Meanwhile, the British were expanding their influence in the Indian Ocean and in 1809, British forces from both the Cape and India occupied Rodrigues from where they prepared their attack on all the Mascarenes. Bourbon, which had been renamed Réunion during the revolutionary years, was taken. A major battle was fought between the French and British fleets off Grand Port in August 1810, and after prolonged fighting, the French won a victory that no-one expected.
In December 1810, 70 British vessels and 11,500 soldiers set sail from Rodrigues for the north of Ile de France. Their aim was not colonisation, but to neutralise the island so that it wouldn’t be used as a base for French attacks on British vessels bound for India. British spies and reconnaissance had found a passage near Coin de Mire. Decaen was taken by surprise as he awaited the invasion in Port Louis. The British forces under General Abercrombie marched on the capital, meeting only token resistance.
Faced with the might of the British forces and the indifference of the settlers to remaining French, Decaen surrendered.
Soldiers were allowed to leave the island and settlers who did not want to stay under a British administrator were permitted to return to France with all their possessions. These generous capitulation terms also included British pledges to preserve the island’s laws, customs, language, religion and property.
The majority of settlers remained. Perhaps some expected the colony to be restored to France in peace time. The Treaty of Paris did restore Réunion in 1814 but Mauritius was confirmed as a British possession.
A dashing, unorthodox personality in the Labourdonnais mould, Robert Farquhar became the first British governor in 1810. He soon revealed himself as remarkably independent of the British Government in London, taking advantage of the long time it took for despatches from London to reach Mauritius to act as he thought best.
Farquhar quickly won over the French settlers, particularly through his scrupulous interpretation of the capitulation terms. Since the settlers were allowed their customs, he permitted them to continue with the slave trade despite the British law of 1807, which prohibited trading in slaves in the British Empire.
Farquhar had to contend with many calamities during his administration, including an outbreak of smallpox in 1811 and of rabies in 1813. There was a disastrous fire in Port Louis in 1816 when 700 houses, mostly wooden, were destroyed, which resulted in new ones being built of stone. A cholera epidemic broke out in 1819, and there were fierce cyclones in 1818 and 1819.
Farquhar campaigned for reliance on sugarcane because it was the only money-making crop able to withstand cyclones, encouraging the planters to abandon coffee, cotton and their other crops. He also established Port Louis as a free port, open to ships of all nations, and stimulated food production and road building. He proved to the inhabitants that there were distinct economic advantages in being British rather than French.
He mixed with everyone and opened dialogue with non-white leaders. Although his stance on slavery seemed ambivalent, he believed in attacking the slave trade at its source (in this case Madagascar) and worked for its elimination there as a way of ending the trade to Mauritius. He set up an office for the registration of slaves and tried to improve their conditions in the face of hostility from their owners.
Yet like Labourdonnais before him, Farquhar ran foul of his home government and was recalled to England in 1817. He returned to Mauritius, though, in 1820 as Sir Robert and governed for a further three years.
The attempts by the British Government to abolish slavery in Mauritius met with resistance from the planters who, having been persuaded to concentrate on sugar as an income-earning export crop, relied on slave labour to produce it. The arrival of Attorney General John Jeremy in 1832 to force through emancipation led to clashes and Jeremy was obliged to flee the island.
This time the planters’ triumph was short-lived and slavery was abolished on 1 February 1835. The planters were paid over £2 million compensation, which they considered to be half the total value of their 68,613 registered slaves.
For the slaves the pleasure of emancipation was dulled by the imposition of a four-year period of apprenticeship during which they were supposed to work for their former masters in return for meagre wages. Not surprisingly, the scheme failed and slaves took up residence in unpopulated coastal areas where they suffered years of neglect. The wily planters turned to an alternative source of compliant labour: Indian migrants, known in Mauritius as ‘the coolie trade’.
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