Mauritius History
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Mauritius was first discovered by the traders from the Arab peninsula and the island was marked on their maps. The first visitors of Mauritius from the European continent were the Portuguese sailors who landed in the island in1510. They used the island as a stop on their way to Goa and Malacca but they did not choose to settle on Mauritius. The first attempt on colonisation of the island was made by the Dutch who arrived here in 1598 and named the island Mauritius after Dutch Prince Maurice of Nassau. The Dutch introduced sugar, Malagasy slaves and a herd of Javanese deer. But the Dutch colonists were also overly destructive and claimed to be responsible for the extinction of the gorgeous ebony forests and the famous species dodo. The Dutch colonists eventually abandoned their settlements in Mauritius in 1710. After the Dutch, the French colonists occupied Mauritius and they renamed the island as “Isle de France” between 1715 and 1810 and many place names are reminders of this era.
During the Napoleonic Wars, in 1810 with the surrender of the French colonists, the British took control of the island. The name was then reverted to its original, the Mauritius. The abolition of slavery under the British rule led to an inflow of Chinese and Indian workers who were followed by traders of their own nationalities. Mauritius, eventually gained independence from Britain on 12 March 1968 and since then has been an independent nation within the British Commonwealth.