o gave
it the name by which it is now known. Aside from erecting a fort at
Grand Port, however, the Dutch did no more for the development of the
colony than the Portuguese. The Dutch finally abandoned it in 1710
when the island was taken over by the French. Under the French the
island was considerably developed, especially during the second half
of the eighteenth century, and this new step, as the majority saw it,
necessitated the introduction of slavery. During the Napoleonic Wars
Mauritius was captured by England and was formally ceded by France in
1814.

The significant history of the Negroes in Mauritius, however, dates
from the year 1723 when the East India Company of France, in order to
promote agriculture in the Island, sanctioned the introduction of
slaves, whom they sold to the inhabitants at a certain fixed price.
This price was seldom paid at the moment of purchase, and, as many
evaded payment altogether. Mahe de Labourdounais, the then Governor
of the Colony, received instructions on this point, the execution of
which made him unpopular among the inhabitants.[2]

The slave trade, at this period, was principally in the hands of those
pirates who had formed a settlement at Nossibe (Nosse Ibrahim), on the
northeast coast of Madagascar, where they had been received with
kindness and hospitality by the natives. In return they excited a war
between the tribes in the interior and those inhabiting the seacoast,
and purchased the prisoners made by both for the purpose of conveying
them for sale to Bourbon or Mauritius. If the prisoners thus obtained
proved insufficient to the demands of the slave market, a descent was
made on some part of the Island, a village was surrounded, and its
younger and more vigorous inhabitants were borne off to a state of
perpetual slavery.[3]

Harrowing as the scenes witnessed in such forays must have been, the
slave trade from Madagascar to Mauritius was not accompanied with the
same horrors as from the neighboring continent to America, if history
be credited. Its victims were spared the toiling and harassing march
from the interior and the horrors of being cribbed and confined for
successive weeks beneath the hatches till they reached their final
destination; and yet, of every five Negroes embarked at Madagascar,
not more than two were found fit for service in Mauritius. The rest
either stifled beneath the hatches, starved themselves to death, died
of putrid fever, became the food o