Mauritius & Rodrigues Historical Context
Anthony Cheke independent.academia.edu
Suggested Citation: Mauremootoo, J.R., Cheke, A.S. &amp; Watt, I. (2003). Mauritius &amp; Rodrigues Historical Context. Unpublished Book Chapter produced for Conservation International’s State of the Hotspots publication: Madagascar &amp; Indian
It is unlikely that anyone reading this article can say that they have not been affected in some way by past colonial activity. Whether through diasporas, interaction with new cultural attitudes or the exposure of our taste buds to new foods, one thing is certain: no one remains unaffected. However, for some, the colonial experience is one that is very present in day-to-day life. This article examines Mauritius, an island ‘created’ in its modern guise by colonialism. It juxtaposes the colonial legacies of Europe with the ideals of Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, former Prime Minister of Mauritius and unequivocal père de la nation, as laid out in his (co-authored) book Our Struggle (1992). The book outlines the ‘epic struggle’ of a colonial island, under British rule, to achieve a peaceful transition to independence. For an island foreshadowed by doom in the years following independence, how has ‘islandness’ and isolation helped it to become a rare economic success story? By finding an eq...

Objectives The main aim of this project is to understand how European colonial activity influenced environmental and cultural transformations in this region of the Indian Ocean (Seetah 2010) by targeting specific locations (Figure 2), incorporating slave, indentured and imperial sites, as well as sites with high eco-archaeological potential. Establishing base-line soil conditions formed the focus of the first season and centred on a site in the north of the island at Mon Choisy (overall size 800m²). It forms part of a former plantation and offers a ...

A 10m long peat core from the Kanaka Crater (208 250 S, 578 310 E), located at 560m elevation in Mauritius, was analyzed for microfossils. Eight radiocarbon ages show the pollen record reflects environmental and climatic change of the last ca. 38 cal ka BP. The record shows that the island was continuously covered by forest with Erica heath (Philippia) in the uplands. Cyperaceous reedswamp with Pandanus trees was abundant in the coastal lowlands as well as locally in the waterlogged crater. The record shows changes in climatic humidity (wet from 38.0 to 22.7 cal ka BP, drier from 22.7 to 10.6 cal ka BP, andwetter again from 10.6 cal ka BP to recent) as themain response to climate change. A high turnover in montane forest species is evidenced at 22.7 cal ka BP and at the start of the Holocene. The limited altitudinal ranges in the mountains of Mauritius (maximum altitude 828m), and changing humidity being more important than changing temperature, suggests that in response to climate ...