CHAPTER TWO
2.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND CURRENT CHALLENGES
38.
This chapter provides a summary account of Mauritius’s history
(section 2.1) and of its current situation (section 2.2), and as such
serves as an analytical backdrop to the Country Review Report.
Section 2.1 traces the historical development of the country from the
Late Middle Ages onwards, providing a brief overview of the island’s
transition from colonised territory to independent republic. Section
2.2 considers the country’s current situation, and looks at some of
the challenges it faces in the areas of political governance, economic
governance, corporate governance and socioeconomic development.
2.1
Historical overview 3 , 4
Early history
39.
The island of Mauritius lay undiscovered for centuries, the earliestknown visitors being Arab sailors who landed there some time
towards the end of the Early Middle Ages. By 1500, the island
appeared on maps as ‘Dina Arobi’ – an Arabic name. The Portuguese
sailor, Domingo Fernandez Pereira, was probably the first European
to set foot on the island, arriving around 1511. Early Portuguese maps
identify the island as Cirne or Ilha do Cirne (Island of the Swan), a
possible allusion to the presence of the dodo, which inhabited the
island in large numbers at that time. In 1512, another Portuguese
sailor visited Mauritius, namely Don Pedro Mascarenhas, after whom
the Masacarene Islands – Mauritius, Réunion and Rodrigues – are
named. However, neither the Arabs nor the Portuguese settled on the
island; the first to do so were the Dutch, at the end of the 16th Century.
The Dutch (1598–1710)
40.
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In 1598, Dutch naval warships arrived in Mauritius and the island
was there-upon named after Prince Maurice van Nassau of Holland. In
1638, the Dutch established a small colony on the island, which lasted
for 20 years. A second attempted settlement in 1664 proved unsuccessful
and the Dutch left the island for good in 1710. The Dutch are credited
with introducing domesticated animals, deer and, most significantly,
sugar cane – a crop that would come to dominate the island’s
economic fortunes.
3 - Government of Mauritius website, www.gov.mu.
4 - Allen, RB. 1999. Slaves, Freedmen and Indentured Laborers in Colonial Mauritius. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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