Mauritius historical timeline

History

Mauritius has no ancient history and a modern one that explains the modern world: an empty island made into a sugar factory by three empires and the peoples they brought, which then made itself a country. What a visitor sees -- Port Louis's depot and Chinese quarter, the plantation houses, the temples and the mosque, Le Morne -- is that record.

Chronology

1598 A Dutch squadron under Wybrand van Warwyck lands at Grand Port and names the island for Prince Maurice of Nassau; the Dutch exploit the ebony and plant sugar, and the dodo, the island's only known home, is last reliably seen in 1662.
1715 French colonisation begins and the island becomes the Isle de France; enslaved people are brought from Mozambique, Madagascar and Zanzibar to work the plantations, and the maroons who escape them take refuge on Le Morne.
1810 The Battle of Grand Port, fought on 19 and 20 August by a French fleet under Pierre Bouvet, is the only French naval victory of the Napoleonic Wars. It did not save the island: the British landed in large numbers near Cap Malheureux in late November, having taken Rodrigues earlier the same year, and the French capitulated on 3 December 1810 to Commodore Josias Rowley. The bay at Mahébourg where the battle was fought has the island's naval museum, and the French street names, Creole and legal code that survive British rule are the terms of that capitulation.
1810 Britain seizes the island and France cedes it and its dependencies by the Treaty of Paris; Mauritius becomes the empire's main sugar colony and stays a sugar plantation economy until independence.
1834 After the abolition of slavery, planters bring indentured labourers, above all from British India; an estimated 450,000 pass through the Aapravasi Ghat immigration depot in Port Louis, inscribed by UNESCO in 2006 as one of the earliest manifestations of a global economic system.
1835 Abolition of slavery, long opposed by the planters, becomes effective in Mauritius on 1 February. To finance compensation across all its slave colonies the British government negotiated a loan of 15 million pounds on 3 August 1835 -- paid to owners, not to the freed. Indian immigrants then arrived between 1835 and 1924 through the Coolie Ghat, and Indo-Mauritians, the island's largest community, descend from them.
1937 The Uba riots -- named for the cane variety at issue -- lead the colonial government to reform labour conditions and to un-ban trade unions. The parties that carried Mauritius to independence thirty years later grew out of those unions, which is why the island's politics has always been argued in the language of the sugar estate.
1965 Britain detaches the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius as the British Indian Ocean Territory to allow the American base on Diego Garcia; the dispute over it outlives independence.
1968 Mauritius becomes independent on 12 March, six weeks after riots in Port Louis in January 1968 in which 25 people died. In 1974 the Mauritius kestrel is down to five or six birds; by 2019 there are about 400.
1992 Mauritius is proclaimed a republic within the Commonwealth on 12 March 1992, the monarch removed as head of state, but keeps the Privy Council in London as its highest court of appeal. The freeport opened the same year and the stock exchange in 1989: the shift from sugar colony to services economy, which is what a visitor actually sees in Port Louis, dates from this decade rather than from independence.
2002 Rodrigues, until then the tenth district, is granted autonomy under its own Regional Assembly.
2008 Le Morne Brabant is inscribed as World Heritage, the island's second site; same-sex activity is decriminalised in October 2023; the Economist's index counts Mauritius as Africa's only full democracy.

What survived, and how

Almost nothing of the original island survived the sugar: the forest is a fraction, the dodo a museum piece. What survived is the mixture -- a Hindu majority, a Creole language, a French press and an English parliament -- and a political culture that has changed governments by election since 1968.

The kestrel, the pink pigeon and the forest of the Black River Gorges survived because a few people decided in the 1970s that they should; they are the best reason to leave the beach.

Verified against Wikipedia, September 2026.

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Sources & verification Covers the sourced claims on this page.

Checked against Wikipedia — In 1598, a Dutch squadron under Admiral Wybrand van Warwyck landed at Grand Port and named the island Mauritius, in honour of Prince Maurice van Nassau, When French colonisation began in 1715, the island was renamed 'Isle de France', In 1810, the United Kingdom seized the island and under the Treaty of Paris, France ceded Mauritius and its dependencies to the United Kingdom, Mauritius became the British Empire's main sugar-producing colony and remained a primarily sugar-dominated plantation-based colony until independence, in 1968, Aapravasi Ghat, in the bay at Port Louis and now a UNESCO site, was the first British colony to serve as a major reception centre for indentured servants, In 1965, the United Kingdom split its administration of the Chagos Archipelago away from Mauritius ... to allow the United States to build Naval Support…, Mauritius was successively colonized by the Netherlands, France and Great Britain, and became independent on 12 March 1968, During the French rule slaves were brought from parts of Africa such as Mozambique, Madagascar and Zanzibar, it was India, then under British rule, which supplied the much needed laborers to Mauritius, total passenger arrivals to Mauritius in 2011 was 1,294,387 and tourist arrivals for the year attained 964,642, UNESCO added Morne Brabant Mountain to the World Heritage List in 2008, a suggested refuge for Maroons and people who escaped slavery, proclaimed as a World Heritage Site in 2006, citing the buildings as among the earliest explicit manifestations of what was to become a global economic…, In 1974 the Mauritius kestrel was close to extinction, with only five or possibly six known birds, the numbers had increased to circa 400 birds in 2019, The last widely accepted sighting of a dodo was in 1662., The tenth District of Mauritius until 2002, it was granted autonomous status and has since been managed by the Rodrigues Regional Assembly, The Battle of Grand Port on 19 and 20 August 1810, by a fleet commanded by Pierre Bouvet, was the only French naval victory of the Napoleonic Wars; a preliminary British attack was foiled there in August 1810, In late November 1810 the British landed in large numbers in the north of Mauritius near Cap Malheureux, the main attack having been launched in December from Rodrigues which had been captured the same year, and the French capitulated on 3 December 1810 to Commodore Josias Rowley, Abolition of slavery, long opposed by the planters, became effective in Mauritius on 1 February 1835, and to finance compensation across all its slave colonies the British government negotiated a loan of 15 million pounds with Nathan Mayer Rothschild and Moise Montefiore on 3 August 1835, Indo-Mauritians are descended from Indian immigrants, most of whom arrived between 1835 and 1924 via the Coolie Ghat to work as indentured labourers after slavery was abolished, The Uba riots of 1937 resulted in reforms by the local British government that improved labour conditions and led to the un-banning of labour unions, In January 1968, six weeks before the declaration of independence, riots in Port Louis led to the deaths of 25 people, and independence was proclaimed on 12 March 1968, On 12 March 1992 Mauritius was proclaimed a republic within the Commonwealth with the monarch removed as head of state, while retaining the Privy Council of the United Kingdom as its highest court of appeal; the stock exchange opened in 1989 and the freeport began operation in 1992 (September 2026).