Mauritians of Chinese origin
Mauritians of Chinese origin, also known as Sino-Mauritians or Chinese Mauritians, are Mauritians who trace their ethnic ancestry to China.
Migration history
Chinese migration from Sumatra to Mauritius
Like members of other communities on the island, some of the earliest Chinese in Mauritius arrived involuntarily, having been "shanghaied" from Sumatra in the 1740s to work in Mauritius in a scheme hatched by the French admiral Charles Hector, Comte d'Estaing; however, they soon went on strike to protest their kidnapping. The authorities responded by deporting them back to Sumatra.Chinese migration from China to Mauritius
Late 1700s and early 1800s
In the 1780s, thousands of voluntary Chinese migrants set sail for Port Louis from Guangzhou on board British, French, and Danish ships; they found employment as blacksmiths, carpenters, cobblers, and tailors, and quickly formed a small Chinatown, the camp des Chinois, in Port Louis. Even after the British takeover of the island, migration continued unabated.The first wave of migration from China to Mauritius occurred in the early 1800s, the Chinese migrants who came to Mauritius were mainly Hokkien from Xiamen in Southern Fujian province. Most of these migrants from Fujian were merchants and therefore according to the law they were not allowed to bring their families with them, were not allowed to buy lands unless they abandoned their Chinese citizenship and adopted British citizenship; therefore, this led to many intermarriages with women of the Creole and Indian communities in order to build their own families or buy land under the name of their spouses.
In 1829, the British brought a group of Chinese migrants to work on sugar plantations; harsh working conditions the Chinese migrants to start a failed revolt. Between 1840 and 1843 alone, 3,000 Chinese contract workers arrived on the island. By 1846, it is estimated that an influx of 50 Chinese migrants came to Mauritius per year. By mid-century, the total resident Chinese population reached five thousand.
Circa mid-1800s
A second wave of migration from China mainly came from the city of Guangzhou. In the mid-1800s, they mainly came from the district of Shunde. Some of them were coolies who passed through Hong Kong and came to Mauritius to work through the British colonial network, while others were merchants and craftsmen. These migrants were known as the Cantonese and Namshun in Mauritius.By the 1860s, shops run by Sino-Mauritians could be found all over the island. Some members of the colonial government thought that further migration should be prohibited, but Governor John Pope Hennessy, recognizing the role that Sino-Mauritians played in providing cheap goods to less well-off members of society, resisted the restrictionists' lobbying.
Late 1800s and mid-1900s
During the 1880s, despite the continuous influx of immigrants, Mauritius' Chinese population declined; Chinese traders, legally unable to purchase land in Mauritius, instead brought their relatives from China over to Mauritius. After training them for a few years to give them a handle on the business and to introduce them to life in a Western-ruled colonial society, the traders sent those relatives on their way, with capital and letters of introduction, to establish businesses in neighbouring countries. For example, between 1888 and 1898, nearly 1,800 Chinese departed from Port Louis with ports on the African mainland—largely Port Elizabeth and Durban—as their destinations.In the late 19th to early 20th century, Chinese men in Mauritius married Indian women due to both a lack of Chinese women and the higher numbers of Indian women on the island. From the late 1800s to the mid-1900s, a third wave of Chinese migrants came to Mauritius. This time, most of them were Hakka Chinese from the region of Meixian. There were numerous reasons for their arrival in Mauritius, including their desire to escape starvation or seek fortune. During that period of time, Chinese women were allowed to come in Mauritius and contributed to an increase growth of the Chinese community; moreover, the Hakka were reluctant to marry with other ethnic communities and started organizing marriage with Chinese women back home to maintain their community's blood purity, some women even became known as "marriage breakers" as they attempted to break mixed marriage of Chinese men to make them remarry a Chinese spouse. The earliest migrants were largely Cantonese-speaking; but, later, Hakka-speakers from Meixian, further east in Canton, came to dominate numerically; as in other overseas Chinese communities, rivalry between Hakka and Cantonese became a common feature of the society. The Hakka-Cantonese tensions led to the resettlement of many Cantonese in Reunion Island and Madagascar. By the end of the 19th century, the Hakkas became the dominant group outnumbering the Cantonese and Fukienese together.
By 1901, the Sino-Mauritian population had shrunk to 3,515 individuals, among them 2,585 being business owners. The 1921 census in Mauritius counted that Indian women there had a total of 148 children fathered by Chinese men. These Chinese were mostly traders.
Until the 1930s, Chinese migrants continued to arrive in Port Louis, but with the strain on the local economy's ability to absorb them, many found that Mauritius would only be their first stop; they went on to the African mainland, as well as to Madagascar, Réunion, and Seychelles. After World War II, immigration from China largely came to an end.
Mid-1900s to late 1900s
Between the 1950s and 1980s, there was a considerable reduction of contacts with China due to the establishment of the People's Republic of China; nearly all Chinese migration from China was stopped. During this period, Hakka women from Taiwan arrived in Mauritius to marry the local Hakka Chinese men in Mauritius. Until 1997, investors and merchants from Hong Kong were encouraged to come to Mauritius to start their own trading business but only few people from Hong Kong permanently migrated to Mauritius.Sino-Mauritians continued to maintain the personal ethnic networks connecting them to relatives in greater China, which would play an important role in the 1980s, with the rise of the export-processing zones. Foreign investors from Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the factories they built in the EPZs, helped Mauritius to become the third-largest exporter of woollen knitwear in the world. Along with the investors came a new influx of Chinese migrant workers, who signed on for three-year stints in the garment factories.
After the 1980s, China reopened up to the world and migration from China to Mauritius slowly restarted and therefore, the old marriage network of the Hakka was re-established, allowing Hakka women from Meixian to marry the local Hakka Sino-Mauritians. Simultaneously, Chinese women migrant workers who came to work in textile factories came from all regions of China and some of them decided to remain in Mauritius instead of returning to China after the completion of their work contract; these Chinese women married Sino-Mauritian men and settled with their families in Mauritius. However, the local Sino-Mauritian community in Mauritius declined in numbers as some decided to immigrate to Canada, the US, and Australia.
Demographics, distribution, and employment
Ethnic subgroups and cultural identity
Cantonese / Namshun
Sino-Mauritians who trace their Cantonese ancestors from the province of Guandong are known as the "Namshun" or "Cantonese" in Mauritius. Sino-Mauritian of Cantonese origins in Mauritius have their own separate associations, societies, and events; for example, the Nam Shun Society in Port Louis. The Nam Shun society is an association for the Sino-Mauritians whose ancestors mainly originated from Nam Hoi and Shun Tak.Fokien / Fukien / Hokkien
Sino-Mauritians who trace their ancestors from province Fujian in China, are known as 'Fokien', 'Fukien' or 'Hokkien' people in Mauritius; this is in reference of the ancestral province location. Due to their intermarriage with other ethnic groups, people who are born with mixed ancestral are perceived as "Sino-creoles"; Sino-creoles, however, are often proud of their ancestors and perceived themselves as Chinese.Hakka
Nowadays, most Sino-Mauritians living in Mauritius are Hakka who can trace their ancestry back to Meixian, Guangdong province.Sino-creoles
The Sino-creoles are typically categorized as "General population" in the Mauritian demographic census despite being a subgroup of the Sino-Mauritian community. The Sino-creoles community in Mauritius can include:- Children born of a mixed marriage between a Sino-Mauritian and a non-Chinese person.
- Descendants of Chinese migrants who married with a member of a non-Chinese community in Mauritius, e.g. descendants of the Fukien male migrants who married women of a non-Chinese ethnic community.
- Children born of a Mauritian of non-Chinese origin who married a Chinese spouse from China
Employment
In a 2001 Business Magazine survey, 10 of the 50 largest companies were Chinese owned.