Aapravasi Ghat

Aapravasi Ghat is the landing point where Indian indentured workers stepped onto Mauritian soil, a small stone complex on the harbour front declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006. The buildings that survive — a hospital block, the immigration sheds, the original stone steps from the water — were where new arrivals were processed, examined, and assigned to plantations.

The site is sobering and well presented. The interpretation centre tells the story of the indenture system across the empire, with photographs, ship manifests, and personal artefacts. Allow an hour. Entry is free. Closed Sundays.

things to do sight
A story
Between 1834 and 1924, almost half a million indentured Indian labourers passed through these steps on their way to plantations in Mauritius and the wider British empire — the first stop in what the colonial administration explicitly called 'the great experiment' to replace freed slave labour.