scenery is most
beautiful and picturesque. Its inhabitants may be divided into two
main divisions: Europeans, chiefly French and British; and African and
Asiatic peoples. French appears to be more commonly spoken than
English, which accounts for the fact that the writings of Remy Ollier
were in French.

The island was discovered by the Portuguese navigator, Mascarenhas in
1505. Until the sixteenth century the island remained under the
control of Portugal. In 1598, the Dutch seized it and named it
"Mauritius" in honor of its stadholder, Count Maurice of Nassau. The
Dutch built a fort there, introduced slaves and convicts, but they
made no permanent settlements and, in 1710, it was abandoned. For a
short time the island passed into the hands of the French East India
Company, and later it became a crown colony. During the colonial wars
between France and Great Britain, Mauritius was a source of much
conflict. It was finally captured by the British in 1810; and by the
Treaty of Paris in 1814, the British were definitely granted control
of the island. Great Britain agreed, however, that the inhabitants
should retain their own laws, customs, religion and language, all of
which were of French origin.

In 1833 slavery was abolished in the British possessions. The Reformed
Parliament forced by the denunciation of antislavery orators led by
William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, and Granville Sharp, enacted a
bill providing that Negro slavery should gradually cease in the
colonies, and that a compensation of L20,000,000 should be paid to the
slaveholders. There were then enacted laws removing proscription and
the Negroes were supposed to enjoy the same political rights as the
whites; but the latter sought to make themselves the dominant element
in Mauritius. In 1834 there were about 66,000 Negroes on the island,
which ten years later had a population of 158,462.[2] Indian coolies
were brought in to take the place of Negro slaves and many evils
attended their introduction. The situation was then as it was later in
the United States when the adjustment of freedmen to their new life
was accompanied by painful experiences on the part of both freedmen
and their former masters. The planters resented the presence of the
freedmen and as far as possible their privileges were curtailed.[3]
Militant agitators arose then among the Negroes demanding justice for
the oppressed. Among these leaders thus promoting the march of the
Negro populat