Seychelles Honeymoon Guide

It remained a British colony from 1814 until its independence in 1976. The Seychelles have never been inhabited by indigenous people, but its islanders maintain their own Creole heritage.

Seychelles was uninhabited throughout most of recorded history. Tombs on the island, visible until 1910, are the basis for the scholarly belief that Austronesian seafarers and later Maldivian and Arab traders were the first to visit the archipelago.

Vasco da Gama and his 4th Portuguese India Armada discovered the Seychelles on 15 March 1503; the first sighting was made by Thomé Lopes aboard Rui Mendes de Brito. Da Gama’s ships passed close to an elevated island, probably Silhouette Island, and the following day Desroches Island. They mapped a group of seven islands and named them The Seven Sisters.

The earliest recorded landing was in January 1609, by the crew of the Ascension under Captain Alexander Sharpeigh during the fourth voyage of the British East India Company.

A transit point for trade between Africa and Asia, it was said that the islands were occasionally used by pirates until the French began to take control in 1756 when a Stone of Possession was laid on Mahé by Captain Nicholas Morphey. The islands were named after Jean Moreau de Séchelles, Louis XV’s Minister of Finance.

The British frigate Orpheus commanded by Captain Henry Newcome arrived at Mahé on 16 May 1794, during the War of the First Coalition. Terms of capitulation were drawn up and on the next day, Seychelles was surrendered to Britain. Jean Baptiste Quéau de Quincy, the French administrator of Seychelles during the years of war with the United Kingdom, declined to resist when armed enemy warships arrived. Instead, he successfully negotiated the status of capitulation to Britain which gave the settlers a privileged position of neutrality.

Britain eventually assumed full control upon the surrender of Mauritius in 1810, formalised in 1814 at the Treaty of Paris. Seychelles became a crown colony separate from Mauritius in 1903. Elections were held in 1966 and 1970.