About Rodrigues > History

Rodrigues inherited its name from the Portuguese navigator, Don Diego Rodriguez, who visited the island briefly in 1528. However, the discovery of Rodrigues is in fact much earlier than the 16th century. Between the 10th and the 11th centuries, the Arabs regularly visited the Mascarenes Islands. As a major proof, a map realized during the 12th century by the Arabic geographer, Al Sharif El-Edrissi, which clearly shows the three islands of the Mascarenes known back then as Dina Arobi (Mauritius), Dina Margabin (Reunion) and Dina Moraze (Rodrigues).

As from 1601, the Dutch anchored in the island's lagoon to take in fresh supplies of food without really settling down. 

Years went by, the island still remained unoccupied and was solely used as a supply anchor for those ships that were on their way to the Indies. The island was abundant in a particular specie of tortoises, which had already disappeared from the other Mascarenes Islands.

Following the orders of Mahé de Labourdonnais, governor of Ile de France (Mauritius) and Bourbon Island (Reunion), the island was to be permanently occupied in 1735. A detachment settled down, assigned with the task of gathering the tortoises and loading them on the ships of the Indies Company so as to supply these two islands as well as passing ships in fresh meat. This pillage went on for 60 years and brought about their extinction at the end of the 18th century.

As from 1792, colonists came to settle down with the other few who had stayed back in the devastated island. Amongst them, Philibert Maragon, who came in 1794 in a view to develop farming and stockbreeding. It was during this epoch that the ancestors of the present population came into the island: African slaves were brought from Mauritius to Rodrigues. At the beginning of the 19th century, the island had about a hundred habitants (22 colonists and 82 slaves).

In 1809, the British troops took possession of Rodrigues. It was from this island that the English sent their naval forces to attack Ile de France in 1810. Mauritius and Rodrigues became British territories. Slavery was abolished. 

The island's population gradually grew with freed slaves and European colonists and at the end of the 19th century, 3000 inhabitants were living on the island. The British invested little in the island's development, which had a purely agricultural vocation. It played the role of the "granary of Mauritius Island", the foodstuff produced in Rodrigues were sent to its "big sister".

The growth of Rodrigues went through a slow and progressive rhythm but without any link with the lightning development that Mauritius underwent with its sugar economy in full expansion and the significant arrival of Indian immigrants.

When Mauritius gained its independence in 1968, the island was bound to the Mauritian territory. 

In 2002, the island acquired some autonomy in the management of its internal affairs. A first step had thus been made in respect of the complete independence towards which the Mauritian government is not totally opposed.