History of the Seychelles

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The location of the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean

The history of the Seychelles is the history of a group of islands in the Indian Ocean that belong to Africa, which as the Republic of the Seychelles forms the smallest independent state in Africa in terms of land area and population, as well as the history of its French and British colonial past.

Prehistory of the Seychelles

It can be assumed that the Seychelles were occasionally sighted and also visited by Arab traders before the arrival of the first Europeans. Until then, however, there was no permanent settlement on the islands.

Discovery and the early colonial period

From a European perspective, the islands were discovered by the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama in 1502 . From 1505 they appeared on European nautical charts without any of the European nations showing any interest in taking possession or in bases on the remote archipelago. On January 19, 1609, the British ship Ascension , which was part of an expedition of the British East India Company , reached the main group of islands in the Seychelles. The team mistakenly believed they were on the Amiranten . They supplied themselves with provisions and drinking water, visited various islands and made maps. On February 1, 1609, the Ascension sailed on. It was another 133 years before the Seychelles came back into the focus of European shipping. In 1742 the governor of the then French colony of Mauritius, Bertrand François Mahé de La Bourdonnais , also sent an expedition there. The main island of Mahé was named in his honor. A second French expedition in 1756 formally took possession of the archipelago for France and gave it its current name in honor of the then French finance minister Jean Moreau de Séchelles . It wasn't until 1770 that the French actually took possession of the islands. French settlers, often poor whites from the French colonies of Mauritius , Réunion or from French possessions in India , began to farm on the main island of Mahé, including growing spices. For this work they brought black slaves from the mainland and colonized other islands of the group over the next 40 years.

The colonization of the islands by the French may also have been a result of competition with the British, and rule over the Seychelles changed hands seven times between the two powers in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars at the beginning of the 19th century. The French governor de Quinssey became legendary, keeping both the French and English flags and corresponding uniforms at hand, depending on whether English or French ships called at the islands. In 1811 the British conquered the islands and founded Victoria , today's capital and only city of the Seychelles. In 1814, in the Treaty of Paris, the French finally recognized British rule over the islands, which from then on was administered from the now British Mauritius.

In 1835, the British colonial administration abolished slavery on the islands. At that time the population consisted of 680 white (or mestizo ) landlords and 6,600 slaves. The liberation of slaves led to the conversion of agricultural production of food to less labor-intensive products such as copra and cinnamon trees and to the emigration of many settlers. In the following decades, Africans came to the islands in large numbers, which were freed from slave-trading ships by British warships. In smaller numbers, Indians , Chinese and Malays came to the Seychelles. In 1903 the Seychelles were administratively separated from Mauritius and became an independent crown colony .

British Crown Colony (1903-1976)

Supreme Court, early 20th century

The so-called Legislative Council was part of the internal self-administration of the Crown Colony. In 1945, still under British administration, women were given the right to vote at the local level, and on August 6, 1948 , women were granted active and passive suffrage at the national level. The right to participate in the elections to the Legislative Council was tied to the property of the potential voters until 1959. Only after 1959 was a larger part of the population able to take part in these elections. With independence in 1976 the right to vote for women was confirmed. In the 1963 elections, the Seychelles Taxpayers and Producers Association and the Seychelles Island United Party were the first parties in the Seychelles. In the same year the United Party was founded, which, in contrast to the first-mentioned parties, was not dominated by the citizens of the islands. In 1964 this party became the Seychelles Democratic Party under the leadership of the lawyer and later first president of the country, James Mancham . Mancham strove for a close bond with Great Britain even after a possible independence. With the Seychelles People's United Party under France-Albert René, Mancham grew into more radical competition that advocated complete independence soon.

In the first general election, held in 1967, half of the seats were still occupied by the colonial administration. Mancham's Seychelles Democratic Party won the eligible seats with a slight margin over France-Albert Renés SPUP. Mancham also won the subsequent elections in 1970 and 1974 with a growing margin. In March 1970, representatives of the colonial administration and the two leading politicians (Mancham and René) met in London to discuss a constitution for the Seychelles. While René spoke out in favor of independence, Mancham advocated closer ties to Great Britain. On the basis of the new constitution, Mancham became head of government of the still British Seychelles in the 1970 elections. In 1974, both politicians and party blocs spoke out in favor of the islands' independence. Mancham and René appeared together in the negotiations with the British and jointly led the country to independence.

The atolls Aldabra , Farquhar and Desroche , which had been part of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) since 1965, also became part of the independent republic through negotiation .

Republic (since 1976)

The English colonial era left its mark: a clock tower in the capital, with the Supreme Court in the background

On June 29, 1976, when the country gained independence, Mancham became President and René became Prime Minister. Both collaboration ended on June 5, 1977, when Mancham, who had traveled to London for a Commonwealth summit conference, was ousted in a coup by 60 armed supporters of the People's United Party (mostly members of the party militia) and René took his place. René justified the coup by claiming that Mancham wanted to postpone the upcoming elections in 1979 in order to avert its impending loss of power.

The new government described itself as socialist and was influenced by the ideas of neighboring socialist Tanzania . The military also came from Tanzania for the personal protection of the new president. René loosened ties with Great Britain, leaned against France and took advantage of the competition between the superpowers Soviet Union and the USA in the Indian Ocean. In 1978 he created a unity party, the Seychelles People's Progressive Front , in 1979 he continued the process of concentrating political power with a new constitution. Between 1978 and 1983 he survived five attempts to overthrow. Best known was the attempted coup in 1981 when a mercenary army of 50 men led by Mike Hoare tried to take power. An investigation by the United Nations made the South African apartheid regime , which later also ransomed the mercenaries , responsible for the coup attempt. The René regime was marked by certain social advances as well as by human rights violations.

In the course of the general democratization of the African states, René gave up the one-party state from 1991. The first multi-party elections since 1974 took place in 1993. In the presidential elections he prevailed with 59.5% against Mancham who had returned from exile the previous year. His party won the general election with 27 of the 33 seats. In September 1997, the Seychelles joined the Southern African Development Community (SADC). In 1998 René received 66.67% of the vote ahead of Wavel Ramkalawan from the Seychelles National Party (SNP) with 19.53% and Mancham with 13.8%. The SPPF remained the dominant party with 30 out of 34 seats. René denied his last election from August 31 to September 2, 2001. He won this time with 54.19%, while Wavel Ramkalawan received 44.95%. His party won 23 of the 34 seats. On February 24, 2004, he announced his resignation in favor of his old henchman and Vice President James Alix Michel, who has been in office since 1996 . James Alix Michel has been President of the Seychelles since April 1, 2004. The Seychelles left SADC in July 2004, but rejoined SADC in August 2008.

Governors of the British Crown Colony of the Seychelles

literature

  • William McAteer: Rivals in Eden. A History of the French Settlement and British Conquest of the Seychelles Islands, 1742-1818. The Book Guild, Lewes, Sussex 1991. ISBN 0-86332-496-7 .
  • Joseph Ki-Zerbo : Die Geschichte Schwarzafrikas , Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-596-26417-0 .

Web links

Commons : History of Seychelles  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hugo Kastner: From Aachen to Cyprus - Geographical names and their origin. Humboldt Verlag, Baden-Baden 2007, 978-3-89994-124-1, p. 286
  2. ^ Walter Schicho: Handbook Africa. In three volumes . Volume 1: Central Africa, Southern Africa and the States in the Indian Ocean , Brandes & Appel, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-86099-120-5 , p. 14.
  3. ↑ a b - New Parline: the IPU's Open Data Platform (beta). In: data.ipu.org. August 6, 1948, accessed October 6, 2018 .
  4. ^ Mart Martin: The Almanac of Women and Minorities in World Politics. Westview Press Boulder, Colorado, 2000, p. 337.
  5. ↑ Odhiambo, Morris, Chitiga, Rudy: The civil society guide to regional economic communities in Africa. African Minds, 2016, ISBN 9781920677961 , p. 98. Excerpts from books.google.de