 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.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.The increasing number of these freed labourers preferring to stay in the colony gave rise to a new class of rural Indian peasantry.