The Indian indenture system was a system of indentured servitude, by which more than one million Indians were transported to labour in European colonies, as a substitute for slave labor, following the abolition of the trade in the early 19th century. The system expanded after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833, in the French colonies in 1848, and in the Dutch Empire in 1863. British Indian indentureship lasted till the 1920s. This resulted in the development of a large Indian diaspora in the Caribbean, Natal (South Africa), East Africa, Réunion, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Myanmar, to Fiji, as well as the growth of Indo-Caribbean, Indo-African, Indo-Fijian, Indo-Malaysian, and Indo-Singaporean populations.