History

History of Madagascar

The written history of Madagascar began in the seventh century A.D., when Arabs established trading posts along the northwest coast. It is very likely, however, that the first people who came to Madagascar were from Southeast Asia. This explains the Malagasy racial features which are a mixture of Asian (Austronesian) and African, as well as of the Arabs, Indians and Europeans who came later. British and French imperialists contested for Madagascar in the 17th through 20th Centuries, with the island becoming a French colony in 1890. Madagascar gained its independence from France in 1958.

Early history

In Malagasy mythology, the island was inhabited first by a tribe of pale dwarf-like people called the Vazimba. Some Malagasies believe that these original inhabitants still live in the deepest recesses of the forest. In an island whose inhabitants practice ancestor worship, the Vazimba are venerated as the most ancient of ancestors. The kings of some Malagasy tribes claim a blood kinship to the Vazimba.

Archeologists place the arrival of humans on the island to the years between 200 and 500 C.E., when the first inhabitants of Madagascar, seafarers from southeast Asia, probably Borneo or the southern Celebes, arrived in their outrigger canoes. These original Malagasies were Southeast Asians who came to the island as part of the great Austronesian expansion, the movement of people that populated the Malay Peninsula, Java, Sumatra, New Zealand, and all of Polynesia and Micronesia, as well as Hawaii and the Easter Islands. No evidence of Indonesians colonizing the east coast of Africa has ever been found. It appears that the first inhabitants of Madagascar came directly across the Indian Ocean from Indonesia, a journey of 3,700 miles, by following the trade winds and the equatorial east-west current. Along with New Zealand, Madagascar was the last landmass to be occupied by humans. The anthropologist Jared Diamond has written about the Austronesian expansion to Madagascar:

These Austronesians, with their Austronesian language and modified Austronesian culture, were already established on Madagascar by the time it was first visited by Europeans, in 1500. This strikes me as the single most astonishing fact of human geography for the entire world. It’s as if Columbus, on reaching Cuba, had found it occupied by blue-eyed, blond-haired Scandinavians speaking a language close to Swedish, even though the nearby North American continent was inhabited by Native Americans speaking Amerindian languages. How on earth could prehistoric people from Borneo, presumably voyaging on boats without maps or compasses, end up in Madagascar?

In their technology and agriculture, Malagasies share many traits with Indonesians. Techniques of rice cultivation are the same in both places. Like the Indonesians, the Malagasies use outrigger-style canoes (the outrigger canoe, with its pontoon, represented a major advancement over the dugout canoe, which is difficult to balance and incapable of long ocean voyages). Both cultures practice ancestor worship and believe that the dead influence the living. Unlike their neighbors on the African continent, who favor round huts, Malagasies live in four-cornered dwellings. They used the two-valved bellows to forge iron, an invention of the Malay Peninsula. They dressed in cloth woven of vegetable fibers or raffia (a fabric made from the stripped membranes of the raffia palm), not animal skins or wool like Africans and Europeans. Members of the Merina tribe, the largest tribe in Madagascar, look much like Indonesians.

Bantu and Arab immigration

Medieval Arab navigators and geographers may have known about Madagascar. The very island off the southern coast of Ophir (Africa) was known by various names: Phebol, Cernea, Menuthias, Medruthis, Sherbezat, Camarcada, and the Island of the Moon.

Madagascar gets its name from Marco Polo, the fourteenth-century Italian explorer, who described an African island of untold wealth called Madeigascar in his memoirs. Polo heard about the island second-hand during his travels in Asia. Most scholars believe that he was writing about Mogadishu, the port located in present-day Somalia. Nevertheless, the name Madagascar was attached to the island by Italian cartographers during the Renaissance.

Bantu settlers probably crossed the Mozambique Channel to Madagascar at the same time as or shortly after the Indonesians arrived. Although the majority of words in the Malagasy language are of Malayan-Polynesian origin, a smattering of Bantu words -- omby (ox), ondry (sheep), and others -- is spoken as well. From this evidence, some anthropologists believe that Indonesian and Bantu settlers intermixed early in the island’s history.

The Bantus brought with them the gourd-like jejolava and multi-stringed valiha, the musical instruments on which Malagasy music is played. The Bantus also brought a cultural trait that is peculiar to East Africa -- an obsession with cattle. Especially on the southern savannahs of Madagascar where African influences are strongest, wealth and social status are measured in cattle, and the zebu outnumber the inhabitants by two or three to one.

Beginning in the tenth or eleventh century, Arabic and Zanzibari slave traders working their way down the east coast of Africa in their dhows and established settlements on the west coast of Madagascar. Their modern descendants form the Antaimoro tribe, which today lives in the southeast coast near to Manakara. Arab immigrants were few in number compared to the Indonesians and Bantus, but they left a lasting impression. The Malagasy names for seasons, months, days, and coins are Arabic in origin, as is the practice of circumcision, the communal grain pool, and different forms of salutation. The Arab magicians, known as the ombiasy, established themselves in the courts of many Malagasy tribal kingdoms. Arab immigrants imposed the patriarchal system of family and clan rule on Madagascar. Previous to the Arabs, the Malagasies practiced the Polynesian matriarchal system whereby rights of privilege and property are conferred equally on men and women.

Arrival of European colonists

By the fifteenth century, Europeans had wrested the spice trade from the Muslims. They did it by sidestepping the Middle East and sending their cargo ships around the Cape of Good Hope to India. A Portuguese mariner named Diego Dias became the first European to set foot on Madagascar when his ship, bound for India, blew off course in 1500. In the ensuing two hundred years, the English and French tried and failed to establish settlements on the island.

Fever, dysentery, hostile Malagasy tribespeople, and the trying arid climate of southern Madagascar soon terminated the English settlement near Toliary (Tuléar) in 1646. Another English settlement in the north in Nosy Bé came to the same end in 1649. The French colony at Taolañaro (Fort Dauphin) fared a little better. It lasted thirty years. On Christmas night 1672, local Antanosy tribesmen, perhaps angry because fourteen French soldiers in the fort had recently divorced their Malagasy wives to marry fourteen French orphan women who had been sent out to the colony, massacred the fourteen grooms and thirteen of the fourteen brides. The Antanosy then besieged the stockade at Taolañaro for eighteen months. A ship of the French East India Company rescued the surviving thirty men and one widow in 1674.

Pirates and slave traders

Between 1680 and 1725, Madagascar became a pirate stronghold. Pirate luminaries such as William Kidd, Henry Every, John Bowen, and Thomas Tew made Antongil Bay and Nosy Boraha (St. Mary’s Island), a small island 12 miles off the northeast coast of Madagascar, their base of operations. The pirates plundered merchant ships in the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. The pirates looted ships bound for Europe of their silks, cloth, spices, and jewels. Ships going the opposite direction to India were robbed of their coin, gold, and silver. The pirates robbed the Indian cargo ships that traded between ports in the Indian Ocean as well as ships commissioned by the East India Companies of France, England, and the Netherlands. The pilgrim fleet sailing between Surat in India and Mocha on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula was a favorite target because the wealthy Muslim pilgrims often carried jewels and other finery with them to Mecca. Merchants in India, various ports of Africa, and Réunion Island were eager to fence the pirate’s stolen goods. The low-paid seamen who manned merchant ships in the Indian Ocean hardly put up a fight, seeing as they had little reason or motivation to risk their lives. The pirates often recruited crewmen from the ships they plundered.

Previous to the arrival of Europeans, the Malagasy tribes occasionally waged wars to capture and enslave prisoners. The slaves were either sold to Arab traders or kept on hand as laborers. With the arrival of European slaver traders, human chattel became more valuable and the coastal tribes of Madagascar took to warring with each other to obtain prisoners for the lucrative slave trade. Instead of spears and cutlasses, the tribesmen fought with muskets, musket balls, and gunpowder that they obtained from Europeans. The wars were fierce and brutal. On account of their relationship to the pirates on Nosy Boraha, the Betsimisaraka in eastern Madagascar had more firearms than anyone else. They overpowered their neighbors the Antakarana and Tsimihety and even raided the Comoros Islands. As the tribe on the west coast with the most connections to the slave trade, the Sakalava also had access to guns and powder. They subdued the other tribes on the west coast. Tribal chiefs who failed to capture prisoners for the slave trade sometimes did what had previously been considered unthinkable -— they sold their own people into slavery.

The Merina monarchy

In the central highlands of Madagascar, the Merina kingdom, a kingdom of rice farmers, had been living in relative isolation from the rest of Madagascar for several centuries, but by 1824 the Merina conquered nearly all of Madagascar thanks to the leadership of two shrewd kings, Andrianampoinimerina (circa 1745–1810) and his son Radama I (1792–1828).

By marrying the princesses of different Merina clans and warring against the princes, Andrianampoinimerina united the Merina kingdom. He established Antananarivo as the capital of Madagascar and built the royal palace, or rova, on a hilltop overlooking the city. The king was ambitious. He proclaimed, Ny ranomasina no valapariako (“the sea is the boundary of my rice field”). But what distinguished Andrianampoinimerina from other ambitious kings and tribal chiefs was his ability to administer. The king codified the laws. He supervised the building of dykes and trenches to increase the amount of arable land around Antananarivo. He introduced the metal spade and compelled rice farmers to use it. King Andrianampoinimerina was an exemplary military commander. By the time of his death in 1810, he had conquered the Bara and Betsileo highland tribes and was preparing to push the boundaries of his kingdom to the shores of the island.

His son Radama I (Radama the Great) assumed the throne during a turning point in European history that had repercussions for Madagascar. With the defeat of Napoléon, the balance of power in Europe and the European colonies shifted in England’s favor. The English, eager to exert control over the trade routes of the Indian Ocean, captured Réunion and Mauritius islands from the French. Although they returned Réunion, they kept Mauritius as a base for expanding the British Empire. Mauritius’s governor, to woo Madagascar from French control, recognized Radama I as King of Madagascar, a diplomatic maneuver meant to underscore the idea that the island was sovereign and therefore unclaimed by any European powers.

Radama I signed treaties with England outlawing the slave trade and admitting protestant missionaries into Madagascar. On the face of it, the terms of these treaties seem innocuous enough, except the protestant missionaries, the English knew, would spread British influence as well as Christian charity, and outlawing the slave trade, the English hoped, would weaken Réunion by depriving that island of slave laborers for its sugar plantations. In return for outlawing the slave trade, Madagascar received what the treaty called “The Equivalent”: an annual sum of a thousand dollars in gold, another thousand in silver, stated amounts of gun powder, flints, and muskets, plus 400 surplus British Army uniforms. The governor of Mauritius also sent military advisers who accompanied and sometimes led Merina soldiers in their battles against the Sakalava and Betsimisaraka. In 1824, having defeated the Betsimisaraka, Radama I declared, “Today, the whole island is mine! Madagascar has but one master.” The king died in 1828 while leading his army on a punitive expedition against the Betsimisaraka.

The 33-year reign of Queen Ranavalona I (Ranavalona the Cruel), the widow of Radama I, began inauspiciously with the queen murdering the dead king’s heir and relatives. The aristocrats and sorcerers who had lost influence under the liberal regime of the previous two Merina kings reasserted their power during the reign of Ranavalona I. The queen repudiated the treaties that Radama I signed with Britain. Emerging from a dangerous illness in 1835, she credited her recovery to the twelve sampy, the talismans endowed with supernatural powers that were housed on the palace grounds. To appease the sampy who had restored her health, she issued a royal edict prohibiting the practice of Christianity in Madagascar, expelled British missionaries from the island, and persecuted Christian converts who would not renounce their religion. Christian customs “are not the customs of our ancestors,” she explained. The queen scrapped the legal reforms started by Andrianampoinimerina in favor of the old system of trial by ordeal. People suspected of committing crimes -— most were tried for the crime of practicing Christianity —- were made to drink the poison of the tangena tree. If they survived the ordeal, which few did, they were judged innocent. Malagasy Christians would remember this period as ny tany maizina, or “the time when the land was dark.” By some estimates, 150,000 Christians died during the reign of Ranavalona the Cruel. The island grew more isolated and commerce with other nations came to a standstill.

Unbeknownst to the queen, her son and heir, crown prince Radama II, attended Roman Catholic Masses in secret. The young man grew up under the influence of French nationals in Antananarivo. In 1854, he wrote a letter to Napoléon III inviting France to invade Madagascar. On June 28, 1855 he signed the Lambert Charter. This document gave Joseph-François Lambert, an enterprising French businessman who arrived in Madagascar only three weeks before, the exclusive right to exploit all minerals, forests, and unoccupied land in Madagascar in exchange for a 10-percent royalty to be paid to the Merina monarchy. In years to come, the French would use the Lambert Charter and the prince’s letter to Napoléon III to justify the Franco-Hova Wars and the annexation of Madagascar as a colony. In 1857, the queen uncovered a plot by her son Radama II and French nationals in the capital to remove her from power. She immediately expelled all foreigners from Madagascar. Ranavalona the Cruel died in 1861.

In his brief two years on the thrown, King Radama II reopened trade with Mauritius and Réunion, invited Christian missionaries and foreigners to return to Madagascar, and reinstated most of Radama I’s reforms. His liberal policies angered the aristocracy, however, and he was strangled in a coup d’état engineered by Rainivoninahitriniony, the prime minister. This cunning man or his equally cunning brother, Rainilaiarivory, would rule Madagascar from behind the scenes for the remaining 32 years of the Merina monarchy. First Rainivoninahitriniony and then his brother married Queen Rasoaherina, Radama II’s widow. Rainilaiarivory also married the last two queens of Madagascar, Ranavalona II and Ranavalona III.

In 1869, Queen Ranavalona II, who had been educated by the London Missionary Society, was baptized into the Anglican Episcopal Church and subsequently made that faith the official state religion of Madagascar. The queen had all the sampy burned in a public display. Catholic and protestant missionaries arrived in numbers to build churches and schools. The reign of Queen Ranavalona II was the heyday of British influence in Madagascar. In parts of the island, English replaced French as the second language. Cup, carpet, and other English words entered the Malagasy language. British arms and troops arrived on the island by way of South Africa.

Angry because the Lambert Charter had been cancelled, seeking to restore property that had been confiscated from French citizens, France invaded Madagascar in 1883 in what became known as the first Franco-Hova War (Hova being the name of the Merina aristocrats). At the war’s end, Madagascar ceded Antsiranana (Diégo Suarez) on the northern coast to France and paid 560,000 gold francs to the heirs of Joseph-François Lambert. In Europe, meanwhile, diplomats partitioning the Africa continent worked out an agreement whereby Britain, to obtain the Sultanate of Zanzibar, ceded its share of Heligoland to Germany and renounced all claims to Madagascar in favor of France. The agreement spelled doom for Madagascar. Prime Minister Rainilaiarivory had succeeded in playing England and France against one another, but now France could meddle without fear of reprisals from England. In 1895, a French flying column landed in Mahajanga (Majunga) and marched by way of the Betsiboka River to the capital, Antananarivo, where the city’s defenders were taken by surprise. They had expected an attack from the much closer east coast. Twenty French soldiers died fighting and 6,000 died of malaria and other diseases before the second Franco-Hova War ended. In 1896, the French Parliament voted to annex Madagascar. The 103-year-old Merina monarchy ended with the royal family sent to exile in Algeria.

French control

The British accepted the imposition of a French protectorate over Madagascar in 1890 in return for eventual control over Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania) and as part of an overall definition of spheres of influence in the area. Absolute French control over Madagascar was established by military force in 1895-96, and the Merina monarchy was abolished.

Malagasy troops fought in France, Morocco, and Syria during World War II. After France fell to the Germans, Madagascar was administered first by the Vichy government and then in 1942 by the British, whose troops occupied the strategic island to preclude its seizure by the Japanese. The Free French received the island from the United Kingdom in 1943.

Independence

In 1947, with French prestige at low ebb, a nationalist uprising was suppressed after one year of bitter fighting, in which as many as 80 000 Malagasy died. The French subsequently established reformed institutions in 1956 under the Loi Cadre (Overseas Reform Act), and Madagascar moved peacefully toward independence. The Malagasy Republic was proclaimed on October 14, 1958, as an autonomous state within the French Community. A period of provisional government ended with the adoption of a constitution in 1959 and full independence on June 26, 1960, with Philibert Tsiranana as President.

Tsiranana's rule represented continuation, with French settlers (or 'colons') still in positions of power and unlike many of France's former colonies, strongly resisted movements towards communism. In 1972 protests against these policies came to a head and Tsiranana was forced to step down. He handed power to General Gabriel Ramanantsoa of the army and his provisional government. This regime reversed previous policy in favour of closer ties with the Soviet Union.

In 1975 Lieutenant-Commander Didier Ratsiraka (who had previously served as foreign minister) came to power in a coup. Ratsiraka was elected president for a seven year term and moved further towards socialism, nationalising much of the economy and cutting all ties with France. These policies hastened the decline in the Madagascan economy that had begun after independence as French immigrants left the country leaving a shortage of skills and technology behind. Ratsiraka's seven year term was extended after his party (Avant-garde de la Révolution Malgache or AREMA) became the only legal party in the 1977 elections. In the 80s Madagascar moved back towards France, abandoning many of its communist-inspired policies in favour of a market economy, though Ratsiraka still kept hold of power. Eventually opposition both in Madagascar and internationally forced him to reconsider his position and in 1992 a new democratic constitution was approved.

The first multi-party elections came in 1993 and Ratsiraka was defeated by Albert Zafy. Zafy failed to reunite the country and was impeached in 1996. The ensuing elections saw a turnout of less than 50% and surprisingly ended in the re-election of Didier Ratsiraka. He moved further towards capitalism. The influence of the IMF and World Bank led to widespread privatisation.

Opposition to Ratsiraka began to grow again. Provincial elections in 2000 were boycotted by opposition parties and the 2001 presidential election produced more controversy. The opposition candidate Marc Ravalomanana claimed victory after the first round (in December) but this position was refuted by the incumbent. In early 2002 supporters of the two sides took to the streets and there were violent clashes. Ravalomanana claimed that there had been fraud at the polls. After an April recount the High Constitutional Court declared Ravalomanana president. Ratsiraka continued to dispute the result but his opponent was internationally recognised and he was forced into exile in France, though forces loyal to him continued to be active in Madagascar.

Ravlomanana's I Love Madagascar party achieved overwhelming electoral success in December 2002 and he survived an attempted coup in January 2003. He used this mandate to work closely with the IMF and World Bank to reform the economy, end corruption and realise the country's potential. Ratsiraka was tried in his absence for embezzlement (he was charged with taking $8m of public money with him into exile) and sentenced to ten years hard labour.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "History of Madagascar".