In the summer of 1833, the British Parliament passed into law a bill designed to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire. The Abolition Act conferred freedom on all slave children in the plantation colonies, who were not over six years of age, and declared as free persons children born after the passage of the act. All persons over six years of age became free but were required to work for their former owners as “apprentices” for a limited period: the domestics were to serve for four years, while the agricultural slaves were to work for six years. The act also provided for twenty million pounds sterling to be given as compensation to the owners of the slaves. As the title of the act states, the “apprenticeship” system was designed to promote the “industry of the manumitted slaves …” (Great Britain, Public Record Office [PRO], C.O. 167/205, Glenelg to Nicolay, 6 November 1838). The apprenticeship system was inaugurated in the British West Indies in 1834, and in Mauritius and her dependent colonies on 1 February 1835. Following the examples of Antigua and Barbados, the British West Indian colonies aborted the system in 1838; in Mauritius and its dependencies the system came to an end in 1839.

The assessments of the apprenticeship system are varied. The framers of the Abolition Act pronounced the system as one in which “manumitted” slaves performed compulsory labor for a limited period and in their own interests. Some contemporary observers (Baker and Blackhouse, 1838) were inclined to think that the apprenticeship system was a prolongation of slavery.