Landscape Transformation under Slavery, Indenture, and Imperial Projects in Bras d’Eau National Park, Mauritius

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe archaeology of Bras d’Eau National Park, Mauritius provides a case study of transformations in physical and social landscapes under the coercive labor regimes of slavery and indenture, and twentieth-century colonial and post-colonial environmental projects. This article considers the regional and domestic spatial practices in the Bras d’Eau site that, over the course of three centuries, transitioned from farm, to sugar plantation, to forestry crown lands, to national park. Archaeological analysis and archival documentation show that the material traces of each phase of occupation are layered in Bras d’Eau’s landscape like a palimpsest. The built infrastructure of the estate facilitated movement and access to broader island resources essential to later sugar production, but the organization of the estate was also embedded within emerging everyday Mauritian expressions of agency, health, and environment. Today, ancient roads, village ruins, and the forest together form a heritage of environmental and cultural preservation and loss.