Mauritius-Unity in diversity

 As you might already know, the International Day for the abolition of slavery is right around the corner. A day celebrated to remind us what slaves endured in the past and had it not gone away, in what plight we might have been. Mauritius too has quite its fair share of slavery history, all starting way back in the 1600s. During the Dutch settlement in Mauritius, in 1600, Van Der Stel was the first governor who brought slaves to the island from Madagascar. A slave is categorised as a person who is forced to obey and work from dusk till dawn for  his masters without any pay.  These slaves were needed to cut ebony trees which were extremely rare trees used to make ships, trade to other countries and were very hard to cut down.  After the Dutch settlement in 1710, when the French rule started, they started bringing even more slaves but this time from Mozambique, India etc. They had to clear forests and cultivate sugarcane and other crops all over the island. The governor, Bertrand Franco

The Pre Independence Era As you might already know, an immigrant is a person who travels to another country with the hope of a better life. The same applied to the Indian and Chinese who were first brought to Mauritius by Bertrand Mahe de Labourdonnais  in the year 1735 as workers to look for a higher standard of living. Bertrand Mahe de Labourdonnais, a French naval officer and the first French governor of Mauritius. Indian Indentured labourers Later on , during the 19th century when the French rule ended, the British needed more workers to work in the sugarcane fields as at that time, sugar production was at its peak. So, they went to search for more labourers in India and China. The Indian immigrants were brought on a 5 year contract from parts such as Bombay (now known as Mumbai), Kolkata(now known as Calcutta). Madras (now known as Chennai). The Journey to Mauritius During their travel, many of the immigrants fell sick and some of even died of suffocation as there was a lack of sp

After the devastation of the oil spilled from the Japanese bulk carrier MV Wakashio in Mauritius lagoons, atleast 50 dolphins and whales washed up ashore and many of the coral reefs have been affected. These aquatic animals died in the area that was affected by the oil spill. It was like a nightmare for the locals as they saw the carcass on the shore on 26 August 2020. All this has angered all the Mauritian people including me. Among them there was a mother and her baby which were filmed by a fisherman on the lagoon. He followed them as the baby was already dead but the mother did not leave her till the end. Few minutes  later, the mother dolphin was seen flapping her tails very rapidly and at once she stopped moving. Unfortunately she slowly sank beneath the waves and her dead baby dolphin continued floating, even more than 25 dead dolphins were captured floating on the surface by other fishermen.  You can watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3F2qFzLdQc One of the wi

We have been talking about Mauritius for a while now and today we are going to learn about its national symbols which are used during events to represent a country around the world. Long time ago, in Mauritius, knights and nobles had a coat of arms and this was a special symbol that represented their family, also used to differentiate one knight from another.                            Many colonies in Mauritius got its independence in the 20th century and many people believed that they could govern the island. One among them, was Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, who worked for the people to have a better life and wanted to provide them with education and health facilities. Later on, an election was held and more people voted for independence and on march 12 1968, Mauritius became an independent country. The national flag was then unveiled with the colours Red, Blue, Yellow and Green. For Mauritius, the national symbols are 'The National flag', 'The coat of Arms', 'The Do