| Part of a series on |
| Slavery |
|---|
 |
Slavery in Seychelles existed until its final abolition in 1835. Slaves were brought to the Seychelles when the island was first populated by French planters and their slaves from Mauritius. The British banned the slave trade on the island when it became British territory in 1815, and slavery itself was abolished twenty years later.
The Seychelles was uninhabited when it was annexed by France in 1756, and inhabited in 1770 by French planters and their slaves by the French colony of Mauritius.
Slave traders from Madagascar - Sakalava or Arabs - bought slaves from slavers in the Swahili coast or Portuguese Mozambique and stopped at the Seychelles for supplies before shipping the slaves to the slave markets of Mauritius, Réunion and India. [1]
When the Revolutionary Government of Paris abolished slavery in 1794, the French colonies in the Indian Ocean - Mauritius, Réunion and the Seychelles - all refused to enforce the law, and slavery was reintroduced by Napoleon in 1802.
Britain occupied the Seychelles in April 1811, and the island officially became a British colony in 1815. British law had prohibited the slave trade in 1807, and this law was enforced in the Seychelles when the island became British territory, legally outlawing open slave trade. However, slave traders caught by the British often managed to circumvent the law by claiming that the slaves they shipped from East Africa were not free people recently enslaved and victims of slave trade, but rather people who had been born as slaves and were simply being mowed by their owners, which made it legally difficult for the British to interfere. [2]
Slaves in the Seychelles were placed in four broad categories. Firstly there were the Creoles (the largest group), those of mixed African and European blood who were brought from Mauritius and had children born on the island; they were often regarded as superior in intellect. [3]
The Anti-Slavery movement in Seychelles led by William Wilberforce grew in power in the early 19th century. [3]
Britain finnally outlawed slavery itself on the Seychelles in 1835 on the condition that the slaves continued to work for their former enslavers for a transition period of six years. [4] At this date, there were 6521 slaves on the Seychelles: 3924 from Mocambique, 2231 Creoles (born on the Seychelles or Mauritius), 282 from Madagascar, 28 from India, 3 from Malaya, and 43 of unknown origin. [5]
The civil administrator at the time, Mylius recalled that on Emancipation Day on February 11 the freed slaves responded with "peaceable demonstrations of joy".
Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about 2,000 kilometres off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island, as well as Rodrigues, Agaléga, and St. Brandon. The island of Mauritius along with nearby Réunion, are part of the Mascarene Islands. The main island of Mauritius, where the population is concentrated, hosts the capital and largest city, Port Louis. The country spans 2,040 square kilometres (790 sq mi) and has an exclusive economic zone covering 2,300,000 square kilometres.
The known and sometimes formally documented history of Mauritius begins with its possible discovery by Austronesians under the Austronesian expansion from pre-Han Taiwan, circa 1500 to 1000 BC, and then by Arabs,, followed by Portuguese and its appearance on European maps in the early 16th century. Mauritius was successively colonized by the Netherlands, France and Great Britain, and became independent on 12 March 1968.
Seychelles, officially the Republic of Seychelles, is an island country and archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, Victoria, is 1,500 kilometres east of mainland Africa. Nearby island countries and territories include the Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, and the French overseas departments of Mayotte and Réunion to the south; and Maldives and the Chagos Archipelago to the east. Seychelles is the smallest country in Africa as well as the least populated sovereign African country, with an estimated population of 100,600 in 2022.
The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The outfitted European slave ships of the slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, and existed from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The vast majority of those who were transported in the transatlantic slave trade were from Central and West Africa who had been sold by West African slave traders mainly to Portuguese, British, Spanish, Dutch, and French slave traders, while others had been captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids; European slave traders gathered and imprisoned the enslaved at forts on the African coast and then brought them to the Americas. Except for the Portuguese, European slave traders generally did not participate in the raids because life expectancy for Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa was less than one year during the period of the slave trade.
Réunion, officially Department of Réunion, is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. Part of the Mascarene Islands, it is located approximately 679 km (422 mi) east of the island of Madagascar and 175 km (109 mi) southwest of the island of Mauritius. As of January 2024, it had a population of 885,700. Its capital and largest city is Saint-Denis.
Sega is one of the major music genres of Mauritius and Réunion. It is a complete performance art, involving music, story-telling and traditional dance. Musically, the most modern forms common in Mauritius are its fusion genre Seggae and bhojpuri variations, whilst in Réunion we find the addition of maloya, the latter being much closer to the older, typical music influences originating from Madagascar. The variety of different sega forms is reflected in the multi-ethnic populous of the indigenous population of Mauritius.
Hinduism came to Mauritius when Indians were brought as indentured labour to colonial French and later in much larger numbers to British plantations in Mauritius and neighboring islands of the Indian Ocean. The migrants came primarily from what are now the Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, with another influx of migrants from the Sindh region of Pakistan, following the Partition of India.
Mauritian Creoles are the people on the island of Mauritius and in the wider overseas Mauritian diaspora who trace their roots to Black Africans who were brought to Mauritius under slavery from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. It can also refer to and include members of the island's mixed race or Métis community, especially if they are Christian. In government records, creoles along with Franco-Mauritians form part of the broader group known as Population Générale.
Chinois, also referred to by the Réunion Creole name Sinwa or Sinoi, are ethnic Chinese residing in Réunion, a French overseas department in the Indian Ocean. As of 2000, roughly 25,000 or more lived on the island, making them one of the region's largest Chinese communities along with Chinese South Africans, Chinese people in Madagascar, and Sino-Mauritians.
Indo-Seychellois are inhabitants of Seychelles with Indian heritage. With about 10,000 Indo-Seychellois in a total Seychellois population of nearly 100,000, they constitute a minority ethnic group in Seychelles.
Slavery has historically been widespread in Africa. Systems of servitude and slavery were common in parts of Africa in ancient times, as they were in much of the rest of the ancient world. When the trans-Saharan slave trade, Red Sea slave trade, Indian Ocean slave trade and Atlantic slave trade began, many of the pre-existing local African slave systems began supplying captives for slave markets outside Africa. Slavery in contemporary Africa is still practised despite it being illegal.
The Seychelles Community in the European Union is composed of former citizens of the Seychelles who now live in the European Union (EU).
The history of Seychelles dates back to the fourth of the Portuguese India Armadas led by Vasco da Gama, though Seychelles was likely already known to Arab navigators and other sailors for many centuries. On 15 March 1503, the scrivener Thomé Lopes noted the sighting of an elevated island, doubtless one of the granitic islands and almost certainly Silhouette Island. The first recorded landing was by the men of the English East India Company ship Ascension, which arrived in Seychelles in January 1609.The islands were claimed by France in 1756. Seychelles remained uninhabited until the first settlers arrived on board the ship Thélemaque, which arrived on 27 August 1770. Captain Leblanc Lecore landed the first colonists, comprising 15 white men, eight Africans and five Indians. The Seychellois Creole language developed as a means of communication between the different races. The British frigate Orpheus commanded by Captain Henry Newcome arrived at Mahé on 16 May 1794. Terms of capitulation were drawn up and the next day Seychelles was surrendered to Britain. Following the fall of Mauritius to British forces, Captain Phillip Beaver of the Nisus arrived at Mahé on 23 April 1811 and took possession of Seychelles as a permanent colony of Britain. The Seychelles became an independent republic in 1976. Following a coup d'état, a socialist one-party state ruled the country from 1977 to 1993. The subsequent democratic Presidential elections were won by candidates of the same party.
The Makoa are an ethnic group in Madagascar descended from enslaved people from mainland Africa that were traded through the major slave trading ports of northern Mozambique in an area mainly populated by the Makua people. They are among the last African diaspora communities in the world to issue from the slave trade. They are sometimes classified as a subgroup of the fishing peoples known as the Vezo, although the Makoa maintain a distinct identity, one reinforced by their larger physical stature and historic employment as police officers by the French colonial administration.
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. British rule ended on 12 March 1968, when Mauritius became independent.
The Slave Route Project is a UNESCO initiative that was officially launched in 1994 in Ouidah, Benin. It is rooted in the mandate of the organization, which believes that ignorance or concealment of major historical events constitutes an obstacle to mutual understanding, reconciliation and cooperation among peoples. The project breaks the silence surrounding the slave trade and slavery that has affected all continents and caused great upheavals that have shaped our modern societies. In studying the causes, the modalities and the consequences of slavery and the slave trade, the project seeks to enhance the understanding of diverse histories and heritages stemming from this global tragedy.
The islands of Africa are a major geographical sub-region of Africa, and represent a distinct demographic and historical cultural sphere of influence on the continent.
The Indian Ocean slave trade, sometimes known as the East African slave trade or Arab slave trade, was multi-directional slave trade and has changed over time. Captured in raids primarily south of the Sahara, predominately black Africans were traded as slaves to the Middle East, Indian Ocean islands, Indian subcontinent, and Java. Beginning in the 16th century, they were traded to the Americas, including Caribbean colonies.
Slavery existed in the Sultanate of Zanzibar until 1909. Slavery and slave trade existed in the Zanzibar Archipelago for thousands of years. When clove and coconut plantations became a big industry on the islands, domestic slavery expanded to a point where two thirds of the populations were slaves. Zanzibar was internationally known as a major player in the Indian Ocean slave trade, where slaves from the Swahili coast of Eastern Africa were trafficked across the Indian Ocean to Oman in the Arabian Peninsula during the Zanzibar slave trade.
Slavery existed in the Comoros until 1904. The Comoros was as a player in the Indian Ocean slave trade, where slaves from the Swahili coast of Eastern Africa were trafficked across the Indian Ocean to Oman in the Arabian Peninsula, and was one of the major players of the trade alongside the Zanzibar slave trade.