Mauritius: the story on HearLore

Mauritius

The first historical evidence of the island now known as Mauritius appears on a 1502 map called the Cantino planisphere, where it bears the name Dina Arobi, a name likely derived from Arab sailors who discovered the uninhabited land around 975. This early discovery predates the arrival of Portuguese sailors by over a century, yet the island remained a ghostly presence on the maps of the Indian Ocean until the 16th century. In 1507, Portuguese sailors, blown off course from their route to India via the Mozambique channel, landed on the island and named it Ilha do Cirne, or Island of the Swan, after a ship captained by Diogo Fernandes Pereira. The name was a typographical error where the s of the Portuguese Cisne became an r, creating a lasting confusion that would echo through centuries of cartography. The Portuguese did not stay long, as they had no interest in colonizing these remote islands, leaving the land to its own devices until the Dutch arrived in 1598. A Dutch squadron under Admiral Wybrand van Warwyck landed at Grand Port and renamed the island Mauritius in honor of Prince Maurice of Nassau, stadtholder of the Dutch Republic. This renaming marked the beginning of a long and often tragic history of colonial exploitation, as the Dutch attempted to establish a permanent settlement to exploit the local ebony forests and establish sugar and arrack production using cane plant cuttings from Java. They brought over three hundred Malagasy slaves to work the land, but the settlement was short-lived and ultimately failed, leading to the abandonment of the island in 1710. The Dutch presence left behind a legacy of ecological destruction, including the introduction of invasive species like the long-tailed macaque, which destroyed much of the island's natural vegetation and contributed to the extinction of the dodo, a flightless bird unique to Mauritius. The island's history is a tapestry of human ambition and environmental consequence, where the arrival of each new colonial power brought both progress and destruction.

The Sugar And The Slave

In 1715, France took control of Mauritius and renamed it Isle de France, initiating a period of prosperity based on sugar production that would transform the island's economy and demographics. The arrival of French governor Bertrand-François Mahé de La Bourdonnais in 1735 coincided with the development of a prosperous economy based on sugar production, and he established Port Louis as a naval base and a shipbuilding center. Under his governorship, numerous buildings were erected, including part of Government House, the Château de Mon Plaisir, and the Line Barracks, the headquarters of the police force. The island was under the administration of the French East India Company, which maintained its presence until 1767, and during this time, slaves were brought from parts of Africa such as Mozambique and Zanzibar. As a result, the island's population rose dramatically from 15,000 to 49,000 within thirty years, with African slaves accounting for around 80 percent of the island's population by the late eighteenth century. Slave traders from Madagascar, known as Sakalava or Arabs, bought slaves from slavers in the Arab Swahili coast or Portuguese Mozambique and stopped at Seychelles for supplies before shipping the slaves to the slave markets of Mauritius, Réunion, and India. Of the 80,000 slaves imported to Réunion and Mauritius between 1769 and 1793, 45 percent was provided by slave traders of the Sakalava people in North West Madagascar, who raided East Africa and the Comoros for slaves, and the rest was provided by Arab slave traders who bought slaves from Portuguese Mozambique and transported them to Réunion via Madagascar. The Code Noir, established in 1723, regulated slavery and categorized one group of human beings as goods, allowing the owner of these goods to be able to obtain insurance money and compensation in case of loss of his goods. This system of slavery created a society deeply divided by race and class, with the planters holding immense power over the enslaved population. The abolition of slavery in 1833 had important effects on Mauritius's society, economy, and population, as the planters brought a large number of indentured laborers from India to work in the sugar cane fields. Between 1834 and 1921, around half a million indentured laborers were present on the island, working on sugar estates, factories, in transport, and on construction sites. The laborers brought from India were not always fairly treated, and a Frenchman of German origin, Adolphe de Plevitz, made himself the unofficial protector of these immigrants. In 1871, he helped them to write a petition that was sent to Governor Gordon, and a commission was appointed to recommend several measures that would affect the lives of Indian laborers during the next fifty years. The legacy of slavery and indentured labor shaped the demographic and cultural landscape of Mauritius, creating a multiethnic society that would become one of the most diverse in the world.

When was Mauritius first discovered by Arab sailors?

Arab sailors discovered the uninhabited land around 975, which is the earliest historical evidence of the island. This discovery predates the arrival of Portuguese sailors by over a century.

Who named Mauritius and when did the Dutch rename the island?

Admiral Wybrand van Warwyck renamed the island Mauritius in 1598 in honor of Prince Maurice of Nassau. This renaming marked the beginning of a long and often tragic history of colonial exploitation.

When did Mauritius become a republic and who was the first president?

Mauritius was proclaimed a republic on the 12th of March 1992, and Sir Veerasamy Ringadoo became the first President. He was replaced by Cassam Uteem later that year under a transitional arrangement.

What happened to the Chagos Archipelago in 1965 and 2025?

The United Kingdom split the Chagos Archipelago away from Mauritius on the 8th of November 1965 to form the British Indian Ocean Territory. On the 22nd of May 2025, the transfer agreement was signed to return sovereignty to Mauritius while leasing Diego Garcia to the UK for at least 99 years.

What is the population of Mauritius according to the 2022 Census?

Mauritius had a population of 1,235,260 according to the final results of the 2022 Census. The population on the island of Mauritius was 1,191,280, with 586,590 males and 604,690 females.

The War And The Mutiny

During World War II, conditions were hard in the country, with the prices of commodities doubling while workers' salaries increased only by 10 to 20 percent, leading to civil unrest and the censure of all trade union activities. The Mauritius Regiment, created on the 24th of March 1943 as an imperial unit and a new subsidiary of the East Africa Command, proved to be politically unpopular on the basis of some troops resenting conscription and the battalion overseas comprising solely non-white troops, exacerbating racial tensions in the country. The 1MR troops were further aggrieved at the segregation they were subject to, unequal pay, physically demanding training, and were fearful of the Japanese soldiers, all these factors culminating in the 1MR mutinying. During the war, the laborers of Belle Vue Harel Sugar Estate went on strike on the 27th of September 1943, and police officers eventually fired directly at the crowd, resulting in the deaths of four laborers. This event became known as the 1943 Belle Vue Harel Massacre, and social worker and leader of the Jan Andolan movement Basdeo Bissoondoyal organized the funeral ceremonies of the four dead laborers. Three months later, on the 12th of December 1943, Bissoondoyal organized a mass gathering at Marie Reine de la Paix in Port Louis, and the significant crowd of workers from all over the island confirmed the popularity of the Jan Andolan movement. The war also saw the dispatch of the 1MR to Madagascar for training, and in their place a battalion of the King's African Rifles was stationed in Mauritius. The war affected Mauritius much less than the wars of the eighteenth century, but it left a legacy of racial tension and social unrest that would continue to shape the country's political landscape. The 1947 Constitution of Mauritius expanded the franchise to all adults who could write their name in one of the island's 19 languages, abolishing the previous gender and property qualifications, and Guy Rozemont's Labour Party won the majority of the votes with 11 of the 19 elected seats won by Hindus. However, the Governor-General Donald Mackenzie-Kennedy appointed 12 Conservatives to the Legislative Council on the 23rd of August 1948 to perpetuate the predominance of white Franco-Mauritians. In 1948, Emilienne Rochecouste became the first woman to be elected to the Legislative Council, marking a significant step forward for women's rights in the country. The war also saw the rise of a retrocessionism movement, which favored the retrocession of Mauritius to France, but the movement rapidly collapsed because none of the candidates who wanted Mauritius to be given back to France were elected in the 1921 elections. The post-war period was marked by economic challenges, with a sharp drop in sugar prices and the closure of many sugar estates, marking the end of an era for the sugar magnates who had not only controlled the economy but also the political life of the country.

The Independence And The Split

In 1965, three years before the independence of Mauritius, the United Kingdom split the Chagos Archipelago away from Mauritius, and the islands of Aldabra, Farquhar, and Desroches from the Seychelles, to form the British Indian Ocean Territory. The islands were formally established as an overseas territory of the United Kingdom on the 8th of November 1965, and during UK-US discussions on the Indian Ocean in November 1975, the United Kingdom expressed its intention to return the islands of Aldabra, Farquhar, and Desroches to Seychelles to facilitate its peaceful transition to independence by June 1976. Both the UK and the United States acknowledged that these islands could not be used for defense purposes, as they were populated, and forcibly removing inhabitants, as had occurred in the Chagos Archipelago, would be politically unfeasible. On the 18th of March 1976, the UK and Seychelles signed an agreement to transfer the islands, which officially returned to Seychelles on its Independence Day, the 29th of June 1976. The BIOT now comprises the Chagos Archipelago only, and the UK leased the main island of the archipelago, Diego Garcia, to the United States under a 50-year lease to establish a military base. In 2016, Britain extended the lease to the US till 2036. Between 1968 and 1973, British officials forcibly expelled over 1,000 Chagossians to Mauritius and the Seychelles, and as part of the deportation, British officials have been accused of ordering the island's dog population of 1,000 to be gassed. Chagossians have since engaged in activism to return to the archipelago, claiming that their forced expulsion and dispossession were illegal. Mauritius considers the territorial sea of the Chagos Archipelago and Tromelin island as part of its exclusive economic zone, and on the 20th of December 2010, Mauritius initiated proceedings against the United Kingdom under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to challenge the legality of the Chagos Marine Protected Area. The dispute was arbitrated by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the Tribunal's decision determined that the UK's undertaking to return the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius gives Mauritius an interest in significant decisions that bear upon possible future uses of the archipelago. On the 25th of February 2019, the judges of the International Court of Justice by thirteen votes to one stated that the United Kingdom is under an obligation to bring to an end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible. Only the American judge, Joan Donoghue, voted in favor of the UK, and the president of the court, Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, said that the detachment of the Chagos Archipelago in 1965 from Mauritius had not been based on a free and genuine expression of the people concerned. The resolution also has immediate practical consequences, as the UN, its specialized agencies, and all other international organizations are now bound, as a matter of UN law, to support the decolonization of Mauritius even if the UK claim that it has no doubt about its sovereignty. On the 3rd of October 2024, it was announced through a joint statement by the UK and Mauritian governments that the archipelago was to have its sovereignty transferred to Mauritius, and the island of Diego Garcia, which contains the military base Camp Justice, was the only exception to this new treaty, with administration being leased to the United Kingdom by the Mauritian government for a period of at least 99 years. The transfer agreement was signed on the 22nd of May 2025, with the provision that the island of Diego Garcia would be leased back to the UK for at least 99 years.

The Republic And The Reform

On the 12th of March 1992, Mauritius was proclaimed a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations and the monarch removed as head of state, with the last Governor-General of Mauritius, Sir Veerasamy Ringadoo, becoming the first President. This was under a transitional arrangement, in which he was replaced by Cassam Uteem later that year, and executive authority remained under the prime ministership. Despite an improvement in the economy, which coincided with a fall in the price of petrol and a favorable dollar exchange rate, the government did not enjoy full popularity, and as early as 1984, there was discontent. Through the Newspapers and Periodicals Amendment Act, the government tried to make every newspaper provide a bank guarantee of half a million rupees, and forty-three journalists protested by participating in a public demonstration in Port Louis, in front of Parliament. They were arrested and freed on bail, and this caused a public outcry and the government had to review its policy. There was also dissatisfaction in the education sector, as there were not enough high-quality secondary colleges to answer the growing demand of primary school leavers who had got through their CPE. In 1991, a master plan for education failed to get national support and contributed to the government's downfall. In December 1995, Navin Ramgoolam was elected as PM of the Labour-MMM alliance, and in October 1996, the triple murder of political activists at Gorah-Issac Street in Port Louis led to several arrests and a long investigation. The year 1999 was marked by civil unrest and riots in February and then in May, and following the Kaya riots, President Cassam Uteem and Cardinal Jean Margéot toured the country and calm was restored after four days of turmoil. A commission of enquiry was set up to investigate the root causes of the social disturbance, and the resulting report delved into the cause of poverty and qualified many tenacious beliefs as perceptions. In January 2000, political activist Rajen Sabapathee was shot dead after he escaped from La Bastille jail, and Sir Anerood Jugnauth of the MSM returned to power in September 2000 after securing an alliance with the MMM. In 2002, the island of Rodrigues became an autonomous entity within the republic and was thus able to elect its own representatives to administer the island. In 2003, the prime ministership was transferred to Paul Bérenger of the MMM, and Sir Anerood Jugnauth became president. Bérenger was the first Franco-Mauritian Prime Minister in the country's post-Independence history. In the 2005 elections, Navin Ramgoolam became PM under the new coalition of Labour-PMXD-VF-MR-MMSM, and in the 2010 elections the Labour-MSM-PMSD alliance secured power and Navin Ramgoolam remained PM until 2014. The MSM-PMSD-ML coalition was victorious at the 2014 elections under Anerood Jugnauth's leadership, and despite disagreements within the ruling alliance that led to the departure of PMSD, the MSM-ML stayed in power for their full 5-year term. On the 21st of January 2017, Sir Anerood Jugnauth announced his resignation and that his son and Finance Minister Pravind Jugnauth would assume the office of prime minister, and the transition took place as planned on the 23rd of January 2017. In 2018, Mauritian president Ameenah Gurib-Fakim resigned over a financial scandal, and the incumbent president is Prithvirajsing Roopun who has served since December 2019. In the November 2019 Mauritius general elections, the ruling Militant Socialist Movement won more than half of the seats in parliament, securing incumbent Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth a new five-year term. On the 10th of November 2024, the opposition coalition, Alliance du Changement, won 60 of the 64 seats in the Mauritian general election, and its leader, former prime minister Navin Ramgoolam, became new prime minister.

The Island And The Sea

Mauritius is off the southeast coast of Africa, between latitudes 19°58.8'S and 20°31.7'S and longitudes 57°18.0'E and 57°46.5'E, and it is long and wide, with a land area of 2,040 square kilometers. The island is surrounded by more than 150 kilometers of white sandy beaches, and the lagoons are protected from the open sea by the world's third-largest coral reef, which surrounds the island. Just off the Mauritian coast lie some 49 uninhabited islands and islets, several of which have been declared natural reserves for endangered species. Mauritius Island is relatively young geologically, having been created by volcanic activity some 8 million years ago, and together with Saint Brandon, Réunion, and Rodrigues, the island is part of the Mascarene Islands. These islands emerged as a result of gigantic underwater volcanic eruptions that happened thousands of kilometers to the east of the continental block made up of Africa and Madagascar, and they are no longer volcanically active and the hotspot now rests under Réunion Island. Mauritius is encircled by a broken ring of mountain ranges, varying in height from 100 to 828 meters above sea level, and the land rises from coastal plains to a central plateau where it reaches a height of 567 meters, with the highest peak being Piton de la Petite Rivière Noire at 828 meters. Streams and rivers speckle the island, many formed in the cracks created by lava flows, and the island is home to some of the world's rarest plants and animals, but human habitation and the introduction of non-native species have threatened its indigenous flora and fauna. Due to its volcanic origin, age, isolation, and unique terrain, Mauritius is home to a diversity of flora and fauna not usually found in such a small area, and before the Portuguese arrival in 1507, there were no terrestrial mammals on the island. This allowed the evolution of a number of flightless birds and large reptile species, and the arrival of humans saw the introduction of invasive alien species, the rapid destruction of habitat, and the loss of much of the endemic flora and fauna. In particular, the extinction of the flightless dodo bird, a species unique to Mauritius, has become a representative example of human-driven extinction, and the dodo is prominently featured as a heraldic supporter of the national coat of arms of Mauritius. Less than 2 percent of the native forest now remains, concentrated in the Black River Gorges National Park in the south-west, the Bambous Mountain Range in the south-east, and the Moka-Port Louis Ranges in the north-west, and over 100 species of plants and animals have become extinct and many more are threatened. Conservation activities began in the 1980s with the implementation of programs for the reproduction of threatened bird and plant species as well as habitat restoration in the national parks and nature reserves, and in 2011, the Ministry of Environment & Sustainable Development issued the Mauritius Environment Outlook Report, which recommended that St Brandon be declared a Marine protected area. In the President's Report of the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation dated March 2016, St Brandon is declared an official MWF project to promote the conservation of the atoll, and the Mauritian flying fox is the only remaining mammal endemic to the island, and has been severely threatened in recent years due to the government sanctioned culling introduced in November 2015 due to the belief that they were a threat to fruit plantations. Prior to 2015 the lack of severe cyclone had seen the fruit bat population increase and the status of the species was then changed by the IUCN from Endangered to Vulnerable in 2014, and October 2018 saw the authorization of the cull of 20 percent of the fruit bat population, amounting to 13,000 of the estimated 65,000 fruit bats remaining, although their status had already reverted to Endangered due to the previous years' culls.

The People And The Faith

Mauritius had a population of 1,235,260 according to the final results of the 2022 Census, with 608,090 males and 627,170 females, and the population on the island of Mauritius was 1,191,280, with 586,590 males and 604,690 females, and that of Rodrigues island was 43,650, with 21,330 males and 22,320 females. The island of Agalega had a total population of 330, with 170 males and 160 females, and Mauritius has the second highest population density in the region of Africa. According to the 2022 census, the average age of the population was 38 years, and the 2022 Census indicated that the proportion of children aged below 15 years went down from 20.7 percent in 2011 to 15.4 percent in 2022 while the share of persons aged 60 years and over has risen from 12.7 percent to 18.7 percent in the same period. Subsequent to a Constitutional amendment in 1982, the census does not compile data on ethnic identities anymore but still does on religious affiliation, and the 1972 census was the last one to measure ethnicity. Mauritius is a multiethnic society, drawn from Indian, African, Chinese and European mostly French origin, and Mauritian Creoles carry the Bantu haplotype and their mitochondrial genetics show significant ancestry with enslaved populations from East Africa and Madagascar while Indo-Mauritians carry genes associated with the Chota Nagpur Plateau in Ranchi District, Jharkhand. According to the Constitution of Mauritius, there are 4 distinct communities on the island for the purposes of representation in the National Assembly, and Schedule I, Paragraph 3(4) of the Constitution states that the population of Mauritius shall be regarded as including a Hindu community, a Muslim community, and a Sino-Mauritian community, and every person who does not appear, from his way of life, to belong to one or other of those three communities shall be regarded as belonging to the General Population, which shall itself be regarded as a fourth community. Thus each ethnic group in Mauritius falls within one of the four main communities known as Hindus, General Population, Muslims and Sino-Mauritians, and as per the above constitutional provision, the 1972 ethnic statistics are used to implement the Best Loser System, the method used in Mauritius since the 1950s to guarantee ethnic representation across the entire electorate in the National Assembly without organizing the representation wholly by ethnicity. According to the 2022 census conducted by Statistics Mauritius, 47.87 percent of the Mauritian population follows Hinduism, 32.29 percent follows Christianity, with more than three-fourths of that number practicing Catholicism, Islam 18.24 percent and other religions 0.86 percent including Chinese ethnic religions, 0.63 percent reported themselves as non-religious and 0.11 percent did not answer. The constitution prohibits discrimination on religious grounds and provides for freedom to practice, change one's religion or belief, and Mauritius is the only country in Africa where Hinduism is the most practiced religion. The country is a welfare state, and the government provides free universal health care, free education up through the tertiary level, and free public transportation for students, senior citizens, and the disabled. Mauritius is consistently ranked as the most peaceful country in Africa, and along with the other Mascarene Islands, Mauritius is known for its biodiverse flora and fauna with many unique species endemic to the country. The country is a democracy with a government elected every five years, and the most recent National Assembly Election was held on the 7th of November 2019 in all the 20 mainland constituencies, and in the constituency covering the island of Rodrigues. Elections have tended to be a contest between two major coalitions of parties, and the 2018 Ibrahim Index of African Governance ranked Mauritius first in good governance. According to the 2023 Democracy Index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit that measures the state of democracy in 167 countries, Mauritius ranks 20th worldwide and is the only African-related country with full democracy, and the V-Dem Democracy Report described 2024 Mauritius as the 18th most electoral democratic country in Africa and autocratizing. Mauritius ranks 73rd very high in the Human Development Index and the World Bank classifies it as a high-income economy, and it is amongst the most competitive and most developed economies in the African region.