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Mauritius was a Crown colony off the southeast coast of Africa. Formerly part of the French colonial empire , British rule in Mauritius was established de facto with the invasion of Isle de France in November 1810, and de jure by the subsequent Treaty of Paris .
In late November 1810 the British landed in large numbers in the north of the island near Cap Malheureux and rapidly overpowered the French, who capitulated on 3 December 1810. [15] By the Treaty of Paris in 1814, the "Isle de France", which was renamed "Mauritius" was ceded to Great Britain, together with Rodrigues and the Seychelles. In the ...
Jacques Hamelin 1837 by Antoine Maurin. The Indian Ocean was a vital part of the chain of trade links that connected the British Empire.Merchant ships from China, Arabia and East Africa crossed it regularly and at its centre was the British-held continent of India, from which heavily laden East Indiamen brought millions of pounds worth of trade goods to Britain every year. [1]
The British landed in large numbers in the north of the island and rapidly overpowered the French, who capitulated (see Invasion of Isle de France). In the Treaty of Paris (1814) , the French ceded Isle de France together with its territories including Agaléga , the Cargados Carajos Shoals , the Chagos Archipelago , Rodrigues , Seychelles ...
Mauritius, unlike Île Bourbon, remained in British hands after the end of the war in 1814 and was retained as part of the British Empire until granted independence in 1968. [citation needed] Although there were no further British operations in the region, the Mauritius campaign was not quite over.
Mauritius became the British Empire's main sugar-producing colony and remained a primarily sugar-dominated plantation-based colony until independence, in 1968. [21] In 1965, the UK split the Chagos Archipelago from British Mauritius to create the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). [22]
However, the scale of the system that was put into operation in Mauritius was unprecedented. It immediately spread throughout the colonies of the British Empire, and was imitated by other European powers, while the Indian labor force was also employed beyond the sugarcane fields, in such workplaces as mines and even railways. [3] [15]
In 1984 the British government signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration with China and agreed to turn over Hong Kong and its dependencies in 1997. British rule ended on 30 June 1997, with China taking over at midnight, 1 July 1997 (at end of the 99-year lease over the New Territories, along with the ceded Hong Kong Island and Kowloon).