Colony of Mayotte and Dependencies

The Colony of Mayotte and Dependencies was the French colonial unit centred on the island of Mayotte in the Comoro archipelago of the Indian Ocean. In the early nineteenth century Mayotte was conquered and reconquered by Malagasy and Comorian rulers — by Andriantsoly, former king of Iboina on Madagascar, and in turn by the sultanates of Mohéli and Anjouan — before Andriantsoly, back in power over a depopulated and unfortified island in a weak position towards his neighbours, sold the islands in 1841 to France under King Louis Philippe. French sovereignty began the colonial period shown on the map; slavery was abolished in the immediate aftermath, and labourers were imported to work the fields and plantations. The colony was administered from Dzaoudzi, on the small island of Petite-Terre, which remained the capital of Mayotte until long after the colonial era. From 1886 the neighbouring Comorian islands were organized as 'dependencies' under the colony — the origin of its full name — until in 1912 they were absorbed into the administration of Madagascar, ending the separate Colony of Mayotte and Dependencies. Mayotte itself remained French and chose to stay with France when the Comoros declared independence in 1974; it became a French overseas department in 2011.