Historical Context and Current Challenges Chapter 2 The French (1715–1810) 41. 42. From 1715 to 1767, the island was under the administration of the Compagnie des Indes orientales (French East India Company). It was the French, and more particularly the island’s governor, Betrand-François Mahé de La Bourdonnais, who first made the ‘Isle de France’ (as it had been rechristened) economically viable. La Bourdonnais ruled as governor from 1735 to 1746 on behalf of the Compagnie des Indes orientales and positioned the island as a base from which French possessions in India could be supported. In 1735, La Bourdonnais founded Port Louis as a naval base and a shipbuilding centre. From 1721 onwards, as well as sugar cane production, slavery became an integral part of Mauritian life. However, sugar did not become an important export crop until the beginning of the 19th Century. In 1767, the Compagnie des Indes orientales ceded political control of Mauritius to the French Crown. From 1767 until 1810, the French government directly ruled Mauritius, except, that is, for a brief period of self-rule at the time of the French Revolution (1789–1799). The colony’s first royal comptroller, Pierre Poivre (1767–1772), encouraged the settlers to produce tropical products such as cotton, spices and indigo. However, owing to competition from other producers, the lure of more commercial activities at sea, and the damaging effects of visiting cyclones, these early attempts at plantation agriculture failed. Box 2.1: Slavery in Mauritius Slaves accompanied the first French settlers to Mauritius in 1721. Many of the slaves originated from Madagascar and the East African coastal region along the Mozambique and Swahili coasts in the late 18th Century. A small number of slaves also came from India, Guinea, Malaya and Indonesia. The historian J-M Filliot has estimated that, between 1670 and 1810, for both Mauritius and the nearby island of Réunion where slavery started at the earlier date of 1670, 160,000 slaves were forcibly landed, with 45 per cent coming from Madagascar, 40 per cent from Mozambique and East Africa, 13 per cent from India, and 2 per cent from Guinea5. In Mauritius alone, the local slave population grew from 648 people in 1735 to approximately 8,000 in the 1750s, 33,832 in 1787, and 49,080 in 1797. It should be noted that the local FrancoMauritian population ignored the 1793 French National Assembly decree that banned slavery in the French colonial empire. Indeed, by the time of the British conquest of Mauritius in 1810, the local slave population had increased to 63,281. Slaves accounted for between 75 per cent and 85 per cent of the Mauritian population from the 1730s to the 1820s. Chapter 2 Historical Context and Current Challenges 43. From its base in Mauritius, France utilised the island’s port as a base from which to launch attacks upon passing British vessels. French government fleets attacked the British in India, and French privateers assailed British shipping during the many wars of the period: the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years’ War, and the War of American Independence. Sea battles between the two nations extended beyond these episodes of formal aggression, however, and were in fact a common occurrence during the generally hostile atmosphere that characterised Franco-British relations throughout the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Era. Mauritius also produced foodstuffs and supplies for French forces sailing to India. 44. French rule ended with Britain’s capture of Rodrigues Island, in 1809, and Mauritius, in December 1810. Under the Treaty of Paris of 1814, Mauritius was ceded to Britain, along with the Seychelles and Rodrigues. The island was renamed Mauritius, with the British guaranteeing respect for the traditions, language, laws and customs of the Franco-Mauritian inhabitants. The British (1810–1968) 6 45. During the era of French rule, slaves had been forcibly brought to the island, the majority coming from Africa, in particular, Madagascar. Many of these Africans were put to work as labourers on the sugar plantations. In 1807, Britain abolished slave trading in the British Empire, but the illegal importation of slaves nevertheless continued. The practice became so widespread that, in 1828, a Commission of Eastern Inquiry, tasked with investigating the issue, concluded that negligence on the part of civil authorities had indeed allowed the unlawful commerce in human beings to continue. It has been estimated that at least 30,000 slaves were illegally brought to Mauritius in the period from 1811 to the early 1820s7. The actual abolition of the practice of slavery in Mauritius took place only in 1835, when Mauritian planters received 2 million pounds sterling in compensation for the loss of their slaves.8 Source: Allen, RB. 1999. Slaves, Freedmen and Indentured Laborers in Colonial Mauritius. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 54 3 - Allen, RB. 1999. Slaves, Freedmen and Indentured Laborers in Colonial Mauritius. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p 14. 6 - Allen, RB. 1999. Slaves, Freedmen and Indentured Laborers in Colonial Mauritius. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 7 - Ibid, p 15. 8 - Government of Mauritius website, www.gov.mu. 55