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Asia and Oceania
British Indian Ocean Territory (British Overseas Territory) |
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Last Updated: 8 August 2007 |
Country information
History
The Chagos islands were first discovered, uninhabited, in the 16th century. The French assumed sovereignty in the late 18th century and began to exploit them for copra, originally employing slave labour. By then, the Indian Ocean and its African, Arabian and Indian coasts had become a centre of rivalry between the Dutch, French and British East India companies for dominance over the spice trade and over the routes to India and the Far East. France, which had already colonised Réunion in the middle of the seventeenth century, claimed Mauritius in 1775, having sent its first settlers there in 1772; it subsequently took possession of the Seychelles group and the islands of the Chagos Archipelago. (Although the latter were not commercially important, they had strategic value because of their position astride the trade routes.)
During the Napoleonic wars Britain captured Mauritius and Réunion from the French. Under the treaty of Paris in 1814, Britain restored Réunion to France, and France ceded to Britain Mauritius and its dependencies, which comprised Seychelles and various other islands, including the Chagos Archipelago. All these dependencies continued to be administered from Mauritius until 1903, when the Seychelles group was detached to form a separate Crown Colony. The Chagos islands continued to be administered as a dependency of Mauritius until, with the full agreement of the Mauritius Council of Ministers, they were detached to become part of the British Indian Ocean Territory in 1965. At the same time Britain paid a grant of £3 million to Mauritius in consideration of the detachment of the Chagos islands.
After the British Indian Ocean Territory had been created, the UK Government gave Mauritius an undertaking to cede the Chagos islands to Mauritius when they were no longer required for defence purposes. However, since the 1980s, successive Mauritian governments have asserted a sovereignty claim to the islands, arguing that they were detached illegally.