Executive Summary 1.5 • • Ensure, as far as possible, that the self-assessment process that Mauritius conducted was technically sound, credible and free of any political manipulation. Reach consensus with the stakeholders on the remaining issues and challenges, and make recommendations that would improve governance in the country. In the course of its Mission, the Country Review Mission (CRM) met all the stakeholders involved in the APRM process in Mauritius. These included the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the cabinet, representatives of the legislature and the judiciary, faith-based organisations, parastatal companies, decentralised communities, political parties, employers of labour and private sector organisations, civil society, trade unions, youth and women’s organisations, and the physically challenged. The team also interacted with the media. 2. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE AND CHALLENGES AHEAD 1.6 Mauritius was unknown and uninhabited for centuries. Some Arab sailors visited the island during the Middle Ages. By 1500, the island was identified on maps as ‘Dina Arobi’. The first European known to have visited Mauritius was Domingo Fernandez Pereira, a Portuguese sailor who landed on the island in about 1511. Early Portuguese maps called the island ‘Cirne’. Executive Summary 1.9 The British (1810–1968) 1.10 In 1598, Dutch naval warships arrived at Mauritius and the island was there-upon named after Prince Maurice Van Nassau of Holland. The Dutch established a settlement there in 1638 that lasted for 20 years. They are credited with introducing sugar cane, domesticated animals and deer to the island. The Dutch left Mauritius in 1710. The French (1715–1810) 1.8 2 The French East India Company administered the island between 1715 and 1767. It renamed Mauritius the ‘Isle de France’. A Frenchman, La Bourdonnais, founded the city of Port Louis in 1715 as a naval base and shipbuilding centre. The French government ruled Mauritius directly between 1767 and 1810, except for a brief period of self-rule at the time of the French Revolution. Britain introduced rapid social and economic changes. It abolished slavery in 1835, and Mauritian planters received 2 million pounds sterling in compensation for losing their slaves, who had been forcibly brought from Africa and Madagascar during French rule. The planters then hired indentured labourers from India to work on their sugar cane plantations. Mauritius exported its sugar to Britain. A small number of Chinese traders also moved to Mauritius during this period. The franchise and the road to independence 1.11 The Dutch (1598–1710) 1.7 France used Mauritius as a base for raids on British commercial ships during the Napoleonic Wars. The British responded by capturing Rodrigues Island in 1809 and Mauritius in December 1810. The Treaty of Paris (1814) ceded Mauritius to Britain along with the Seychelles and Rodrigues Island. Britain renamed the island ‘Mauritius’ and guaranteed respect for the traditions, language and customs of its inhabitants. As the date for independence approached, constitutional conferences were held in 1955 and 1957.A ministerial system of governance was also introduced. Universal suffrage followed and elections were held for the first time on 9 March 1959, although the country was still a British colony. Two more constitutional conferences were held in 1961 and 1965. After the last preindependence elections in 1967, Mauritius adopted a new constitution on 12 March 1968. The country’s independence from Britain was proclaimed on the same day. The slave trade and the emergence of the Creole community 1.12 Slaves accompanied the first French settlers to Mauritius in 1721. Many of them came 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, Malaysia and Indonesia. 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 between the 1730s and the 1820s. 3