Reunion History

The Portuguese are thought to have been the first European visitors, finding it uninhabited in 1635, and naming it Santa Apollonia. The island was then occupied by France. Although the French flag was hoisted in 1638, Santa Apollonia was officially claimed by Jacques Pronis of France in 1642, when he deported a dozen French mutineers to the island from Madagascar. The convicts were returned to France several years later, and in 1649, the island was named ?le Bourbon after the royal house.

Reunion was the name given to the island in 1793 by a decree of the Convention with the fall of the House of Bourbon in France. In 1801, the island was renamed “?le Bonaparte,” after Napoleon Bonaparte. The island was taken by the British navy led by Commodore Josias Rowley in 1810, who used the old name of “Bourbon”. The island was returned to France by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. During this time, the island was used as a stop over point on the East Indies trade route. French immigration supplemented by influxes of Africans, Chinese, Malays, and Indians gave the island its ethnic mix. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 cost the island its importance as a stopover point and its economy suffered greatly, with the colony being somewhat neglected by France.

In 2005 and 2006, Reunion was hit by a crippling epidemic of chikungunya, a disease spread by mosquitoes. About 255,000 people on Reunion had contracted the disease as of April 2006. The disease led to more than 200 deaths on the island. The French government under Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin sent an emergency aid package worth US$57.6M and deployed approximately five hundred French troops in an effort to eradicate mosquitoes.

Looking for more detailed information? Click on the topics below: