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Seychelles islands remained uninhabited for more
than 150 years after they became known to Western
explorers. The island appeared on Portuguese charts
as early 1505, although Arabs may have visited them
much earlier. In 1742, the French Governor of Mauritius,
Mahe de Labourdonais, sent an expedition to the
islands. A second expedition in 1756 reasserted
formal possession by France and gave the islands
their present name in honor of the French finance
minister under King Louis XV. The new French colony
barely survived its first decade and did not begin
to flourish until 1794, when Queau de Quincy became
commandant.
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 Treaty of
Paris 1814.
From the date of its founding
by the French until 1903, the Seychelles Colony
was regarded as a dependency of Mauritius, which
also passed from the French to British rule in
1814. In 1888, a separate administrator and executive
and administrative councils were established for
the Seychelles archipelago. Nine years later,
the administrator acquired full powers of a British
colonial governor, and on August 31, 1903, Seychelles
became a separate British Crown colony.
In
March 1970, colonial and political representatives
of Seychelles met in London for a constitutional
convention. Elections in November 1970 brought
a resulting constitution into effect. Further
elections were held in April 1974, in which both
major political parties campaigned for independence.
Following this election, negotiations with the
British resulted in an agreement by which Seychelles
became a sovereign republic on June 29, 1976.
These negotiations also restored the islands of
Aldabra, Farquhar, and Des Roches, which had been
transferred from Seychelles in November 1965 to
form part of the new British Indian Ocean Territory
(BIOT) to Seychelles upon independence.
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