Foalhavahi, Polvera, and the Cartographic Reconstitution of Chagos: Colonial Mapping, Toponymic Erasure, and the Maldives–Chagos Corridor (1519

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Author: Pen for Rights – Legal & International Law
Affiliation: Maldivians for Chagos
A custodian-led civic research initiative and an Indian Ocean decolonisation initiative

Abstract

Early modern cartography of the central Indian Ocean reveals a persistent dual geography south of the Maldives that later colonial mapping collapses into a single construct. Portuguese and Dutch maps from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries consistently depict island groups labelled Chagos, Diego Garcia, and Peros Banhos west of the Maldivian chain, often north-west of Addu Atoll, while a separate toponymic family –Polvera, Polverera, Polvoreira, and variants – appears near and just after Addu, within the Maldivian maritime sphere. In the eighteenth century, French and subsequently British cartography progressively relocates Chagos southward toward Addu while Polvera disappears from the map record. This paper argues that the modern Chagos Archipelago occupies the earlier cartographic footprint of Polvera, not the original Portuguese-Dutch Chagos grouping. An integrated etymological analysis further supports identifying Polvera as a European transliteration of the Dhivehi toponym Foalhavahi, preserved imperfectly through early travel narratives and Iberian chart-copy lineages. The unresolved disappearance of Polvera has direct implications for decolonisation, historical sovereignty, and the evidentiary integrity of colonial-era maps.

Keywords: Chagos Archipelago; Maldives; Addu Atoll; Polvera; Foalhavahi; François Pyrard de Laval; Indian Ocean cartography; toponymy; colonial mapping; decolonisation.

1. Introduction

The geographic identity of the Chagos Archipelago is commonly presented as stable from early European “discovery” to the present. A close reading of early modern maps challenges that assumption. From the sixteenth century onward, European cartography repeatedly distinguishes between two spatial systems south of the Maldives: a western offshore complex labelled Chagos, Diego Garcia, and Peros Banhos, and a second island or island-group labelled Polvera (and variants) positioned near and just after Addu Atoll. These two systems coexist on the same plates for more than a century. Their later convergence-marked by the southward migration of Chagos and the disappearance of Polvera-is the central problem this paper addresses.

2. The Portuguese–Dutch Baseline: Two Coexisting Geographies

Across Portuguese portolan charts and Dutch VOC-era atlases, the Maldives chain is rendered as a coherent north–south alignment terminating at Addu. Within this framework, Chagos / Diego Garcia / Peros Banhos appear consistently west of the chain, often north-west of Addu, while Polvera is depicted near and just south of Addu, aligned with Maldivian geography. Crucially, both appear simultaneously and repeatedly. This co-presence rules out the possibility that Polvera was merely an alternative name for Chagos. Early modern cartographers did not sustain redundant toponyms for the same feature across generations without annotation. The persistence of this dual geography across independent Portuguese and Dutch publishing houses indicates that the two labels referred to distinct spatial referents.

3. Longitude Error and the Limits of Navigational Explanation

Pre-chronometer navigation introduced longitudinal imprecision, but its effects are well understood. Longitude error produces east–west displacement while preserving latitudinal relationships. In the maps examined, Polvera exhibits minor horizontal drift consistent with this limitation, yet remains latitudinally tied to Addu. By contrast, Chagos remains west of the Maldivian chain throughout the Portuguese and Dutch periods. The later southward relocation of Chagos toward Addu therefore cannot be attributed to inherited navigational error. It represents a change in cartographic interpretation rather than correction.

4. From Foalhavahi to Polvera: Transliteration, Not Invention

4.1 Foalhavahi and the -vehi morpheme

Within Dhivehi linguistic structure, -vehi functions as a productive element associated with dwelling or abode, plausibly related to Indo-Aryan and Pali roots (vasa/vasi), and visible in ethnonyms and place-terms such as Divehi. On this internal reading, Foalhavahi is structurally a place-name rather than a European coinage, denoting a habitation or maritime locality beyond the last Maldivian atolls.

4.2 Competing explanations for Foalha

Two explanatory traditions exist for the Foalha stem. One, traceable to colonial-era scholarship (often attributed to Gray and H.C.P. Bell), proposed a derivation from Malay pulo/pulau (“island”). Phonologically and morphologically this is weak, as it renders the compound redundant if -vehi already carries locative meaning. A more internally consistent explanation treats Foalha as reflecting a Dravidian lexical field (e.g., Tamil polla, “bad/evil”), yielding a meaning akin to “abode of danger” or “abode of evil,” a semantic pattern common in maritime toponyms associated with peril. This paper does not require choosing definitively between these accounts; it suffices that Foalhavahi functioned as an indigenous referent recognisable to Maldivian navigation memory.

4.3 Pyrard’s “pollouoys” as an early phonetic capture

François Pyrard de Laval’s early seventeenth-century account provides a crucial transliteration channel. Pyrard’s rendering of Dhivehi words is known to omit aspirates and to represent long i sounds with y. Within that system, a spoken Foalhavahi could plausibly appear in print as pollouoys (or a close variant), reflecting loss of h, alteration of v, and re-segmentation of syllables. This matters because it demonstrates that a French phonetic pathway existed early. If later French cartography were drawing primarily from local phonetics or Pyrard-style transcription, later spellings would tend to converge toward that channel.

4.4 Why later French spellings do not follow Pyrard

Instead, later French and British charts preserve spell families (Polvera/Polverera/Polvoreira) that are recognisably Iberian or Dutch in orthographic character. This indicates bureaucratic inheritance from chart lineages rather than renewed phonetic engagement with Maldivian speech. The persistence of these spell families supports the identification of Polvera as a Lusitanised chart rendering of an indigenous referent, not a fresh European naming.

4.5 “Pullobay” and secondary hybrid forms

Forms such as “Pullobay,” which appear in later European writing, are best understood as secondary hybrids. The -bay element reflects European maritime vocabulary or multi-stage transliteration rather than Dhivehi phonology, in which v does not ordinarily shift to b. Such forms therefore do not undermine the Foalhavahi → Polvera pathway; they illustrate how names degrade under repeated copying.

5. The French Cartographic Shift and the Disappearance of Polvera

Eighteenth-century French cartography introduces a decisive rupture. Chagos and Diego Garcia are progressively repositioned southward toward Addu and increasingly aligned with the Maldivian axis. At the same time, Polvera disappears from the map record without explanation, correction note, or replacement label. This combination – movement of one toponym into another’s former spatial corridor and the erasure of the displaced name – is characteristic of cartographic substitution, not neutral refinement.

6. British Fixation and Administrative Closure

British Admiralty charts of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries complete the process by fixing Chagos south of Addu and designating Diego Garcia as its principal island. Once embedded in Admiralty mapping, this geography acquires administrative and legal inertia. Polvera is not corrected or acknowledged as historical; it is simply absent.

7. Diplomatic Context and Historical Plausibility

Portuguese, Dutch, French, and British powers all recognised the Maldives as a sovereign polity and maintained diplomatic relations with its Sultan. It is implausible that these powers could have occupied or utilised islands known locally as Foalhavahi while simultaneously misrepresenting their identity and location to the Maldivian court. The divergence between early cartographic practice and later imperial mapping reflects consolidation and convenience rather than innocent confusion.

8. Conclusion: The Question That Remains

The cartographic record permits only one coherent explanation for the disappearance of Polvera: it survives under another name. The spatial, temporal, and transliteration evidence indicates that the modern Chagos Archipelago occupies the historical footprint of Polvera / Foalhavahi, not the original Portuguese-Dutch Chagos grouping west of the Maldives. Until Polvera is accounted for, the historical geography underpinning contemporary sovereignty claims over Chagos remains incomplete. For United Nations decolonisation mechanisms, this is not a marginal cartographic curiosity but a structural evidentiary defect.

Sources and Archival Material

This article is based on a comparative reading of primary cartographic and narrative sources from the sixteenth to early nineteenth centuries. The materials cited below are representative of the map corpus and documentary record examined and are widely held in major public archives and libraries.

Appendix Table 1: Primary Cartographic Sources Analysed (1502–1809)

(Access the cartographic sources analysed here)

These maps consistently depict the Maldives chain, the western offshore island groups labelled Chagos / Diego Garcia / Peros Banhos, and – across earlier periods – a separate toponymic family rendered as Polvera and its variants.

Travel Narratives and Early Descriptive Sources

François Pyrard de Laval, Voyage de François Pyrard de Laval, early seventeenth-century editions.
Pyrard’s account provides one of the earliest European phonetic renderings of Dhivehi place-names, including a form transcribed as pollouoys, relevant to the discussion of Foalhavahi and later cartographic spell families.

Linguistic and Contextual References (Indicative)

Classical Dhivehi linguistic usage concerning the morpheme -vehi (place/abode) as reflected in ethnonyms and toponyms such as Divehi.
Comparative scholarship on Iberian and early modern European transliteration practices in the Indian Ocean context, particularly the treatment of aspirates and consonant substitution in non-European place-names.

Note on Method

The argument advanced in this article relies on relative cartographic positioning, toponym persistence, and disappearance across time, rather than on any single map or narrative. Reproductions of key plates referenced above are published separately as annotated exhibits to allow independent verification.