After the
Dutch had abandoned Mauritius, the island became a
French colony in September 1715 when
Guillaume Dufresne d'Arsel landed and took possession of it, naming the island
Isle de France. The French government turned over the administration of Mauritius to the French East India Company, but the island remained free of Europeans until 1721. Furthermore, until 1735, Isle de France was administered from Île Bourbon, now known as
Réunion. By 1726, the company had made land grants to colonists, soldiers and workers. The grants' covenants specified that recipients of the grants who could not cultivate their land for a period of 3 years would lose them. Each colonist was given 20 slaves and in return had to pay yearly one tenth of their production to the French East India Company. The attempt to develop agriculture resulted in an increasing demand for labour. According to Lougnon, 156 ships called at Mauritius between 1721 and 1735, prior to the arrival of
Bertrand-François Mahé de La Bourdonnais, most of them being Company ships. Slave traders brought a total of 650 slaves to Mauritius from
Madagascar,
Mozambique,
India and
West Africa.
International trade, in particular long-distance trade, grew in the 18th century and by the 1780s,
France was the largest trading maritime power in
Europe. The total value of French long-distance trade with
Africa,
Asia,
America and re-exports to the rest of Europe was £25 million, whereas Britain's trade amounted to only £20 million. This state of affairs explained the growing importance of Port Louis as a centre of
entrepôt trade. Among the French colonists, the lure of easy money and the importance of commercial activities contributed to their lack of interest in agriculture.
Slave trade, both legal and illegal, was an important aspect of the French international trade in the
Indian Ocean. A class of traders and merchants developed and thrived. Governor
Charles Mathieu Isidore Decaen, suspicious of the English ship which called in there to effect repairs in 1803, imprisoned its captain
Matthew Flinders on the island for several years. Flinders was returning to
England from
Australia with the
logbooks and records of his scientific explorations. == Population ==