MAYOTTE: The African island that voted to be governed by France!
On the 22nd of November 1974, the four Comoros islands held an independence referendum. Three of the islands choose to become independent from France, except Mayotte. Why did this island that is part of the Comoros Archipelago choose to remain under French rule while the rest of the Comoros islands voted for independence? That is what we will dive into today. Hello and welcome to this channel where we explore African stories from history and today. If you like the content, don’t forget to like the video and subscribe to the channel.
The Comoros islands are islands situated between the coast of mainland South Eastern Africa and the North Western coast of Madagascar. We have also already published a video on the Comoros Islands, which I invite you to watch after having watched this one to the end.
The archipelago is made up mainly of 4 large islands; Ngazidja, Ndzuwani, Mwali, and Mayotte, also known as Maore. Today the first 3 islands are part of the Union of Comoros while Mayotte is an overseas French department. Why is this case? Well to answer that question we have to go back in time to as early as the 6th century. Note that the history of Mayotte is closely intertwined with the history of the other islands.
This is probably when the island was first inhabited. Bantu-speaking people and Malagasy people probably made up the bulk of the population. Other visitors were Arabs, Somalis, and Indians. Because of this, the Comoros islands together with Zanzibar, Pemba, Lamu, and other Kenyan and Tanzanian coastal towns formed a prosperous region in which Swahili culture flourished. Swahili culture was the result of the mixing of the Bantu and Arab cultures. Even today a major language spoken in Mayotte, Shimaore, is a close relative of Kiswahili. Fun fact the Comoros region gets its name from the word kamar, an Arabic word meaning moon. The Arabs referred to the archipelago as the islands of the moon.
In 1500 the Maore sultanate was established on the island. Mayott
