Arab
traders discovered the then uninhabited island in the 10th century. But
they were not charmed sufficiently to consider permanent
settlement.
The Portuguese early in the sixteenth century landed, but they too
passed over the chance to lay claim for their king. But in 1598
the
Dutch finally seized the opportunity. The island was grabbed for and
named after Maurice, Prince of Orange and Count of Nassau -then ruler
of
the Netherlands.
In the century that followed, the Dutch
established settlements and devised means to live off the land. They
introduced sugar
and tobacco, which they farmed using African slave
labour. Sugar is today still an important part of the economy. The
Dutch were insensitive to the
extremely fragile ecosystem that makes up
an isolated island such as Mauritius. On their watch, most of the
islands' indigenous forests were felled,
and lost. The bird known as
dodo was also shot to extinction. Thus did the trigger-happy Dutch give
life to the expression "as dead as a
dodo".
The Dutch courage
that had made them pioneers was however not to last. They were
subjected to many trials by the forces of nature
- cyclones, droughts
and floods. And also by the forces of man, for pirates were a constant
headache. In 1710, they fled to the more hospitable Cape of
Good Hope,
at Africa's southern tip. A short five years after the Dutch left, the
French claimed the island, and renamed it Isle de
France.
The
French were much more successful than the Dutch in harnessing the
potential of the island. They maintained law and order and laid
the
foundations for administration of society. Under the celebrated French
Governor, Mahé de Labourdonnais, real nation building began. The
French
brought in more African slaves and expanded further sugar farming. They
also laid out some social and economic infrastructure to support
the
settlers. Port Louis, named after King Louis XV, and today the capital
of Mauritius, dates back to this period.
Though the French
had
introduced systems of law and order, Port Louis turned out to be a
favourite of corsairs. Corsairs were mercenary marine who specialised
in the
plunder of ships on behalf of a client country. The British, a
great sea power at the time, had a vested interest in terminating the
power of these
mercenaries. And that is how Mauritius, so far away from
Europe, got involved in the Napoleonic wars. In 1810, the British
backed by superior force of
arms, persuaded the French to leave the
island.
In the 1814 Treaty of Paris, the British - magnanimous
victors indeed, allowed the French
settlers to remain in Mauritius.
They too were allowed to retain their property, language, religion and
legal system. The British reverted to the name
the Dutch had given the
island, but Port Louis retained its name. But in the century and a half
that the British ruled, they were never really as
grounded as the
French had been.
Franco-Mauritians prospered on an agrarian
economy based on slave labour. But in 1835, they felt the
capricious
hand of a great power when slavery was abolished. This is perhaps the
single most important measure carried out under British rule, and
the
consequences had a far-reaching effect on the evolving demographics of
the nation. India, a British colony greatly abundant in human
resources
was the answer to the labour problem that arose. In the years that
followed, the descendants of the Indian labourers who came to work
the
sugar fields greatly multiplied. The Chinese also came -as labourers
and traders.
Today, Indo-Mauritians constitute close to 70% of
the
population. As in other colonies in that historic period, and upto
the 1930's in Mauritius, non-whites had very limited say in the running
of the
country. And that is why Gandhi - that great liberator of men's
minds, came to Mauritius in 1901, in particular to give heart to
Indo-Mauritians.
After years of protracted concessions to democratic
rule, the British finally bowed out in 1968, when finally granted
independence.
The events
we talk about above are however very
recent. About eight million years ago, the island emerged from the
depths of the sea as result of volcanic
activity. Occupying 1860 sq km,
it is situated just above the Tropic of Capricorn, 890 km to the east
of Madagascar. Rising from the sea, the central
plateau formation is
about 400 m above sea level. There are mountains scattered in the
island, and a few peaks, the highest of which reaches 820
m.
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