He arrived under the command of Portuguese viceroy Pedro Mascarenhas (after whom the archipelago is named). The Mascarenes are known to have been visited by Arabs since the 10th century (a 12th-century map by Arab geographer Ash-Sharif al-Idrisi probably includes them).
Because the island lay far off the beaten trade routes, it was rarely visited, In 1601, the Dutch arrived there, and in 1691, French naturalist and Huguenot explorer François Leguat and seven companions landed on Rodrigues intending to establish an agricultural colony. The intention, however, failed.
In the 18th century, the French tried to develop the island. They brought in African slaves (ancestors of the current population) to develop cattle ranching and agriculture. British troops occupied the island in 1809 and abolished slavery in 1834.
