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Mauritius

1860

Country codes:MU
Area:2,040.00 km²
Population:1,200,206

Introduction

Mauritius /məˈrɪʃəs/ (Mauritian Creole: Moris; French: Maurice, pronounced: [mɔˈʁis]), officially the Republic of Mauritius (Mauritian Creole: Republik Moris; French: République de Maurice) is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about 900 kilometres (560 mi) east of Madagascar. In addition to the island of Mauritius, the Republic includes the islands of Cargados Carajos, Rodrigues and the Agalega Islands. Mauritius Island is part of the Mascarene Islands, with the French island of Réunion 200 km (120 mi) to the southwest and the island of Rodrigues 570 km (350 mi) to the northeast. The area of Mauritius is 2040 km; its capital city is Port Louis.

England took control of the islands from France during the Napoleonic Wars, and Mauritius became independent from the UK in 1968. It is a parliamentary republic and is a member of the Southern African Development Community, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the African Union, La Francophonie and the Commonwealth of Nations. Mauritius has an upper middle income economy.

The main languages spoken in Mauritius are Mauritian Creole, French and English. English is the only official language but the lingua franca is Mauritian Creole and the newspapers and television programmes are usually in French. Rodriguan Creole is a minority language and is spoken in some areas of the country. The country's populace is composed of several ethnicities, including Indian, African, Chinese and French. The first European explorers found no indigenous people living on the island.

The island of Mauritius is renowned for having been the only known home of the dodo. This bird was an easy prey to settlers due to its weight and inability to fly, and became extinct fewer than eighty years after the initial European colonization.

History

The island of Mauritius was unknown and uninhabited before its first recorded visit, by Arab sailors during the Middle Ages who named it Dina Arobi. In 1507 Portuguese sailors visited the uninhabited island and established a visiting base. Portuguese navigator Diogo Fernandes Pereira was probably the first European to land on the island at around 1511. The island appears with a Portuguese name 'Cirne' on early Portuguese maps, probably because of the presence of the dodo, a flightless bird which was found in great numbers at that time. Another Portuguese sailor, Dom Pedro Mascarenhas, gave the name Mascarenes to the group of islands now known as Mauritius, Rodrigues and Réunion. The Portuguese did not stay long as they were not interested in these islands.

The Dutch period (1598-1710)

In 1598 a Dutch squadron under Admiral Wybrand Van Warwyck landed at Grand Port and named the island "Mauritius", in honour of Prince Maurits van Nassau, stadtholder of the Dutch Republic. However, it was not until 1638 that there was a first attempt of Dutch settlement. It was from here that Dutch navigator Abel Tasman set out to discover the western part of Australia. The first Dutch settlement lasted only twenty years. Several attempts were subsequently made, but the settlements never developed enough to produce dividends and the Dutch abandoned Mauritius in 1710. They are remembered for the introduction of sugar-cane, domestic animals, and deer.

The French period (1715-1810)

France, which already controlled neighboring Île Bourbon (now Réunion), took control of Mauritius in 1715 and later renamed it Île de France (Isle of France). The 1735 arrival of French governor Mahé de La Bourdonnais coincided with development of a prosperous economy based on sugar production. Mahé de La Bourdonnais established Port Louis as a naval base and a ship-building centre. Under his governorship, numerous buildings were erected, a number of which are still standing today - part of Government House, the Chateau de Mon Plaisir at Pamplemousses, and the Line Barracks. The island was under the administration of the French East India Company which maintained its presence until 1767.

From 1767 to 1810, except for a brief period during the French Revolution when the inhabitants set up a government virtually independent of France, the island was controlled by officials appointed by the French government. In particular Charles Mathieu Isidore Decaen a successful general in the French Revolutionary Wars and in some ways a rival of Napoleon, ruled as Governor General of Mauritius and Réunion from 1803 to 1810. British naval cartographer and explorer Matthew Flinders was arrested and detained by Decaen on the island for most of this period, in contravention of an order from Napoleon. During this period, the Napoleonic wars, "Île de France" became a base from which French corsairs organised successful raids on British commercial ships. The raids continued until 1810 when a strong British expedition was sent to capture the island. Despite winning the Battle of Grand Port, the only French naval victory over the British during these wars, the French surrendered to a British invasion at Cap Malheureux three months later. They formally surrendered on 3 December 1810, on terms allowing settlers to keep their land and property and to use the French language and law of France in criminal and civil matters. Under British rule, the island's name reverted to the original one. Mauritius then went on to become independent in 1968. It became a republic in 1992.

The British period (1810-1968)

The British administration, which began with Robert Farquhar as governor, was followed by rapid social and economic changes. Slavery was abolished in 1835. The planters received two million pounds sterling in compensation for the loss of their slaves who had been imported from Africa and Madagascar during the French occupation. The abolition of slavery had important repercussions on the socio-economic and demographic fields. The planters turned to India, bringing in a large number of indentured labourers to work in the sugar cane fields. Between 1834 and 1921, around half a million indentured labourers were present on the island. They worked on sugar estates, factories, in transport and construction sites. Additionally, the British brought 8740 Indian soldiers to the islands.

Indians mainly originated from Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. The first group arrived in 1721 from Bengal and Pondicherry. Most were Bengali Muslims or Tamil. Port-Louis was divided into three sectors, with the Indian community in the eastern suburb of ‘Camp de Malabar’. A great number of Hindus from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were brought as indentured labourers. There was also massive immigration from Madagascar, Southern and Eastern Africa, Mozambique and Comoros. Chinese immigrants who were in commerce also arrived later and the colony was transformed into a predominantly Asiatic population. The expanding marketing sector also attracted many Muslim traders from North India.

As the Indian population became numerically dominant and the voting franchise was extended, political power shifted from the Franco-Mauritian and their Creole allies to the Indo-Mauritian. Cultivation of sugar cane flourished, for export of sugar to England. Economic progress saw improvement of the means of communication and a gradual upgrading of infrastructure.

Following constitutional conferences held in London in 1955 and 1957, the ministerial system was introduced and general elections were held on 9 March 1959. Voting took place for the first time on the basis of universal adult suffrage and the number of electors rose to 208,684. A Constitutional Review Conference was held in London in 1961 and a programme of further constitutional advance was established. The last constitutional conference, held in 1965, paved the way for Mauritius to achieve independence. After general elections in 1967, Mauritius adopted a new constitution and independence was proclaimed on 12 March 1968. Mauritius achieved the status of Republic 24 years later on 12 March 1992.

Culture

Music and Folklore

The sega is a local folklore music. It has African roots and the main traditional instruments for producing the music are goat-skin percussion instruments called ravanne, the West African Djembe and metallic clicks using metal triangles. The songs usually describe the miseries of slavery, and is currently used to voice inequalities as felt by the blacks. Men are usually at the instruments while women perform an accompanying dance. The origin of Sega is not completely known however it is likely to have come from West African countries such as Ghana due to the similarities in the music.

Holidays and Festivals

The following festivals are celebrated in Mauritius:

Literature

Mauritius has generated a diversified literature in French, English and Creole. Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, the 2008 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, is of Franco-Mauritian origin and lives on the island for part of each year.

Cuisine

The cuisine of Mauritius is a blend of Indian, African, Chinese and European influences. It is common for a combination of cuisines to form part of the same meal.

The production of rum, which is made from sugar cane, is widespread on the island. Sugarcane was first introduced to Mauritius by the Dutch in 1638. The Dutch mainly cultivated sugarcane for the production of "arrack", a precursor to rum. However, it was during the French and British administrations that sugar production was fully exploited. Pierre Charles François Harel was the first to propose the concept of local distillation of rum in Mauritius, in 1850. Beer is also produced on the Island, by the Phoenix Brewery.

Sports

Due to lack of funding and a local culture that values academic achievement over other activities, Mauritius' national sports teams have not been very successful at a competitive level. The most popular sport in Mauritius is football and the national team is the Club M, however most inhabitants prefer to watch European championships rather than local football which saw a rapid decline in the year 2000 after the government changed its regional policies due to hooliganism, which proved effective in decreasing violence between supporters but costly to the popularity of the game.

However Mauritius is quite competitive at regional level in the Indian Ocean. Mauritius collected some golds, silver and bronze medals in the Indian Ocean Island Games. The second (1985) and fifth editions (2003) were hosted by Mauritius.

At Beijing 2008, Mauritius has won its first Olympic medal: boxer Bruno Julie won the bronze medal. Mauritius has also been successful in athletics with sprinter Stéphan Buckland reaching the final of the 200 m race in the 2004 summer Olympics.

The national sport, however, remains horseracing, which is part and parcel of the island's cultural heritage. Horseracing in Mauritius dates to 1812, when the Champ de Mars Racecourse was inaugurated, making it the oldest racecourse in the Southern Hemisphere. Eight races are held every Saturday from March to December afternoon at the Champ de Mars Racecourse in Port Louis.

Geography

Together with Réunion and Rodrigues, Mauritius is part of the Mascarene Islands. This archipelago was formed in a series of undersea volcanic eruptions 8-10 million years ago, as the African plate drifted over the Réunion hotspot. They are no longer volcanically active, and the hotspot now rests under Réunion. The island of Mauritius is formed around a central plateau, with its highest peak in the southwest, Piton de la Petite Rivière Noire at 828 metres (2,717 ft). Around the plateau, the original crater can still be distinguished from several mountains.

The island's capital and largest city is Port Louis, in the northwest. Other important towns are Rose-Hill and Beau-Bassin, Curepipe, Vacoas, Phoenix, Quatre Bornes.

Climate

The local climate is tropical, modified by southeast trade winds; there is a warm, dry winter from May to November and a hot, wet, and humid summer from November to May. Anti-cyclones affect the country during May to September. Cyclones affect the country during November–April. Hollanda (1994) and Dina (2002) were the worst two last cyclones to have affected the island.

Biodiversity

The Dodo

When it was discovered, the island of Mauritius was the home of a previously unknown species of bird, which the Portuguese named the dodo (simpleton), as they appeared to be not too bright. By 1681 all dodos had been killed by the settlers or by their domesticated animals. An alternate theory suggests that the imported wild boars that were set free destroyed the slow-breeding dodo population. The dodo is prominently featured as a supporter of the national coat-of-arms (see above).

Environment

The environment in Mauritius is typically tropical in the coastal regions with forests in the mountainous areas. Seasonal cyclones are destructive to the flora and fauna, although they recover quickly.

Mauritius has a Ministry of Environment that is responsible for the cleanliness of the island, including garbage and litter collection at public places. Environmental complaints and requests for Environmental Awareness can be filed online.

The air quality in Mauritius is one of the best in the world. Mauritius ranked second in an-air quality index released by the World Health Organization (OMS).

Inforamtion above from the Wikipedia article Mauritius, licensed under CC-BY-SA full list of contributors here.

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