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The Reconstitution of Aapravasi Ghat, a Nineteenth-Century Immigration Depot in the Capital City of Port Louis, Mauritius, through Archaeology

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Abstract

Aapravasi Ghat is a World Heritage property and represents the mass immigration of Indentured Laborers after slavery. The Indenture Labor System started in 1834 but the site was established as a permanent immigration depot in 1849. For about a century the depot was used for arrival and departure of indentured laborers from Asian and African countries. Archaeological investigations highlighted the space distribution and everyday functioning of the depot. Simultaneously, structural modifications made before, during and after its occupation as a depot, could be identified. This paper relates the findings made through historical archaeological research and reconstruct the site during the different time period while focusing on the indenture period.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the Ministry of Arts and Culture of Mauritius and the Aapravasi Ghat Trust Fund (AGTF) for funding and facilitating research with a special thank to Dr. Vijaya Teelock, the then chairperson of the trust, for giving me the opportunity to work on the site. I am grateful to Dr. G. Summers and F. Summers for their precious advice and help in editing reports and illustrations. My further gratification goes to Dr. R. Allen for the precious discussions, the technical team of AGTF especially C. Forest, R. Andiapen and V. Mugon for their support and collaboration and the ex-staff of AGTF and my dear friend, B. Annasawmy for her hard work and support throughout. I express my gratitude to the reviewers of this paper whose advices helped in making it a substantial and comprehensive work. Last but not least, N. Medhi for making all the photographs and working out the illustrations for this paper.

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  1. National Heritage Fund, Port Louis, Mauritius

    Jayshree Mungur-Medhi

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  1. Jayshree Mungur-Medhi
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Correspondence to Jayshree Mungur-Medhi.

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Mungur-Medhi, J. The Reconstitution of Aapravasi Ghat, a Nineteenth-Century Immigration Depot in the Capital City of Port Louis, Mauritius, through Archaeology. Int J Histor Archaeol 20, 781–803 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-016-0379-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-016-0379-9

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