History & Culture of The Chagossian People

Diego Garcia

A Brief History

DIEGO GARCIA DISCOVERED BY THE PORTUGUSE.

FIRST BRITISH SHIP TO DIEGO GARCIA

FRENCH SETTLERS ARRIVE IN DG. FIRST KNOWN INHABITANTS.

PLANTATION PERIOD BEGINS.

AFTER BRITISH HAD CAPTURED THE ISLAND OF REUNION,
CHAGOS FORMALLY CEDED TO BRITAIN.

SLAVES EMPLOYED IN THE PLANTATION FREED BY 'ACT OF
EMANCIPATION."

PLANTATION MANAGERS' HOUSE BUILT.

GERMAN CRUISER 'EMDEN WAS ROYALLY RECEIVED. DG
UNAWARE THAT WW1 HAS STARTED.

CAPT. J. THOMPSON RM. SUPERVISED 6 INCH GUNS SET UP AT
CANNON POINT.

CYCLONE HITS THE ISLAND. 2 OF 4 CATALINA'S OF 240 SQN.RAF BREAK MOORINGS AND BEACH.

COPRA INDUSTRY IN SERIOUS DECLINE.

BRITAIN DETACHED CHAGOS FROM MAURITIUS. BIOT FORMED ON NOVEMBER 8.

BRITAIN SIGNS AGREEMENT WITH U.S. MEANING ALL THE ISLANDS INHABITANTS WERE INHUMANLY DEPORTED.
MAKING ISLANDS AVAILABLE FOR DEFENCE FOR 50 YEARS. BY THEN ALMOST ALL THE CHAGOSSIANS WERE INHUMANLY DEPORTED AND DUMPED IN MAURITIUS AND THE SEYCHELLES.

FIRST CONSIGNMENT OF SEABEES (40 BATTALION) ARRIVE ON DG.

1 OCT. NSF COMMISSIONED.

BIOT 25TH ANNIVERSARY. GRANT PF FLAG AND COAT OF ARMS.

1509 -

1712 -

1716 -

1787 -

1814 -

1835 -

1864 -

1914 -

1942 -

1944 -

1960 -

1965 -

1966 -

1971 -

1977 -

1990 -

When they pushed us onto the boat, I felt a kind of sadness I didn’t know a person could carry. Not just sadness, something heavier, like being torn away from a part of my own body. The dogs barked from the shore, confused and desperate, and that sound still haunts me more than anything, especially knowing they were gassed. When they pushed us onto the boat, I felt a kind of sadness I didn't know a person could carry. Not just sadness, something heavier, like a part of my own body being torn away.

The dogs barked from the shore, confused and desperate, and that sound still haunts me more than anything, especially knowing they were gassed.

As the boat pulled away, I watched the islands shrink behind us. I kept thinking: How can a person be exiled from their own birthplace? How can a home be taken like that? The sea breeze that once felt comforting now felt cold, almost cruel.

I didn’t cry until the island disappeared completely from view. That was the moment I understood that we weren’t just being moved—we were being erased from the place that shaped us. And that kind of loss doesn’t fade. It settles inside you, quiet but permanent, like a wound that never fully closes.

Our Story

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Forced displacement tried to break this continuity. In Mauritius and elsewhere, many of us were dumped with no housing, no jobs and no support, pushed into slums, underpaid work and deep psychological suffering. Women played a leading role in resisting this injustice: in the 1980s women organised protests and hunger strikes to make the world see what had been done to us.

Today, a new generation of Chagossians, including those born in exile, is carrying forward this struggle in the courts, in international institutions.We define ourselves as Indigenous Chagossian People (ICP) because our relationship to the archipelago is not only legal or territorial. It is spiritual, cultural and intergenerational. Our identity cannot be fully lived in exile; it requires contact with our lands and waters, the ability to care for and inhabit the places that shaped us. Any genuine solution to the Chagos question must start from this reality.

Chagossians visit Diego Garcia in December 2019

Our ancestors belongings in the museum on Diego Garcia 12/2019