Australia and the World Past and Present

Europeans arrived in Australia in 1788. For the first one and half centuries, most Australians looked north-west towards Britain for their inspiration. And by and large they didn’t pay much attention to the nations that lay between their new home and the “motherland”.

When Australia did look to the north, it was largely concerned with being numerically overwhelmed by the peoples of Asia. The White Australia Policy was a response to this.

From WWII, Australians turned their gaze north-eastwards and looked to the U.S. as the basis of their security. In the last 50 years or so, there has been a much more concerted effort to look more seriously to our north and come to grips with the reality of our geography.

Australians are most familiar with British colonialism. There is no surprise here. Australians are much less familiar with the history of other European empires. The French empire is little understood here, nor is there much interest in it.

Nevertheless, if you live in Perth and gaze out to sea, you will be looking towards some our neighbours – ones that are almost never mentioned in Australia. You could get on a boat and sail in a straight line until you reached the shores of Mauritius, Réunion, Madagascar or the Seychelles. Admittedly, you would have sail very far. In a sense these countries are our neighbours, but they are not on our radar. Part of this can be explained by the sheer distances between us.

For people on these islands, their own identities are a mix of strong local cultures, a heritage of migration from the subcontinent, a tradition of having been part of the French Empire, and an awareness that they are closer to the African continent than any other.

The pattern of settlement in Australia also helps explain why we have a blind spot when it comes to the Indian Ocean. Most settlement is concentrated along the eastern seaboard. Our largest cities are there. Most of our population lives there. Our financial centers and our national capital is there. All this meant that Australia was always going to look eastwards and northwards more than it would to the west. Perth really is out there on its own, standing like sentinel. But even those who live in Perth will only look to the west to see the settling sun, check the out the wave conditions or to await “the doctor” – look it up.

Between the 17th and 19th centuries, the French presence in the Indian Ocean was extensive and strategically important. It formed part of France’s larger colonial and mercantile empire across Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

So, what are the Mascarenes? The Mascarenes are a group of islands in the western Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar. They were among the most important French colonial territories in the region from the 17th to 19th centuries. They were named after Pedro Mascarenhas, a Portuguese navigator who explored the area in the early 1500s. They were important to the French, both strategically and economically. They were located roughly midway between Africa and India, making them perfect resupply points for ships in the Indian Ocean trade network. The economy of the islands centered on plantation agriculture – coffee, sugarcane, spices and vanilla. The plantation economy was dependent on enslaved African and Malagasy labour. The Mascarenes were the heart of France’s Indian Ocean Empire.

One of these islands was Île de France (now Mauritius). Founded in 1715 by the French East India Company, the settlement became the main French naval base and administrative center in the western Indian Ocean. It was a key stopover for ships travelling to and from India and the Far East. Sugar, spices, and other tropical crops were grown on the island.

Île Bourbon (now Réunion) was founded and settled by the French in 1642. It was developed under the French East India Company from 1665. It was an agricultural colony, producing coffee, sugarcane and later vanilla. The island was also used to provision French fleets.

Seychelles was claimed by France in 1756. There was small-scale colonisation from the 1770s. It was also an agricultural outpost, producing coconuts and spices. It was a way station between East Africa and India.

The French had partial control of Madagascar. The French established trading posts on the coasts from the 1640s, but they never controlled the interior. It was important as a source of slaves for the Mascarene Islands.

The French also maintained trading posts on the Indian Mainland. Pondichéry (Puducherry) was the main base in India. India provided textiles, spices, cotton and tea.

France sourced commodities from India and the Mascarenes and exported back manufactured goods and weapons. In part, the French were using their possessions in the Indian Ocean as markets for their finished items.

Where did slaves come from?

Most slaves in the Indian Ocean came from Madagascar, Mozambique or the East African coast (Zanzibar and Comoros). After the formal end of French slavery, a system of indentured workers arose. Those who came from India were called “Malabars”.

The French Revolution temporarily abolished slavery in 1794, but Napoleon reinstated it in 1802. It was finally abolished in 1848, after which France replaced slavery with systems of indentured labour. Many indentured labourers came from India to work on plantations in Mauritius, Réunion and Seychelles.

Malabars were people from the Malabar coast of India – mainly modern Kerala and parts of Tamil Nadu.

So, who are the Malagasy people? The Malagasy people are the native inhabitants of Madagascar.

They are a unique blend of Asian and African origins, with a distinct language, culture, and history that reflect Madagascar’s position at the crossroads of the Indian Ocean world.

One may have naturally thought that, being so close to Africa, the first inhabitants of Madagascar must have been Africans. This seems not to have been the case. It appears that the initial inhabitants of the island migrated from somewhere around Borneo or southern Indonesia, in southeast Asia. Madagascar was probably one of the last regions of the world to be inhabited (New Zealand was later still). This early voyage of people from southeast Asia to present-day Madagascar must have been an epic one, and it is one that we know very little about. Much of what we know is being discovered through archeological, linguistic and genetic studies.

Genetic, linguistic, and archaeological evidence suggests that Austronesian settlers arrived around 1,500–2,000 years ago. African Bantu peoples from the East African coast arrived a few centuries later. These groups intermarried and created a new, island-based culture.

The national language, Malagasy, belongs to the Austronesian language family, closely related to languages of Indonesia and Malaysia. It includes many Bantu, Arabic, and French loanwords from centuries of contact and trade.

It is interesting to understand and consider the how French colonies expanded around the globe.

The Caribbean colonies were established first, in the early 1600s.

The French began colonising the Caribbean in the 1620s and 1630s, well before they established any lasting presence in the Indian Ocean.

In 1635 the French Colonised Guadeloupe and Martinique.

In 1659–1665 France took Saint-Domingue (western Hispaniola, later Haiti). This would become France’s richest colony.

These colonies formed the French West Indies and were built around sugar plantations and the Atlantic slave trade.

So by 1660, France already had a well-developed Caribbean empire with slaves, plantations, and trade routes.

The Indian Ocean settlements came later, from the mid-1600s to the 1700s.

France’s Indian Ocean empire was established a generation or two later than its Caribbean empire.

Why did the Caribbean come first?

The Caribbean was closer to Europe, meaning that it was easier to reach. Routes across the Atlantic were already known due to Spanish exploration.

The Indian Ocean required longer voyages around the southern tip of Africa, and the Portuguese and Dutch dominated these routes until the mid-1600s.

The French were not inventing systems from scratch in the Mascarenes. They had already developed early models in the Caribbean. Although separated by vast distances, the French islands in the Caribbean and in the Indian Ocean had many similarities. They tended to have tropical or sub-tropical climates. They could produce commodities that were in demand in Europe – ones that couldn’t be produced in colder regions of the world. Plantations tended to be close to port – ready to service international markets.

The French colonial network in the Indian Ocean remains virtually unknown in Australia. But it is worth investigating. It is fascinating history. It is a tale of European exploration and seafaring ability. It is an epic history of African slaves, of Malabars forced into harsh economic systems and of people seeking a better way of life.