The first records of sailors visiting the island now known as Mauritius date to Portuguese voyages around 1510, the island was said to be uninhabited.
The first permanent settlers were Dutch, landing in 1598. They established first sugar cane plantations with slave labor from Africa, and they called the island Mauritius after the stadhouder (governor) Maurice of Nassau.
Two waves of colonization were attempted -- 1638 to 1657 and 16664 to 1710. When the island was finally abandoned to pirates, it was claimed by the French East India Company. In 1715 the French renamed it Île de France and set about expanding the sugar industry.
The first settlement, Port Louis, was created by colonists from Réunion in 1722. Slaves were brought over from East African and Madagascar to work on the sugar plantations. In 1767 the French crown took possession of the island.
The island was used as a staging post for privateers during the Napoleonic war -- the British responded by seizing the island in 1810. Under the Abolition of Slavery Act of 1822 African slaver were freed, and indentured Indians (and Chinese) were brought over to work the plantations -- roughly half-a-million such indented laborers were imported between 1835 and the First World War. Britain renamed the island Mauritius but retained French customs, language and laws.
Mauritius was granted independence on 12 March 1968 (within the commonwealth), with Seewoosagur Ramgoolam as prime minister.
With the downturn in sugar prices, social unrest in the late 70s and early 80s led to a change of government, Anerood Jugnauth of the Mouvement Socialiste Mauricien (MSM, Militant Socialist Movement) took power.
On 12 March 1992 Mauritius became a republic with Cassam Uteem as non-executive president, Jugnauth remained head of government as prime minister.
