Nearly 4 Million Slavery Records Now Online, Including Mauritius

A major historical archive covering the lives of enslaved people across 20 former British colonies — including Mauritius — has been made freely accessible online, offering researchers, genealogists, and descendants an unprecedented window into one of history's most painful chapters. The collection contains nearly four million documents, compiled from colonial-era records spanning plantation registers, emancipation records, compensation claims, and other administrative paperwork produced by British colonial authorities during the era of slavery and its abolition. Mauritius, which was a British colony from 1810 until independence in 1968, was among the territories where enslaved people were brought — primarily from Madagascar, Mozambique, and other parts of East Africa and India — to work on sugar plantations. The island's deep cultural roots in this history make the archive particularly significant for Mauritians tracing their ancestry. **What the archive contains** The digitised documents include records created before and after the British Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, which formally ended slavery across most of the British Empire. Following abolition, the British government conducted a massive compensation scheme — paying out around £20 million (equivalent to billions in today's money) to **slaveholders**, not to those who had been enslaved. The records generated by that process are among the most detailed surviving documents identifying enslaved individuals by name, origin, and plantation. For Mauritius specifically, these records can help people piece together family histories that were systematically erased or never formally recorded under colonial rule. **Why this matters** For many Mauritian families — particularly those of African and Malagasy descent — official records of ancestors simply do not exist in conventional archives. Colonial administrators documented the property and financial interests of slaveholders far more carefully than the lives of enslaved people themselves. This new online database changes that. By digitising and indexing nearly four million entries, it allows anyone with an internet connection to search for names, locations, and plantation records that may connect to their own family tree. Historians and educators in Mauritius have long called for greater accessibility to such records, particularly as the country observes the national **Abolition of Slavery Day** each year on 1 February — a public holiday commemorating the formal end of slavery in Mauritius in 1835. **What this means for you** If you are a Mauritian — or part of the diaspora — with ancestors who may have been enslaved on the island, this archive could be a starting point for genealogical research. The records are free to access online and cover multiple colonies, meaning family histories that crossed colonial borders may also be traceable. Researchers, schools, and cultural institutions in Mauritius may also find the database valuable for educational projects related to the country's history of slavery and indenture. Source: Le Défi Media