History
The atoll may have been discovered c. 600s AD by Arabian sailors. It was named in 1506 by Portuguese sailors who put ashore for provisioning on their way to India. In 1598 the Dutch occupied the islands. The islands became a French protectorate in 1722 and passed to British hands in 1810. However, the name Cargados Carajos is Spanish for " loaded crow's nests".
Pirates have used the islands as a refuge. In modern times the islands were mined for phosphates (guano). Mining ceased mid-twentieth century.
Cargados comprises about 190 km² of reefs. It has perhaps the largest algal ridge in the Indian Ocean. The reefs of Mauritius have been overfished and have suffered from the effects of tourism and other development. Mauritius plans to establish two marine reserves of coral reefs that were proposed for protection in 1974. This may demonstrate the pace of protection of natural resources in the area, slowed by the complications of new independence.
Read more about this topic: Cargados Carajos
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.”
—Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)
“The steps toward the emancipation of women are first intellectual, then industrial, lastly legal and political. Great strides in the first two of these stages already have been made of millions of women who do not yet perceive that it is surely carrying them towards the last.”
—Ellen Battelle Dietrick, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“I am not a literary man.... I am a man of science, and I am interested in that branch of Anthropology which deals with the history of human speech.”
—J.A.H. (James Augustus Henry)