" Seychelles is an archipelago of 115 islands located between four and five degrees south of the equator on the western part of the Indian Ocean. It is a paradise of islands floating like tiny gems in the clear waters of the Indian Ocean. It is a little over one thousand miles from India and Sri Lanka in the northeast, from the eastern coast of Africa in the west and from Mauritius in the south. The population is just over 80,000, 90% of whom live on the mainland of Mahe with Victoria as its capital. The rest of the population is spread over in about thirty inhabitable islands.
Although recorded history has it that the Portuguese first sighted these islands and French settlers landed in 1770, there is ample evidence to show that Asians such as Arabs, Chinese and Tamils visited these islands during the 15th and 16th centuries. From time immemorial timber from Seychelles was transported to Pondicherry for shipbuilding and rich Tamil merchants from Cauvery delta had trade dealing with Seychelles.
The first Tamil, Ramalingam from Reunion, came to Seychelles in 1789 as an advisor to the Governor and was endowed with large areas of land for his services. In 1864 the Naiken family established their business followed in 1874 by Kandasamy Chetty in business. Now one may see Tamil influence here in the frequency of common Tamil names such as Pillai, Chetty, Govindan, Naiken, Kandasamy and Vadivelu and a large number of them are in the business community...more
