The Coolie Slave Trade
Commonly referred to as Indentured Labourers, this term is now considered to be offensive as these Indians arrived to the Immigration Depot "Coolie" Slaves along with many smaller groups of peoples from Yemen, Mozambique and Madagascar to mainly work the sugarcane fields. They arrived on the same slaves ships previously used to bring slaves from Africa to the East and West Indies and faced in many cases similar treatment. Dates of the first Indians differ as Le Morne Heritage site acknowledges that remains of runaway Indian, Madagascan and African slaves hid in the mountains and their materials, ingredients have been documented.
Coolie slaves would work under a leader known as "Sardaar", They were mostly from the Bihar depots from Bhojpuri-speaking areas (including both Hindus and Muslims) but to a much lesser extent from regions such as Gujarat, Maharashtra and Bombay. Some ethnic groups including Tamils and Telugus came some decades before, probably brought by the French. Those people however were no slaves. Many of them were members of the merchant class while some were land owners. Therefore they were considerably wealthy and as such had the means and resources to incorporate Indian culture and religion in Mauritius.
Read more about this topic: Indo-Mauritian
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