Mohéli History

History

In 1830 the Malagasy prince Ramanetaka arrived on Mohéli (up to this time the island was dependent on Anjouan) and staged a coup that left him in power as sultan. He was succeeded by his young daughter, Djoumbé Saoudy, who took the name of Fatima I.

The French hoped to get a foot in Mohéli’s door by sending a governess, Madame Droit, to see to the young sultaness’s education, but this was to no avail. Love, however, succeeded where education failed. Fatima began an affair with the Frenchman Joseph François Lambert, a trader, adventurer and ship owner from Mauritius who had been made a duke by the queen of Madagascar. Lambert was able to gain control of great tracts of land on Mohéli and set up plantations with his British partner, William Sunley. In 1867, after the affair had begun to wane, Fatima abdicated the throne and fled the Comoros with a French gendarme, opening the way for the island to become a French protectorate.

Throughout colonialism and the independence that followed, Mohéli, by virtue of its small size and low economic value, was forced into a back-seat position in the affairs of the Comoros. In the 1990s after years of ‘humiliation’ by France and the independent Moroni-based government, Mohéli’s leaders declared its independence from the other islands. Reconciliation with the Moroni government was only achieved in April 2000, when Mohamed Saïd Fazul was elected leader of Mohéli under a new constitution that kept the three islands as one nation, but provided each with greater autonomy. If the new constitution lasts long enough, it should be Mohéli’s time to elect a Union president – the post is supposed to rotate between the three islands every four years, and presidents from Moroni and Anjouan have served or are serving. Mohéli’s people also hold the most positive outlook of the three islands when it comes to retaining one nation status.