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Last Voyage of Le Coureur

Last Voyage of Le Coureur The Wreck of a Slave Ship off the Mauritius Coast View of the wreck site March 1821. Night had just fallen and there was a full moon. A small lugger was waiting offshore to deliver a cargo of slaves to French colonists residing on the British colony of Mauritius. Unfortunately, the seas were rough, a cyclone having passed through the region only days earlier. Dorval, commanding the small vessel, was...

An eye witness account of the 1968 riots

An eye witness account of the 1968 riot Plaine Verte is a suburb of the capital of Mauritius. Until 1968, it was home to a heterogenous community of Muslims and Christians. This closely intertwined community of two ethnic/religious groups who co-existed for over a century found itself at the centre of the riots which took place in that year. Shawkat Ally Gozeer was very young at the time, but provided the following account of...

The Biharis of Mauritius: Past and Present

  The Biharis of Mauritius: Past and Present To be a Bihari, or a person of Bihari descent, may seem a simple concept, free from confusion or distortion. Yet the state of Bihar itself has undergone modifications, whilst the absorption of other minority ethnic groups into the present-day self-defined community of Biharis has been a continuous feature of Mauritian social evolution. The populous state of Bihar situated in...

Captain Matthew Flinders at the Isle of France [M...

  Captain Matthew Flinders  at the Isle of France [Mauritius], 1803-1810 On 15th December 1803 Captain Matthew Flinders sailed into a quiet bay of the Isle of France, a small French outpost in the southwest Indian Ocean, in the Cumberland.  Only a few weeks earlier, a French ship had brought news of the rupture of the Peace of Amiens. The English crew of the leaky Cumberland, unaware that war had again broken out and...

Why is ‘Grand Port’ important?

  Why is ‘Grand Port’ important? History will always be a key subject for study because of the lessons the past can teach us, but the study of history will and should always engender discussion and controversy because of the many ways in which a single event can be interpreted. The bicentenary has provoked a debate in Mauritius about the interpretation of the colonial legacy, and provided a platform for many critical...