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Mauritius Early Settlement
Unavailable
Statue of Mahé de la Bourdonnais, an early governor appointed by
the French East India Company, in Port Louis, the capital
Courtesy Mari G. Borstelmann
Although there is no evidence of human habitation on
Mauritius before the early seventeenth century,
Phoenicians
probably visited the island about 2,000 years ago, and
Malays and
Arabs stopped on the island in subsequent centuries. The
Portuguese charted the waters surrounding the island,
which they
called Ilha do Cirne (Island of the Swan), in the early
sixteenth
century. In 1638 the Dutch began colonizing the island,
which
they named after Maurice of Nassau, the stadthouder
(head
of state) of Holland. The island's first governor,
Cornelius
Simonsz Gooyer, presided over a small population of Dutch
convicts and slaves from Indonesia and Madagascar, who
sought to
export ambergris, ebony, and other resources. After twenty
years,
the colony failed, as did a second settlement established
in
1664. Poor administration and harsh conditions forced the
Dutch
to withdraw permanently by 1710. In addition to presiding
over
the extinction of the dodo bird and leaving behind perhaps
some
runaway slaves, swarms of rats, and ravaged ebony forests,
the
Dutch introduced a plant that was to be prominent in the
island's
future--sugarcane.
French efforts to colonize the area were more
successful.
Around 1638 they had taken the islands of Rodrigues and
Reunion,
and in 1715 an expedition of the French East India Company
claimed Mauritius for France. The company established a
settlement named Île de France on the island in 1722. The
company
ruled until 1764, when, after a series of inept governors
and the
bankruptcy of the company, Mauritius became a crown colony
administered by the home government. One exception among
the
early company governors was Mahe de Labourdonnais, who is
still
celebrated among Mauritians. During his tenure from 1735
to 1746,
he presided over many improvements to the island's
infrastructure
and promoted its economic development. He made Mauritius
the seat
of government for all French territories in the region,
built up
Port Louis, and strengthened the sugar industry by
building the
island's first sugar refinery. He also brought the first
Indian
immigrants, who worked as artisans in the port city.
Under French government rule, between 1764 and 1810,
Port
Louis gained prestige and wealth. The island's population
increased, and its planters grew rich. Agricultural
prosperity
was achieved by exploiting cheap slave labor. Between 1767
and
1797, the population doubled to 59,000 inhabitants,
including
6,200 whites, 3,700 free persons, and 49,100 slaves; the
population in each category more than doubled during the
period.
Although the island's elite culture was distinctly French,
its
social structure grew more complex as the population grew.
Port
Louis, open to free trade after the demise of the French
East
India Company, saw a major increase in shipping,
especially from
Europe and North America. For example, from 1786 to 1810
almost
600 ships from the United States called on Mauritius, and
the
United States established a consulate in Port Louis in
1794.
Privateering was an even greater boon to the economy.
News of the French Revolution reached Mauritius in
1790,
prompting settlers unhappy with royal administration to
establish
more representative forms of government: a colonial
assembly and
municipal councils. When a squadron arrived three years
later,
however, to enforce the new French government's abolition
of
slavery, the settlers turned the squadron back. Napoleon
sent a
new governor to the island in 1803, resulting in the
dissolution
of the assembly and councils. The waning of French
hegemony in
the region permitted a British force of 10,000, carried
from the
Indian subcontinent by a fleet of seventy ships, to land
on
Mauritius in 1810. The French capitulated to the British,
but the
British agreed to leave in place existing legal and
administrative structures. The 1814 Treaty of Paris
awarded the
island, together with the Seychelles and Rodrigues
islands, to
Britain. English became the official language, but French
and
Creole dominated. Few British immigrants came to the
colony.
The plantation-owning Mauritians of French origin
(FrancoMauritians ) resisted British attempts to eradicate
slavery.
Finally, after much investigation, petitioning, and
subterfuge,
the authorities abolished slavery in 1835. Plantation
owners won
several concessions from the government, however,
including a
payment of 2.1 million pounds sterling and laws obliging
freed
slaves to remain on their former owner's land as
"apprentices"
for six years. Widespread desertions by "apprentices"
forced the
abolition of the laws in 1838, two years before schedule,
and
created a severe labor shortage.
Data as of August 1994
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