar S/O Bascaran, a senior curator at the World Heritage Division, Malaysia.
Mauritius holds a central place in the history of indentured labour. The Aapravasi Ghat World Heritage Property, located in Port Louis, is one of the most important surviving sites associated with the arrival and documentation of indentured labourers. It is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List for its direct association with the global system of indentured labour.
The workshop used this heritage as a point of departure to encourage dialogue among Indian Ocean countries and territories that share histories connected to indenture. As part of the programme, a field visit was organised to Flat Island, a former quarantine station associated with the indenture system, which served as a case study to support the technical discussions.
The history of indentured labour represents one of the major movements of people across the Indian Ocean during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The history of indenture remains, however, an under-researched topic when it comes to world history. The study of indentured labour needs to be disseminated, promoted, and made an integral part of international academic studies and scholarship. The UNESCO Indentured Labour Route Project (ILRP) provides the way and means of achieving this long-term and challenging task.
Following the abolition of slavery, indentured labour became closely linked to the transformation of colonial societies, plantation economies, port cities, and migrant communities. These journeys transformed societies, economies, and cultures in many parts of the world. Behind this history are the journeys of men, women, and families whose experiences continue to shape identities, traditions, memories, and cultural practices across the Indian Ocean world.
The workshop provided a platform to strengthen the understanding of indentured-labour-heritage, sharing experiences from different countries and territories, to identify common priorities for research, documentation, and interpretation. Discussions focused on archives, heritage sites, museums, oral histories, community memory, public awareness, capacity building, and possible long-term cooperation among institutions in the Indian Ocean region.
The initiative sought to move beyond commemoration by encouraging a forward-looking regional process. One of the expected outcomes is the identification of proposed elements for a regional roadmap on the heritage of indentured labour in the Indian Ocean. This roadmap may support future collaboration in research, documentation, heritage management, interpretation, education, institutional networking, and cultural cooperation.
For South Africa, the indentured labour system that brought 152,184 Indian workers to KwaZulu-Natal from 1860 to 1911 to advance an ailing colonial economy of Natal, barely any recognizable sites of memory mark where the indentured workers had landed, where they were processed, and where they lived.
In recent years, ongoing research to map an indentured labour route in KwaZulu-Natal to memorialise the built environment that was shaped by the system of indentured labour has been foregrounded by the author of this article. These sites include not only the physical structures built for and by indentured workers, such as housing and infrastructure, but also the broader impact on urban and rural landscapes, as well as the cultural heritage associated with architectural objects and spaces.
This research and mapping project narrows its focus to include indentured labour depots in India, coastal port sites where the indentured workers had disembarked and first landed to plantation and barracks accommodation to towns of settlement to educational sites of conscience and to religious and cultural sites of memory that will culminate in mapping an Indian Indentured Labour Route for South Africa along the lines of the slave route in Cape Town.
In Durban, one of the key sites identified for the mapping project is the landing site that locates the exact spot where indentured Indians first landed, situated to the south of the Bluff, near the site of the now destroyed Cave Rock, where the ship, the Truro, brought the first indentured workers, who docked at Port Natal on 16th November 1860.
In the Caribbean, the Trinidad & Tobago indentured arrivals were lodged at Nelson Island in 1845. In Natal, Indian indentured workers first landed at the Bluff. In Durban, harbour staff built a barracks on the Bluff for the first shipments and enclosed it with a higher wall in 1862, where immigrants stayed for up to three months to await employment assignments.
South Africa’s own Aapravasi Ghat, a site unknown to many, is presently located where the Point Branch Court in 99 Shepstone Street stands today. The Immigration Depot and Hospital mark a primary site of memory in mapping the Indentured Labour Route project for South Africa that Naidoo has undertaken. The site is located at Addington, consisting of 4 lots, with the total frontage on Shepstone Street.
Other sites include the location of the only existing link to the first indentured ship, SS Truro, that arrived on 16 November 1860. The tomb of indentured passenger number 282, Sheik Ahmed, who hailed from Chitoor, North Arcot, Madras Presidency, is presently located at the shrine of Hazrat Sheik Ahmed Badsha Peer next to the Brook Street Cemetery in central Durban. The shrine of Hazrat Sheik Ahmed Badsha Peer remains a place of pilgrimage for people of all faiths and races in Durban.
Globally, labour acquisition, both free and unfree, remained a consistent priority within the matrix of slavery and indenture to primarily advance colonial capital from the 17th to the 20th century. A vital element in the colonial economic system was the administration, housing, and cultural places of memory that accommodated millions of slaves and indentured labourers. Places of memory that preserve the reality of the indentured experience and remind us of the resilience that helped shape the nations they live in. The ultimate desire is to see these places of memory inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the International Indenture Labour Route for its direct association with the global system of indentured labour.
Selvan Naidoo is the Maternal Great-grandson of Camachee, indentured number 3297, & Paternal Great-grandson of Karpayamma, indentured number 96575, and Director of the 1860 Heritage Centre.
https://sundaytribune.co.za/news/2026-06-07-strengthening-indentured-labour-heritage-insights-from-the-mauritius-workshop/
