Seychelles History

While Arab traders may have been the first to visit the uninhabited Seychelles, the first recorded sighting of the islands took place in 1502 by Vasco da Gama. The first recorded landing on the islands was by the English in 1609. As a trading point between Africa and Asia, they were occasionally used by pirates until the French began to take control in 1756, who named the island after Jean Moreau de Sochelles, Louis XV’s Minister of Finance.

The Seychelles islands remained uninhabited for more than 150 years after being discovered. In 1742, the French Governor of Mauritius sent an expedition to the islands and a second expedition in 1756 asserted formal possession by France. The new French colony barely survived its first decade and did not begin to flourish until 1794.

The British contested control over the islands with the French between 1794 and 1812. The Seychelles islands were captured and freed several times during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, then passed officially to the British under the 1814 Treaty of Paris. The French administrator for the islands declined to resist when armed British warships arrived. He successfully negotiated the status of capitulation to Britain, which gave the settlers a position of neutrality.

The Seychelles became a crown colony in 1903. Independence was granted in 1976, as a republic within the Commonwealth. However, a coup in 1977 ousted the first president of the republic, James Mancham, replacing him with France Albert Reno. A 1979 constitution declared a socialist one-party state, which lasted until 1991. The first draft of a new constitution failed to receive the requisite 60 percent of voters in 1992, but an amended version was approved the following year.

In November 1981, a group of mercenaries attempted to overthrow the Rene government but failed when they were detected at the airport and repelled. The government was threatened again by an army mutiny in August 1982, but it was quelled after 2 days when loyal troops overtook the rebels.

The country suffered a little damage from the 2004 Tsunami, though it was not as extensive as in Asia.

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