Aapravasi Ghat (“The Immigration Depot”) is a building complex located in Port Louis, Mauritius, the first British colony to receive indentured, or contracted, labour workforce from many countries.

The large-scale migration of the labourers left an indelible mark on the societies of many former British colonies, with Indians constituting a substantial proportion of their national populations.

[6] Alluding to its function as a pit stop to prospective plantation workers, alternatively called coolies, the Immigration Depot has also been known by an older name, the 'Coolie Ghat'.

The Immigration Depot was built on the east side of the sheltered bay of Trou Fanfaron in Port Louis, the Mauritian capital.

The historic complex currently consists of the partial remains of three stone buildings dating back to the 1860s, built on the spot of an earlier depot site.

The area where the building complex is situated, Trou Fanfaron, was the landing point for the French East India Company, which took possession of Mauritius in 1721.

The first wave of new plantation workers were labourers from the Portuguese island of Madeira, freed African-Americans from the U.S. and impoverished Chinese seeking greener pastures.

This was a system whereby the prospective labourers agreed to work for a determined period of time in return for their cost of passage, basic accommodation and a small wage.

[16] Mauritius became the focus of the Great Experiment, as its plantation economy was still in a state of expansion, hence with room for agricultural flexibility, in contrast to those of the West Indies, which were considered exhausted.

In 1849, a building dating back to the French administration in the Trou Fanfaron area was chosen as the core of a planned structural complex that would become the permanent depot for immigration.

[11] The spread of a malaria epidemic in the 1860s further drove shipping away from the colony,[11] leading to a decline of indentured immigration,[6] culminating in 1923,[1] when it had completely ceased.

[5] Among the previous preservation works that are being reversed are the landscape project, the hospital building's roof installation, which unfortunately used modern materials, the use of native lime mortar technique in the reconstruction and maintenance of the remaining stone walls, and devising an archaeological strategy to document finds and discoveries, as well as to safeguard the existing artifacts.

Although it was meant to reflect the Hindu Indian majority of indentured labourers, the use of the Hindi translation swept away the myriad of other ethnic and religious populations that also passed through the Immigration Depot.

[6] The walls protecting the wharf along the waterfront are made from a mosaic of dressed stones, as a result of continuous reconstruction over a long period of time.

[6] Continuous site improvements to accommodate the high number of migrants were carried out, including the installation of planked walls as room dividers by the late 1850s.

[11] The eventual fall in the price of sugar in the 1930s due to the Depression,[11] the mono-crop agricultural industry and the abolition of the indentured labor system have made the Mauritian economy vulnerable, which culminated in labour unrests in 1937.

It immediately spread throughout the colonies of the British Empire, and was imitated by other European powers, while the Indian labor force was also employed beyond the sugarcane fields, in such workplaces as mines and even railways.

[15] Thus, the Immigration Depot is considered to be the site where the modern, large-scale indentured labour diaspora began[6]—the system didn't only sustain the plantation economies of the British Empire, but also resulted in the transplantation of cultures and shaping of the national identity of former colonies.

A comprehensive record was kept of immigrants, from the contracts signed, their photographs, the transportation cost, the accommodation spending and the final destination of labourers.

UNESCO, the international organization responsible for the preservation and protection the world's cultural and natural heritage, has recognized the 1,640 m2 site of the Immigration Depot for its outstanding universal importance.

It was proclaimed as a World Heritage Site in 2006, citing the buildings as among the earliest explicit manifestations of what was to become a global economic system and one of the greatest migrations in history.

[7] The majority of Indian workers arriving at the Immigration Depot came from the northern part of the subcontinent, corresponding to the present states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

[4] The colony received such a high proportion of the Indian diaspora that historians have noted the dramatic way the local demography had been altered over such a short period of time, more than in any other sugar-producing British territories.

In 1806, when Mauritius was still under the French administration, official statistics showed that there were already 6,162 Indians living on the island, in the eastern suburb of Port Louis, known as Camp des Malabars.

[1] Beginning in the 1840s, the emancipated labourers, or those with concluded contracts, were able to save money and buy their own lands, mostly outside the rural sugar estates, permanently settling in Mauritius.

They eventually took control of a substantial part of the agricultural economy, leading to the growth of rural villages and giving rise to a bourgeoisie that would continue to influence to island's post-colonial politics.

Beyond politics, the settlement of Indian migrants on the island resulted in a melting pot of culture, intermixing with African, Chinese, Creole, and European influences.

A religious Hindu ceremony is held annually on the second day of November, a national holiday to commemorate the arrival of indentured laborers at the Immigration Depot to honor the jehaji bhai (Hindi for "ship-mates", or "ship-brother") spirits.

[4][5][6] The lake of Grand Bassin, also known as Ganga Talao, located in the center of the island has become an object of sacred pilgrimage by the Indo-Mauritians professing their Hindu faith.