 At the Berlin conference in 1885, France took control over the whole Comoros archipelago, which was actually already ruled by French traders; the colony took the name of "Mayotte and dependencies".In 1898, two cyclones razed the island to the ground, and a smallpox epidemic decimated the survivors.Mayotte had to start from the beginning once again, and the French government had to repopulate the island with workers from Mozambique, Comoros and Madagascar.