THE Portuguese were the first Europeans to come across the island of Mauritius. It was found by the Dutch in 1598, and the Dutch East India Company settlement created in 1638 introduced both sugar cane and slavery. The French arrived in 1721, using slaves to clear large holdings which eventually became sugar cane plantations. Over time there emerged a colonial society of extreme inequality, where power and privilege belonged to estate planters from France while hard labour and deprivation became the lot of slaves imported from Africa. The British established political control of Mauritius in 1814 and preserved the structure of the island's economy and society with one exception: slavery was abolished in 1835 with generous compensation to slave owners. The colonial state helped to organise the importation of indentured workers from India, and by the 1860s the island had become the leading cane producer in the British Empire.