The Chagos Archipelago is a group of seven atolls comprising more than 60 individual tropical islands roughly in the centre of the Indian Ocean.
The Chagos lies about 500 km (300 miles) due south of the Maldives, its nearest neighbour, 1600 km (1000 miles) southwest of India, half way between Tanzania and Java.
Chagossians (also known as Ilois and Chagos Islanders) are a group of Creole-speaking people. They are mostly of African origin, namely from Madagascar, Mozambique and people from other African nations who were in Ile de France (Mauritius) at the time of the settlement, but there is a significant proportion of South Indian descent in the genetic pool of the Chagossians as well.
The Chagossians inhabited the islands of Diego Garcia, Peros Banhos and Salomon Islands, but they also had settled in other parts of the Chagos Archipelago, like Egmont Islands and Eagle Islands, at a certain time. Their native language is Chagossian Creole, currently spoken by their descendants in Mauritius and the Seychelles. It is part of the Bourbonnais Creole family.
The very first Chagossians were brought to the Archipelago as slaves from Mauritius by the French in 1776. Others arrived as fishermen, farmers, and coconut plantation workers during the 19th century.
In 1965, as part of a deal to grant Mauritian independence, the Chagos Archipelago was split off from the Colony and came to form the British Indian Ocean Territory. The territory's new constitution was set out in a statutory instrument imposed unilaterally without any referendum or consultation with the Chagossians, and envisaged no democratic institutions. The constitution prohibited anyone from residing in the islands without a permit.
In the following years from 1967 and 1973, the Chagossians, then numbering some 2000 people, were expelled by the British government, first to the island of Peros Banhos, 100 miles away from their homeland, and then, in 1973, to Mauritius (For the relationship between the Chagos Archipelago and Mauritius, see Chagos Archipelago). Their forced (and, according to some authorities, illegal) expulsion and dispossession was for the purpose of establishing a United States air and naval base on Diego Garcia, where a small contingent of UK military personnel are stationed as well.
