Mauritius Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...

gained independence from the United Kingdom on 12 March 1968. The independence process was the culmination of a long struggle involving a number of political parties. Most notably the Mauritius Labour Party (MLP) and the

Parti Mauricien Social Démocrate The Mauritian Social Democratic Party (PMSD, ), also known as the Mauritian Conservative Party, is a political party in Mauritius. Conservative and Francophilic, the PMSD is the fourth biggest political party in the National Assembly and current ...

(PMSD). Throughout the 1940s and 1950s a movement for independence from the United Kingdom grew in a movement driven by multiple Mauritian political parties. In 1960,

Harold Macmillan Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986), was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Nickn ...

had made his famous "

Wind of Change Speech The "Wind of Change" speech was an address made by British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to the Parliament of South Africa on 3 February 1960 in Cape Town. He had spent a month in Africa in visiting a number of British colonies. When the ...

" in the

Parliament of South Africa The Parliament of the Republic of South Africa is South Africa's legislature. It is located in Cape Town; the country's legislative capital city, capital. Under the present Constitution of South Africa, the bicameralism, bicameral Parliamen ...

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

in which he acknowledged that the best option for Britain was to give complete independence to its colonies. Thus, since the late fifties, the way was paved for independence. At the 1965 Lancaster House Constitutional Conference, it became clear that Britain wanted to relieve itself of the colony of Mauritius. At the conference it was agreed that independence would be granted if a newly elected Mauritian government, under a newly established Mauritian constitution, passed a resolution for independence by a simple majority in the Mauritian parliament. The General Election was held in 1967 with the pro-independence coalition of political parties winning 54% of the vote. Following the 1967 election the newly formed Mauritian government government was formed and passed an independence bill in the Mauritian Parliament. Mauritius experienced a period of instability in the days running up to the declaration resulting in the

1968 Mauritian riots The 1968 Mauritian riots or ''Bagarre raciale Plaine Verte'' refers to a number of violent clashes that occurred in the Port Louis neighbourhoods of Cité Martial, Bell Village, Roche Bois, Sainte-Croix, Cité Martial and Plaine Verte as w ...

before order was restored by the British authorities. On 12 March 1968 independence was officially declared at a ceremony at the

Champ de Mars Racecourse The Champ de Mars Racecourse () is a thoroughbred horse race track in Port Louis, Mauritius. The Racecourse was inaugurated on 25 June 1812, by The Mauritius Turf Club (MTC) which was founded earlier the same year by Edward Alured Draper, who se ...

Chagos Archipelago

Prior to independence the British government detached the

Chagos Archipelago The Chagos Archipelago (, ) or Chagos Islands (formerly , and later the Oil Islands) is a group of seven atolls comprising more than 60 islands in the Indian Ocean about south of the Maldives archipelago. This chain of islands is the southernmo ...

from the Mauritius' administrative boundaries and established as a new British territory in the form of the

British Indian Ocean Territory The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) is an British Overseas Territories, Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom situated in the Indian Ocean, halfway between Tanzania and Indonesia. The territory comprises the seven atolls of the Chago ...

(BIOT) and paid GB£3 million (roughly equivalent to £148.7 million in 2022) to Mauritius in compensation. Prior to this the archipelago was officially within the colonial era boundaries of Mauritius. This was done to allow the United States to build a military base on

Diego Garcia Diego Garcia is the largest island of the Chagos Archipelago. It has been used as a joint UK–U.S. military base since the 1970s, following the expulsion of the Chagossians by the UK government. The Chagos Islands are set to become a former B ...

, the largest island in the archipelago. The MLP, who were leading the independence negotiations, did not object to the transferral of the archipelago or its depopulation during independence negotiations as they feared it might reduce the chances of Britain agreeing to grant independence. The transferral of the archipelago was later challenged by the Mauritian government.

External resources

Independence For Mauritius (1968)

British Pathé British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and cultur ...

, Youtube. Newsreel footage of Mauritius' independence ceremony in March 1968.

References

{{reflist 1968 in Mauritius History of the Commonwealth of Nations March 1968 in Africa Mauritius and the Commonwealth of Nations