Mauritius

The struggle

Uninhabited before colonisation, Mauritius was populated by enslaved Africans and Malagasy under the Dutch and French, then by Indian indentured labourers under the British after abolition in 1835. Sugar estates ruled the island until unions and the Labour Party won the vote and a welfare state. Independence came on 12 March 1968, and the country became a republic in 1992.

One date, a longer story: Britain detached the Chagos Archipelago in 1965; Mauritius still contests that separation.

Key people

• Seewoosagur Ramgoolam

  1900–1985

  Led the Labour Party; first prime minister

• Anjalay Coopen

  1921–1943

  Pregnant labourer shot during the 1943 sugar strike

• Ratsitatane

  died 1822

  Malagasy prince who led an 1822 slave revolt