It is one of the most remote islands in the Indian Ocean, lying 600km east of its nearest neighbour, Mauritius. And, though it has been inhabited for the past three centuries, Rodrigues remains a “blissfully peaceful” place, says Nigel Tisdall in the FT.
Named after the Portuguese explorer Diogo Rodrigues, who visited in 1528, it was permanently settled by the French, after a few aborted attempts, in 1735. Many of its present inhabitants are descended from the enslaved people they brought from Africa. The British took over in 1809, and today, Rodrigues is an autonomous outer island of the Republic of Mauritius. It’s home to some 44,000 people, but has “barely any” traffic, has never been blighted by heavy industry, and receives fewer than 20,000 tourists a year.
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