 Thus, the Indians, or Indo-Mauritians, became the first non-whites to own lands in the colony.By the 1920s, the properties of Indo-Mauritians had already accounted for 40 percent of Mauritius's arable lands.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.