People from India, during the beginning British India, first arrived in Mauritius to work as indentured labourers, commonly referred to as coolies, that were intended to work in sugarcane fields. Mauritius took about 450,000 such labourers, making it the greatest British colony recipient of indentured migrants. Indentured labourers were mostly brought from the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, with a large number of Tamils, Telugus and Marathis amongst them. The descendants of these indentured labourers, as of 2019, form one of the richest and most politically powerful descendants of Indian indentured labourers globally and make up two-thirds of Mauritius's population.