Is it the same as Juneteenth in the United States?

No. Juneteenth, June 19, marks the 1865 announcement of emancipation in Texas. The Mauritian day commemorates abolition in Mauritius in 1835 and is unrelated to the American observance.

Did abolition in 1835 free enslaved people immediately?

No. They were reclassified as apprentices and forced to keep working unpaid for their former owners. That system did not end in Mauritius until 31 March 1839.

Why is Le Morne central to the commemoration?

Le Morne Brabant was a refuge for maroons, people who escaped slavery, and UNESCO inscribed it in 2008 as a symbol of resistance. Mauritius has held its official February 1 ceremony there since 2005.

Abolition of Slavery Day

Next celebratedMonday, February 1, 2027

A national day of remembrance on February 1 marking the end of slavery in Mauritius and honoring those who endured and resisted it.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

--DAYS

--HRS

--MIN

--SEC

Last updated February 10, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEFebruary 1

OBSERVED INMauritius

CATEGORYCulture

SUBCATEGORYBlack History

ORIGIN

Historical Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Government of Mauritius

FIRST OBSERVED

1835

“Freedom arrived in Mauritius on 1 February 1835, last in the British Empire, and even then in name before in fact.

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

The day a British colony was, at last, the final one to free its enslaved.

Slavery in Mauritius ended on 1 February 1835, when the British Slavery Abolition Act 1833 took effect there, making Mauritius the last British colony to abolish it; February 1 is now observed nationally, with state commemorations held at the Le Morne Cultural Landscape since the first official ceremony there on 1 February 2005.

View UNESCO Le Morne recordvia UNESCO World Heritage Centre

INTRO

Last to free the enslaved, and the long road after

On 1 February 1835, slavery formally ended in Mauritius. The island was the last British colony to abolish it, almost six months after the Slavery Abolition Act took effect across the rest of the Empire on 1 August 1834. The Abolition of Slavery Day marks that date, and the lives it was meant to change.

The freedom of 1835 was not the freedom the word promises. The formerly enslaved were reclassified as "apprentices" and made to keep working without pay for their former owners. That system did not end in Mauritius until 31 March 1839, when about 53,000 apprentices were finally released.

So February 1 in Mauritius is a day of remembrance, not festivity. The state gathers each year at Le Morne, a mountain where escaped enslaved people once took refuge, and reads the record back to itself: who was held, who resisted, and how long real freedom took to come.

ORIGINS

Abolition of Slavery Day history

INTRODUCTION

Slavery reached Mauritius with its first European settlers. The Dutch brought enslaved people to the island in the seventeenth century; under French rule from the early eighteenth century, a slave-based sugar economy expanded, and many more people were trafficked from Madagascar and East Africa. When Britain took the island from France in 1810, enslaved people made up roughly four-fifths of the population.

CHAPTER 01

A refuge on the mountain

Long before any law freed them, enslaved people in Mauritius freed themselves. The southwest of the island is dominated by Le Morne Brabant, a near-inaccessible basalt mountain whose caves and overhangs became a fortress for maroons, the name given to those who escaped bondage and lived in hiding. They held the heights through the eighteenth and into the nineteenth century. In 2008, UNESCO inscribed the Le Morne Cultural Landscape on the World Heritage List as an exceptional testimony to resistance to slavery.

CHAPTER 02

Abolition, and the long delay after it

The British Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 commenced across most of the Empire on 1 August 1834, but in Mauritius it did not take effect until 1 February 1835. Emancipation came bound to two conditions that the day's commemorations refuse to soften. The first was the apprenticeship system, four more years of unpaid labor for former owners, which ended on 31 March 1839. The second was money: under the Act's compensation scheme, Mauritian slave-owners were awarded £2,112,632 across 7,386 claims. Those claims covered some 66,343 enslaved people. The payment went to the owners, many of them absentees living in Britain. The people who had been enslaved received nothing.

CHAPTER 03

Building a place to remember

The modern commemoration took shape only recently. The first official state ceremony at Le Morne was held on 1 February 2005, and the government created the Le Morne Heritage Trust Fund the following year to manage the site. On 1 February 2009 the International Slave Route Monument, a group of ten sculptures honoring the maroons and the lands the enslaved were taken from, was inaugurated at the foot of the mountain. That same year a national Truth and Justice Commission began its work, eventually examining the consequences of slavery and indenture across nearly four centuries before it reported in 2011.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Britain takes Mauritius

Britain captures the island from France. By this point enslaved people are roughly four-fifths of the population, most trafficked from Madagascar and East Africa.

Slavery abolished in Mauritius

The British Slavery Abolition Act 1833 takes effect on the island, making Mauritius the last British colony to abolish slavery. Around 66,000 enslaved people are recorded in the compensation claims.

Apprenticeship ends

The apprenticeship system, four years of unpaid labor that followed abolition, comes to an end. About 53,000 apprentices are finally freed.

First state ceremony at Le Morne

The official commemoration of abolition is held at Le Morne for the first time, anchoring the national day at the mountain that sheltered the maroons.

Le Morne inscribed by UNESCO

UNESCO adds the Le Morne Cultural Landscape to the World Heritage List as a symbol of resistance to slavery.

Slave Route Monument unveiled

The International Slave Route Monument, ten sculptures honoring the maroons and the homelands of the enslaved, is inaugurated at the foot of Le Morne.

MYTH VS FACT

Common Misconceptions

The myth

Abolition in 1835 gave the enslaved their freedom at once.

The truth

Emancipation reclassified them as unpaid apprentices bound to their former owners; that system did not end in Mauritius until 31 March 1839.

The myth

The Indian indentured laborers who came afterward were the same as the enslaved Africans.

The truth

Indenture was a distinct, later system; almost half a million indentured workers arrived from 1834, and their landing site, Aapravasi Ghat, was inscribed by UNESCO in 2006. Mauritius marks their arrival on a separate day, November 2.

The myth

The story of maroons leaping from Le Morne to avoid recapture is documented history.

The truth

It survives as oral tradition, with no archaeological evidence to confirm it; the mountain's role as a refuge for the self-freed is the documented record.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why Abolition of Slavery Day Matters

Record

Freedom in name in 1835; freedom in fact only in 1839.

The day insists on what came after the law: four years of unpaid apprenticeship and compensation paid to owners, not the enslaved. Naming that is what separates remembrance from a tidy anniversary.

Resistance

It centers the people who freed themselves

The maroons of Le Morne escaped and held the mountain long before any statute reached the island. Commemorating abolition at that site honors agency, not just the act of a distant parliament.

Reckoning

It anchors a national accounting of the past

Mauritius built a Truth and Justice Commission and a UNESCO-recognized memorial landscape around this history. February 1 gives that work a fixed annual point of public attention.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe Abolition of Slavery Day

Learn the real sequence of events

Read past the single date of 1835 to the apprenticeship that followed and ended only in 1839. Understanding the gap between legal and actual freedom is the heart of what the day asks you to remember.

VISIT

Visit or read about Le Morne

The Le Morne Cultural Landscape is a UNESCO-recognized symbol of resistance to slavery. Walking its history, in person or through the record, honors the maroons who sheltered there.

HONOR

Honor those who resisted

Center the maroons and the self-freed rather than only the law that followed them. Remembrance that names their agency tells the truer story of how freedom was won.

REFLECT

Reflect on the cost of emancipation

Sit with the fact that compensation went to enslavers while the enslaved received nothing. The day is a place to hold that injustice rather than smooth it over.

SUPPORT

Support the institutions that preserve this memory

Engage with bodies like the Le Morne Heritage Trust Fund that maintain the sites and records of this history. Their work keeps the account available for the next generation.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know Abolition of Slavery Day?

1 / 8

On what date did slavery formally end in Mauritius?

GET INVOLVED

Resources and Support

UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Le Morne Cultural Landscape

UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Le Morne Cultural Landscape. The official World Heritage record for Le Morne as a symbol of resistance to slavery.

Le Morne Heritage Trust Fund

Le Morne Heritage Trust Fund. The Mauritius government body that manages and documents the Le Morne site.

UNESCO

UNESCO Memory of the World, Slavery Records in Mauritius

UNESCO Memory of the World, Slavery Records in Mauritius. Archival records of the slave trade, slavery, and apprenticeship in Mauritius from 1721 to 1892.

UNESCO