Cape Malheureux (Cap Malheureux)
Cap Malheureux is a village in Mauritius located in Rivière du Rempart District. The village is administered by the Cap Malheureux Village Council under the aegis of the Rivière du Rempart District Council. According to the census made by Statistics Mauritius in 2011, the population was at 5,070.
The name Cap Malheureux, meaning "Unlucky Cape", was given by the French who held the island from 1715 to 1810. The island was often the bone of contention of many great explorers of the time, including the British.
In 1810 the British decided to take the island in order to stop the raids on British fleets by the corsairs. Following an unsuccessful attempt to invade via Grand Port in the south in August 1810 (claimed as the only defeat in the Napoleonic Wars of the Royal Navy by the French), British navy and army forces from Bombay, Madras and the Cape of Good Hope took the French by surprise by landing in the North of the island, where the French defences were weakest. As a result, the French were defeated inland and over the years the area became known as Cap Malheureux as a reminder of the 1810 invasion.
The name Cap Malheureux, meaning "Unlucky Cape", was given by the French who held the island from 1715 to 1810. The island was often the bone of contention of many great explorers of the time, including the British.
In 1810 the British decided to take the island in order to stop the raids on British fleets by the corsairs. Following an unsuccessful attempt to invade via Grand Port in the south in August 1810 (claimed as the only defeat in the Napoleonic Wars of the Royal Navy by the French), British navy and army forces from Bombay, Madras and the Cape of Good Hope took the French by surprise by landing in the North of the island, where the French defences were weakest. As a result, the French were defeated inland and over the years the area became known as Cap Malheureux as a reminder of the 1810 invasion.
Map - Cape Malheureux (Cap Malheureux)
Map
Country - Mauritius
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| Flag of Mauritius | |
Arab sailors were the first to discover the uninhabited island, around 975, and they called it Dina Arobi. In 1507, Portuguese sailors visited the uninhabited island. The island appears with the Portuguese names Cirne or Do-Cerne on early Portuguese maps. The Dutch took possession in 1598, establishing a succession of short-lived settlements over a period of about 120 years, before abandoning their efforts in 1710. France took control in 1715, renaming it Isle de France. In 1810, the United Kingdom seized the island, and four years later, in the Treaty of Paris, France ceded Mauritius and its dependencies to the United Kingdom. The British colony of Mauritius included Rodrigues, Agaléga, St. Brandon, the Chagos Archipelago, and, until 1906, the Seychelles. Mauritius and France dispute sovereignty over the island of Tromelin as the Treaty of Paris failed to mention it specifically. Mauritius remained a primarily plantation-based colony of the United Kingdom until independence in 1968.
Currency / Language
| ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
|---|---|---|---|
| MUR | Mauritian rupee | ₨ | 2 |
| ISO | Language |
|---|---|
| EN | English language |
| FR | French language |