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TOM AND TOAKAFO: THE BETSIMISARAKA KINGDOM AND STATE FORMATION IN MADAGASCAR, 1715–1750*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 November 2007

STEPHEN ELLIS
STEPHEN ELLIS
Affiliation:
Afrika Studie Centrum, Leiden
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Abstract

The monarchies and other polities of precolonial Madagascar exerted a strong influence on each other. For this reason, in recent years it has become more interesting to trace their inter-relationship than to emphasize their autonomy. The Betsimisaraka kingdom, which flourished on Madagascar's east coast in the early eighteenth century, has generally been regarded as a polity standing rather outside the mainstream of state formation in Madagascar, not least because of the identity of its founder, the son of an English pirate. Research in European and South African archives demonstrates the close connection between the Betsimisaraka kingdom and the Sakalava kingdom of Boina.

Keywords

Madagascarkingdomsstateslave trade.
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , November 2007 , pp. 439 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

1 A short history of the island is Pierre Vérin, Madagascar (new ed., Paris, 2000 [1990]), and in English Sir Mervyn Brown, A History of Madagascar (London, 1995). Solofo Randrianja and Stephen Ellis, Madagascar: A Short History, will be published by C. Hurst & Co., London, in 2008.

2 The standard text on the history of royalty in Madagascar is Françoise Raison-Jourde (ed.), Les souverains de Madagascar (Paris, 1983), especially the editor's introduction. Some stimulating re-readings by Gilbert Ratsivalaka in his unpublished doctorat d'état, ‘Madagascar dans le sud-ouest de l'océan Indien (c. 1500–1824)’ (University of Nice, 1995), tend in the same direction of demonstrating the inter-connectedness of monarchies in different parts of the island.

3 As represented by Hubert Deschamps, Histoire de Madagascar (4th ed., Paris, 1972 [1960]), and by Raymond K. Kent, Early Kingdoms in Madagascar 1500–1700 (New York, 1970). The latter was preceded by a series of articles in the Journal of African History in 1968–9.

4 Gabriel Rantoandro, ‘Des royaumes concentriques de Java au royaume de Madagascar: les fondements d'un héritage présumé’, in Françoise Raison-Jourde and Solofo Randrianja (eds.), La nation malgache au défi de l'ethnicité (Paris, 2002), 107–23.

5 Marie-Pierre Ballarin, ‘Empreintes africaines dans les royautés de l'Ouest malgache, ancrages sakalava aux Comores (XVIIe–XXe)’, in Didier Nativel and Faranirina V. Rajaonah (eds.), Madagascar et l'Afrique: entre identité insulaire et appartenances historiques (Paris, 2007), 401–24.

6 In the case of the Merina, see notably Larson, Pier, ‘Desperately seeking the “Merina” (central Madagascar): reading ethnonyms and their semantic fields in African identity histories’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 22 (1996), 541–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and History and Memory in the Age of Enslavement: Becoming Merina in Highland Madagascar, 1770–1822 (Oxford, 2000).

7 ‘Introduction’, Les souverains de Madagascar, 21.

8 Ibid. 10.

9 See, e.g., Ranaivo G. Ratsivalaka, Les Malgaches et l'abolition de la traite européenne des esclaves (1810–1817). Histoire de la formation du Royaume de Madagascar (Antananarivo, 1999). Ratsivalaka, ‘Madagascar dans le sud-ouest’, 153–4, even suggests that Andrianampoinimerina might have visited Mauritius.

10 J.-M. Filliot, La traite des esclaves vers les Mascareignes au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1974), 51. Gwyn Campbell, An Economic History of Imperial Madagascar, 1750–1895: The Rise and Fall of an Island Empire (Cambridge, 2005), 55, suggests that the islands imported about 160,000 slaves between 1610 and 1810, of which 45 per cent were from Madagascar.

11 Larson, History and Memory, 134; Campbell, Economic History, 55–6. Campbell's most detailed calculations, on 236ff., relate to a later period.

12 Armstrong, James C., ‘Madagascar and the slave trade in the seventeenth century’, Omaly sy Anio, 17–20 (1983–4), 216Google Scholar.

13 Piet Westra and James C. Armstrong (eds.), Slave Trade with Madagascar: The Journals of the Cape Slaver Leijdsman, 1715 (Cape Town, 2006), 11.

14 Thomas Vernet, ‘Slave trade and slavery on the Swahili coast, 1500–1750’, in Paul Lovejoy, Behnaz A. Mirzai and Ismael M. Montana (eds.), Slavery, Islam and Diaspora (Trenton NJ, 2006), p. 4 of the chapter offprint.

15 Ibid. 34.

16 René Barendse, The Arabian Seas: The Indian Ocean World of the Seventeenth Century (Armonk NY, 2002), 259, estimates 3,000–4,000 slaves per year exported from Madagascar to the Swahili coast in the late seventeenth century, with a further 1,000–3,500 being exported annually to Mogadishu or points further north. For other estimates in the same range, see Vink, Markus, ‘“The world's oldest trade”: Dutch slavery and slave trade in the Indian Ocean in the seventeenth century’, Journal of World History, 14 (2003), 145CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bialuschewski, Arne, ‘Pirates, slavers, and the indigenous population in Madagascar, c. 1690–1715’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 38 (2005), 415Google Scholar.

17 Cf. Raison-Jourde, ‘Introduction’, 14.

18 Cf. Sir Mervyn Brown, Madagascar Rediscovered: A History from Early Times to Independence (London, 1978), 92–109.

19 This is also suggested by Ratsivalaka, ‘Madagascar dans le sud-ouest’, 113–18, 135.

20 I am alluding here to the recruitment by King Radama I (1809–28) of Europeans as technical advisors.

21 The main journal referred to, by Hendrik Frappé, consulted by the present author at the National Library of South Africa in Cape Town, has recently been translated, edited and published by Westra and Armstrong (eds.), Slave Trade with Madagascar. For a general survey of Dutch archives on Madagascar, see Ranjeva-Rabetafika, Yvette, Baesjou, René and Everts, Natalie, ‘Of paper and men: a note on the archives of the VOC as a source for the history of Madagascar’, Itinerario, 14 (2000), 45–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Beaujard, Philippe, ‘The Indian Ocean in Eurasian and African world-systems before the sixteenth century’, Journal of World History, 16 (2005), 411–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Cf. Rantoandro, Gabriel, ‘Une communauté mercantile du nord ouest: les Antalaotra’, Omaly sy Anio, 20 (1983–4), 195–210Google Scholar.

24 Pierre Vérin, The History of Civilization in North Madagascar (Rotterdam, 1986).

25 Cf. Allibert, Claude, ‘Une description turque de l'Océan Indien occidental dans le kitāb-i Baḥrije de Piri Re'is (1521)’, Etudes Océan Indien, 10 (1988), 33–4.Google Scholar

26 Flynn, Dennis O. and Giraldez, Arturo, ‘Born with a “silver spoon”: the origin of world trade in 1571’, Journal of World History, 6 (1995), 201–21.Google Scholar

27 The Arabian Seas, 274–5.

28 On Mazalagem Nova (also known as Masselage and by many other spellings), see Vérin, Madagascar, 68–73. Its name in Malagasy is Antsoheribory.

29 Humberto Leitão (ed.), Os dois descobrimentos da ilha da São Lourenço mandado fazer pelo vice-rei D. Jerônimo de Azevedo (Lisbon, 1970), 62, and 69, where Mariano describes the king as ‘negro’.

30 Laurent Berger, ‘Les raisons de la colère des ancêtres Zafinifotsy (Ankaraña, Madagascar): l'anthropologie au défi de la mondialisation’ (thèse de doctorat, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 2006), 247–66.

31 Jacques Lombard, Le royaume sakalava du Menabe: essai d'analyse d'un système politique à Madagascar (Paris, 1988), 24ff. Other genealogies give different versions of Lahifotsy's relationship to his predecessors.

32 Armstrong, ‘Madagascar and the slave trade’, 220.

33 See the map in Ratsivalaka, ‘Madagascar dans le sud-ouest’, between 110 and 111.

34 National Archives of South Africa, Cape Town, Council of Policy, C.357: Jeremias Brons to Gov.-gen. van Outhoorn, 19 Jan. 1695. A published translation of the letter (with mistaken date?) is H. C. V. Leibbrandt (ed.), Precis of the Archives of the Cape of Good Hope. Letters Received, 1695–1708 (Cape Town, 1896), 28–31.

35 See letters from Nicolas Mayeur to Barthélémy Huet de Froberville: British Library, London, Add. mss. 18128, fols. 57v–62v; and Add. mss. 18129, fol. 25r, Mayeur to Froberville, 4 April 1806.

36 Molet-Sauvageot, Anne, ‘Madagascar et les colonies d'Amérique pendant la grande période de la piratérie européenne (1680–1700): contexte et documents de base’, Etudes Océan Indien, 13 (1991), 8Google Scholar.

37 Judd, Jacob, ‘Frederick Philipse and the Madagascar trade’, New York Historical Society Quarterly, 55 (1971), 354–74.Google Scholar

38 Ibid. 357.

39 Van der Stel to Heren XVII, 28 March 1705, quoted in Bialuschewski, ‘Pirates, slavers, and the indigenous population’, 419.

40 Dawson, Charles, ‘The Madagascar affair: a little-known Swedish project of colonisation’, Mariner's Mirror, 81 (1995), 210–12.Google Scholar

41 Quoted by Bialuschewski in an earlier draft of his article ‘Pirates, slavers, and the indigenous population’, kindly provided to the present author.

42 See the account by the pirate Cornelius, in Alfred Grandidier et al. (eds.), Collection des ouvrages anciens concernant Madagascar (9 vols.) (Paris, 1903–20), iii, 615–22.

43 Rody Chamuleau (ed.), Hoeveel Koperdraad voor een Slavin? De VOC en de slavenhandel op Madagaskar 1696–1697 volgens het journal van het zeiljacht Soldaat, trans. into French by Gabrielle Cardin and Anne Molet-Sauvaget (Oosterbeek, 2004), 88 n. 31.

44 Westra and Armstrong (eds.), Slave Trade with Madagascar, 99. See also 151 n. 149.

45 Brown, Madagascar Rediscovered, 81.

46 ‘Remarks on Madagascar … .’, 1716, quoted in Bialuschewski, ‘Pirates, slavers, and the indigenous population’, 423.

47 Exhaustive attempts to identify this man from among various candidates suggested in the literature have been unsuccessful, leading to the conclusion that he could have been ‘any pirate named Tom who lived in the Sainte-Marie region in the period 1680–1707’. Molet-Sauvaget, ‘Madagascar et les colonies d'Amérique’, 24 n. 1.

48 Quoted in Brown, Madagascar Rediscovered, 81.

49 Sylla, Yvette, ‘Les Malata: cohésion et disparité d'un “groupe”’, Omaly sy Anio, 21–2 (1985), 19–32Google Scholar.

50 Berg, Gerald, ‘The sacred musket: tactics, technology and power in eighteenth-century Madagascar’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 27 (1985), 261–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51 Nicolas Mayeur, ‘Histoire de Ratsimila-hoe, Roi de Foule-pointe et des Bé-tsi-miçaracs’, British Library, Add. mss. 18129, fols. 82r–143v. The first pages of this account (fols. 83r–85v) consist of letters from Mayeur to Froberville which provide valuable information on Mayeur's sources. Other letters from Mayeur to Froberville are contained elsewhere in the same volume. Hubert Deschamps published a useful summary of Mayeur's text, with modernized spellings of Malagasy names, in Les pirates à Madagascar (Paris, 1949), 215–29.

52 British Library Add. mss. 18129, 84r: Mayeur to Froberville, 27 April 1806. For a résumé of Mayeur's career, see Alfred Grandidier, in Congrès des Sociétés savantes, Discours prononcés à la séance générale du Congrès le samedi 11 avril 1896 (new ed., Villiers-sur-Marne, 2003 [1896]).

53 Mayeur, Nicolas, ‘Voyage à la côte de l'ouest de Madagascar (pays des Séclaves) – 1774’, Bulletin de l'Académie malgache, 10 o.s. (1912), 49–91Google Scholar; ‘Voyage dans le nord de Madagascar, au Cap d'Ambre et à quelques Îles du Nord-Ouest’, Bulletin de l'Académie malgache, 10 o.s. (1912), 93–156; ‘Voyage dans le sud et dans l'intérieur des terres et particulièrement au pays d'Hancove (janvier à décembre 1777)’, Bulletin de l'Académie malgache, 12 o.s. (1913), 139–76; and ‘Voyage au pays d'Ancove (1785)’, Bulletin de l'Académie malgache, 12 o.s. (1913), 14–48.

54 British Library Add. mss. 18129, fol. 83v: Mayeur to Froberville, 27 April 1806.

55 Ibid. fol. 84r.

56 Guillaume-Joseph Le Gentil de la Galaisière, Voyage dans les mers de l'Inde (2 vols.) (Paris, 1779), ii, 526.

57 Mayeur, ‘Histoire de Ratsimila-hoe’, fol. 93r.

58 Raymond Decary, L'établissement de Sainte-Marie de Madagascar sous la restauration et le rôle de Sylvain Roux (Paris, 1937), 49.

59 Mayeur, ‘Histoire de Ratsimila-hoe’, fol. 86v.

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid. fol. 85r.

62 Ibid. fols. 84v–85r.

63 Le Gentil, Voyage dans les mers de l'Inde, ii, 526.

64 Louis Carayon, Histoire de l'établissement français de Madagascar (Paris, 1845), 13–14.

65 Berg, ‘Sacred musket’, 265–7.

66 Letter of 26 Mar. 1733, quoted in Ratsivalaka, ‘Madagascar dans le sud-ouest’, 115.

67 Ibid.

68 Ratsivalaka, ‘Madagascar dans le sud-ouest’, 116–18.

69 Mayeur, ‘Histoire de Ratsimila-hoe’, fol. 137v.

70 Clement Downing, A History of the Indian Wars (London, 1924 [1737]).

71 Hans Turley, Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash: Piracy, Sexuality and Masculine Identity (New York, 1999), 73.

72 Downing, A History of the Indian Wars, 106. Captain Avery was one of the most famous of the Madagascar pirates.

73 Ibid. 114.

74 Deschamps, Les pirates, 217–18.

75 Westra and Armstrong (eds.), Slave Trade with Madagascar, 135, for short biographies of Frappé and Van der Lint. The latter uses variant spellings of his own name, such as Van der Linden.

76 National Library of South Africa, Cape Town, MSD 10: ‘Journael gehouden door den Commies Willem van der Linden in den Jaere 1716 van Cabo de goede hoop na Madagascar Anzuam’, entry for 15 Oct. 1715. As Westra and Armstrong note (Slave Trade with Madagascar, 41–3), Van der Lint fell ill at this time and the dates of his journal entries became confused.

77 Ibid. 97.

78 Ibid. 129.

79 Ibid.

80 Ibid. 147.

81 Mayeur, ‘Histoire de Ratsimila-hoe’, fols. 138v–139v.

82 Le Gentil, Voyage dans les mers de l'Inde, ii, 529.

83 Charles Guillain, Documents sur l'histoire, la géographie et le commerce de la partie occidentale de Madagascar (Paris, 1845), 22–3.

84 Vérin, The History of Civilization in North Madagascar, 112.

85 Note in Mayeur, ‘Histoire de Ratsimila-hoe’, fol. 107r.

86 Ibid. fol. 84v.

87 Manassé Esoavelomandroso, ‘Antagonisme des Fanjakana’, in Madagascar et le christianisme (Antananarivo and Paris, 1993), 49.

88 Mauritius National Archives, HB3: correspondence of Louis-Armand Chapelier, 1805–6, fol. 252. Chapelier wrote that, according to oral traditions he gathered on the east coast in 1805, Matavy was not Ratsimilaho's wife but simultaneously his grandmother and aunt, due to an incestuous union. Ibid. fol. 254.

89 Ratsivalaka, ‘Madagascar dans le sud-ouest’, 116–18, 135.

90 Sylla, ‘Les Malata’, 27–8.

91 Cf. G. A. Rantoandro, ‘Hommes et réseaux malata de la Côte orientale de Madagascar à l'époque de Jean René (1773–1826)’, in Annuaire des pays de l'océan Indien, vol. XVII (2001–2), (Aix-en-Provence, 2003), 114–15.

92 Decary, L'Etablissement de Sainte-Marie de Madagascar, p. 6; on Betti's later existence in Mauritius (where she became known as Betsy), see Megan Vaughan, Creating the Creole Island: Slavery in Eighteenth-century Mauritius (Durham NC, 2005), 105–7.

93 Mauritius National Archives, HB7: Barry to Lesage, 20 April 1816.

94 Fulgence Fanony, ‘Fasina: tradition religieuse et changement social dans une communauté villageoise malgache’ (Doctorat de 3e cycle, Paris, 1974), 33.

95 Le Gentil, Voyage dans les mers de l'Inde, ii, 529. Emphasis in original.

96 Raison-Jourde, ‘Introduction’, 21.

97 Cf. Paul Ottino, L'étrangère intime: essai d'anthropologie de la civilisation de l'ancien Madagascar (2 vols.) (Paris, 1986).

98 Robert Drury, Madagascar; or Robert Drury's Journal, During Fifteen Years' Captivity on that Island, ed. Pasfield Oliver (London, 1890 [1729]), 34.

99 Cf. Kent, Early Kingdoms in Madagascar, ch. 5.

100 Robert Cabanes, ‘Guerre lignagère et guerre de traite sur la côte nord-est de Madagascar aux XVIIe et XVIII siècles’, in Jean Bazin and Emmanuel Terray (eds.), Guerres de lignages et guerres d'états en Afrique (Paris, 1982), 143–88.

101 Ratsivalaka, ‘Madagascar dans le sud-ouest’, 151.

102 Berger, ‘Les raisons de la colère’, 244.

103 Vérin, Madagascar, 74.