page_title: History of Mauritius
section_title: Dutch East India Company era (1598-1710)
hierarchical_section_title: History of Mauritius / Dutch East India Company era (1598-1710)
context_page_description: The known history of Mauritius begins with its discovery by Arabs, followed by Europeans and its appearance on maps in the early 16th century. Mauritius was successively colonized by the Netherlands, France and Great Britain, and became independent in 1968.
context_section_description: In 1598, the second Dutch Expedition to Indonesia consisting of eight ships, under the orders of admirals Jacques Cornelius van Neck and Wybrandt van Warwyck, set sail from Texel, Netherlands, towards the Indian subcontinent. The eight ships ran into foul weather after passing the Cape of Good Hope, and were separated. Three found their way to the northeast of Madagascar, while the remaining five regrouped and sailed in a southeasterly direction. On 17 September, the five ships under the orders of Admiral van Warwyck came into view of Mauritius. On 20 September, they entered a sheltered bay which they named "Port de Warwick" (now known as "Grand Port"). They landed and decided to name the island "Prins Mauritz van Nassaueiland," after the son of William the Silent, Prince Maurits (Latin version: Mauritius) of the House of Nassau, the stadtholder of most of the Dutch Republic, and after the main vessel of the fleet, the "Mauritius". From that time, only the name Mauritius has remained. On 2 October, the ships again took to the sea towards Bantam.
  Some of the descendants of William of Orange through the female line reside in Mauritius, including Jill Holloway, a distinguished businesswoman, marine journalist and writer.
  From then on, the island's Port de Warwick was used by the Dutch as a stopover after long months at sea. In 1606, two expeditions came for the first time to what would later become Port-Louis in the northwest part of the island. The expedition, consisting of eleven ships and 1,357 men under the orders of Admiral Corneille, came into the bay, which they named "Rade des Tortues" (literally meaning "Harbor of the Tortoises") because of the great number of terrestrial tortoises they found there.  From that date, Dutch sailors shifted their choice to Rade des Tortues as a harbor.
  In 1615, the shipwreck and death of governor Pieter Both, who was coming back from India with four richly laden ships in the bay, led Dutch sailors to consider the route as cursed, and they tried to avoid it as much as possible. In the meantime, the British and the Danes were beginning to make incursions into the Indian Ocean. Those who landed on the island freely cut and took with them the precious heartwood of the ebony trees, then found in profusion all over the island.
  Dutch colonization started in 1638 and ended in 1710, with a brief interruption between 1658 and 1666. Numerous governors were appointed, but continuous hardships such as cyclones, droughts, pest infestations, lack of food, and illnesses finally took their toll, and the island was definitively abandoned in 1710.
  The island was not permanently inhabited for the first forty years after its "discovery" by the Dutch, but in 1638 Cornelius Gooyer established the first permanent Dutch settlement in Mauritius with a garrison of twenty-five. He thus became the first governor of the island. In 1639, thirty more men came to reinforce the Dutch colony. Gooyer was instructed to develop the commercial potential of the island, but he did nothing of the sort, so he was recalled. His successor was Adriaan van der Stel, who began the development in earnest, developing the export of ebony wood. For that purpose, van der Stel brought 105 Malagasy slaves to the island. Within the first week, about sixty slaves were able to escape into the forests; about twenty of them were recaptured.
  In 1644, the islanders were faced with many months of hardships, due to delayed shipment of supplies, bad harvests, and cyclones. During those months, the colonists could only rely on their own ability to feed themselves by fishing and hunting. Nonetheless, van der Stel secured the shipment of 95 more slaves from Madagascar, before being transferred to Ceylon. His replacement was Jacob van der Meersh. In 1645, the latter brought in 108 more Malagasy slaves. Van der Meersh left Mauritius in September 1648 and was replaced by Reinier Por.
  In 1652, more hardships befell the inhabitants, colonists and slaves alike. The population was then about a hundred people. The continuing hardships affected the commercial 
caption: Dutch map of a coast of Mauritius. Dutch Mauritius (1638–1710) was the first permanent human settlement to be established on the island.
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