page_title: St. Brandon
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: St. Brandon / History
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Route maritime de Brest à Siam, et de Siam à Brest ( Coronelli, Vincenzo Maria [1650-1718])
context_page_description: Saint Brandon, also known as the Cargados Carajos Shoals, is an Indian Ocean archipelago about 430 kilometres northeast of Mauritius consisting of a number of sand banks, shoals and islets. Saint Brandon consists of five island groups, with about 28–40 islands and islets in total, depending on seasonal storms and related sand movements. There are 22 named islands and shoals. The archipelago is low-lying and is prone to substantial submersion in severe weather. It has an aggregate land area estimated variously at 1.3 km² and 500 acres. Economic activity in the region is limited to fishing on the very extensive shallow bank covering approximately 900 sq mi around the islands. By the early 19th century, most of the islands were in use as fishing stations. Geographically, the archipelago is part of the Mascarene Islands and is situated on the Mascarene Plateau formed by the separation of the Mauritia microcontinent during the separation of India and Madagascar about 60 million years ago.
  Politically, Saint Brandon is part of the territory of Mauritius and is grouped within the Outer Islands of Mauritius along with Agaléga, Tromelin and the Chagos Archipelago, including Diego Garcia.
context_section_description: The atoll was probably discovered in 975 A.D. by Arabian sailors along with Dina Arobi ("Abandoned Island" - Mauritius) and may be referred to as "Baixos" on the 1502 Cantino Planisphere.
  It was named in 1506 by Portuguese sailors who put ashore for provisioning on their way to India. Pirates have used the islands as a refuge.
  In 1598, the Dutch occupied the islands.
  On 12 February 1662, the East India Ship Arnhem ran aground on the Saint Brandon Rocks. Volkert Evertsz, the captain, and other survivors of the wreck survived by piloting a small boat to Mauritius, and are thought to have been the last humans to see live dodos. They survived the three months until their rescue by hunting "goats, birds, tortoises and pigs".  Evertsz was rescued by the English ship Truroe in May 1662. Seven of the survivors chose not to return with the first rescue ship.
  Mauritius and its associated islands were colonised by the French in about 1715, granted by the King of France to the Compagnie des Judes in 1726 but retroceded to the French Crown in 1765. In the book 'The history of Mauritius, or the Isle of France, and the neighbouring islands; from their first discovery to the present time' by Charles Grant, the author quotes from his father's papers that "The bank of Corgados Garayos was, in 1742, the first object of the researches made by the boat named the Charles, and the tartan the Elizabeth, dispatched from the Isle of France (Mauritius) by order of M. Mahe de la Bourdonnais, at that time Governor of it. These two vessels having made it on the 27th of August, anchored there, and traced a plan of it, by which it is represented in the form of a horse-shoe, and of six leagues in extent, running north-north-east and south-west. These two boats not having been on the north side, and, consequently, not having perceived the isles which lay off it, its small extent, and the affinity of its latitude and longitude with that of Saint Brandon, on which an English vessel, called the Hawk, (le Faucon) was stranded on her return from Surat to Europe, induced me to consider it as one and the same shoal"  Saint Brandon was referred to as 'Cargados' in Samuel Dunn's world map of 1794.
  In 1806 Napoleon ordered the proclamation of the Civil Code as the Law of Mauritius and its islands. When, in 1810, Mauritius and its islands were taken by force of arms by Britain, the articles of capitulation confirmed to the inhabitants, in accordance with British constitutional practice, the continuance of their own laws, i.e. the Code Napoleon as it then stood.
  The islands became part of a British Crown Colony in 1810. In 1820 the then Governor General of Mauritius granted jouissances in respect of the five groups as follows. He granted to Ozile Majestre alone a joussance exclusive over one group, the Iles Boisées, and to two individuals, Ozile Majestre and Dominique Bétuel, jouissances en partage over another group of six islands (Petits Foux, Lavocaire and four others). He granted three further jouissances exclusives to respectively M. Burceret (La Baleine and l’île aux Cocos), Mme. Veuve Raphaël (l’île Raphaël) and Mr William Stone (Ile Veronge and Ile aux Bois). All these jouissances were unlimited in time. Under a deed of transfer dated 4 September 1900, M. Louis Souchon, apparently the then owner of the jouissances relating to Iles Boisées and the six islands, sold the jouissances to the St Brandon Fish & Manure Co. Ltd. Under a second deed dated 20 September 1900 The Mauritius Cooperative Engrais Chimiques Co. Ltd., acting as owner of the remaining three jouissances, sold these to the St Brandon Fish & Manure Co. Ltd., which thus acquired all five groups of the St Brandon Archipelago. The Colonial Government was asked to give its consent to such sales, and on 19 October 1900 notified the purchaser company that it had no objection to the transfers provided that (in translation) “the jouissance which the said company possesses of the above islands and islets be converted in accordance with section 26 [of the 1874 Ordinance] into a permanent lease”. The Governm
caption: Maritime Route Brest to Siam 1686 by Vincenzo Coronelli
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