PUBLIC RECORD
OFFICE
C.O.
Reference :-
882
(DR)
1. Liberated Africans under the age of 10 years shall receive no wages, but shall be properly clothed by their employers, who shall keep a proper account of the clothing supplied to them.
2. Liberated Africans from the ages of 10 to 15 years shall receive half of their wages in clothing; the other half shall every month be deposited by the employer in the Savings Bank to the credit of the Liberated African to whom it is due, to be withdrawn by the said African at the expiration of his contract of engagement. Passed at a Meeting of the Executive Council, held at Government House, Port Louis, Island of Mauritius, this 29th day of February 1876, and ordered to be published for general information.
W. H. MARSH, Acting Colonial Secretary.
SIR,
No. 17.
COLONIAL OFFICE to FOREIGN OFFICE.
Downing Street, May 26, 1876. I AM directed by the Earl of Carnarvon to transmit to you, to be laid before the Earl of Derby, copy of a despatch from the Governor of Mauritius, enclosing a report upon the liberated Africans at Seychelles, for the
year 1874.*
2. Lord Carnarvon proposes to defer further consideration of this subject until he has received the corresponding report for the year 1875. In the meantime, however, his Lordship will desire Sir A. Phayre to forward the Regulations of 1875, to which he refers in the fourth paragraph of his despatch, but which have not yet been received, and will be ready at the same time to call upon him for any other information which Lord Derby may desire to possess on the subject.
The Under Secretary of State, Foreign Office.
I am, &c.
J. PAUNCEFOTE.
( 59 )
No. 19.
GOVERNOR SIR A. PHAYRE, K.C.S.I., C.B., to the EARL OF CARNARVON.
No. 182.
MY LORD,
(Received 18th July 1876). Mauritius, June 17, 1876.
The Chief Civil Commissioner to the Governor of
Mauritius, dated 29th
I HAVE the honour to submit copies of the letters and reports noted in the margin, being from the Acting Inspector of Liberated Africans at the Seychelles, as to his February 1876, for inspection for the year 1875, and from the Chief Civil Commissioner in reply to some explanations which were called for by my order.
2. The reports show many irregularities in the allotment and management of liberated Africans in the Seychelles group.
The more important may be summarized as follows:
1. Minors receiving insufficient quantity of clothing in lieu of wages,
2. Books or registers by employers of labourers not regularly kept.
3. Illegal enforcement of the double cut.
4. Bons, or notes of hand, for wages, being given instead of cash,
5. Wages paid in kind instead of cash.
6. Wages not paid monthly.
7. Work carried on for more than nine hours in the twenty-four
8. Daily ration of rice, &c. reduced on account of absence.
3. These and other points will continue to have my close attention. But many of
the islands where these liberated Africans reside are so remote from Mahé, the principal island of the Seychelles group, that effective inspection appears almost hopeless.
4. In many of the islands it will be impossible to establish hospitals. Medical attendants cannot be had, and in most cases the labourers, if unwell, would certainly prefer re- maining in their own dwellings. The climates of all the islands are healthy, and instances of personal ill-treatinent of the labourers are very rare.
I am, &c.
The Right Honourable
The Earl of Carnarvon,
A, P. PHAYRE.
the Acung Inspector warding Report from
dated the 26th idem. From the Chief Civil
Governor of Mauritius dated 23rd May 1876 forwarding ex plana- tions from the Actin Inspector as to some portions of bi- Report
Commissioner to the
3
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
SIB,
No. 18.
FOREIGN OFFICE to COLONIAL OFFICE.
Foreign Office, June 3, 1876.
IN returning to you the original inclosures in the despatch from the Governor of Mauritius, which accompanied your letter of the 26th ultimo, I am directed by the Earl of Derby to request that you will inform Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies that his Lordship proposes to defer offering any observations in regard to the Report on Liberated Africans at Seychelles, for 1874, until this Department is in possession of the further Report and Regulations to which
you refer.
I am at the same time to inquire whether Lord Carnarvon proposes to have the papers in question printed and published, as, in the event of such not being the case, Lord Derty would be glad that copies of both Reports should be communicated to this Department.
I am, &c.
The Under Secretary of State, Colonial Office.
• No. 16.
† No. 17.
T. V. LISTER.
The CHIEF CIVIL COMMISSIONER, SEYCHELLES, to the GOVERNOR
SIB,
OF MAURITIUS,
Chief Civil Commissioner's Office,
Seychelles, May 23, 1876.
In compliance with your Excellency's desire, I now give further explanations of the tables forwarded with the report of the Acting Inspector of Africans in my letter 63 of the 29th February last.
2. The 1,293 liberated Africans mentioned in Table 1 are all natives of Africa. The descendants of the African race born at Seychelles are not included in these returns. They are merged in the general population, and are locally designated "Creoles" along with native-born white and mixed races.
3. All Africans brought to these islands are, as long as they live, kept in the lists of the Inspector of Africans. Such as have not yet completed the allotment term are called by the Inspector
44 New Africans." Those who are perfectly free to engage as
they please the allotment term having finished--are termed by him " Old Africans."
4. The supervising duties of the Inspector of Africans, strictly speaking, are confined to adult Africans landed here from H.M. cruisers, who are under the first allotment service, and are engaged under written contract of service before a magistrate, and to African minors, similarly landed here, until they attain 21 years of age, and afterwards if under written contracts of service. Minor Africans are also under the special guardianship of the Chief Civil Commissioner, within the restrictions imposed in
allotment.
5. The Inspector of Africans meant by his tables that the 1,298 Africans visited by him were thus distributed :
427 were under contract of service to proprietors whose names and estates were given ; and 110 were similarly under engagement to the 92 small proprietors and house-
• Not sent with this Despatch.
H 2
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.