MAP 2.1. Indian Ocean
Ships from the Portuguese Estado da Índia rarely visited Madagascar at first, but after the gradual accumulation of information about the large island, so close to their settlements on the East African coast, Portuguese explorers and traders expressed interest in visiting it more frequently.29 They hoped to find untapped supplies of spices and precious metals on the “very large island” so close to their East African trading posts.30 In 1507, Afonso de Albuquerque, the second viceroy of Portuguese India, wrote a letter celebrating the ready availability of cloth, gold, silver, and rice on the island.31 One man they encountered even suggested that clove trees grew along the northwest coast of Madagascar.32 In an effort to gain support from the Portuguese crown for further expeditions, Albuquerque asserted that the ginger in Madagascar was superior to that of India.33 Another Portuguese official later reinforced Albuquerque’s contentions, promising “that, if a caravel is brought to these parts [Madagascar and the Comoros] in the monsoon, great service will be done to Your Highness and that much gain will come to you.”34 In Madagascar, officials believed, the Portuguese could purchase “things which made them imagine they had reached India.” Once there, they would find that the “good people” on the island sold a type of pepper, as well as scented wood and wild cinnamon, in return for iron goods and cloth.35
For Europeans residing in East Africa, there were far more practical (and realistic) reasons to visit the island. Provisions had to be acquired continually for the many soldiers and merchants who lived in Portuguese forts and trading posts. The Portuguese could purchase rice, millet, sugar, and cattle from key trading centers in East Africa near Sofala and Kilwa Island, but these exchanges were prone to disruption thanks to frequent (often Portuguese-instigated) conflict in the region. Over the long term, these supplies were insufficient for the Portuguese military as well as their small, but growing, settler population.36 As early as 1506, Portuguese officials in charge at Kilwa Island complained they were unable to feed not only the men at the fortress, but also sailors left ashore by shipwrecked vessels, and African leaders were refusing to provide them with food.37 The Portuguese colony at Mozambique Island, a dry and largely barren island, faced similar challenges as it grew, especially after the building of a hospital for sick sailors by the middle of the sixteenth century.38
The Portuguese believed that large quantities of food could be obtained from northwest Madagascar, especially rice and livestock.39 This belief was reinforced when they became aware of frequent commercial traffic across the Mozambique Channel. Since the tenth century, ports in the north of Madagascar, home to an Islamized population, had attracted merchants and migrants from East Africa, the Middle East, and even the Far East.40 At least a dozen ports were identified in northern Madagascar by the late fifteenth century by the Arab geographer Ibn Mājid.41 The most prominent, at least according to sixteenth-century Europeans, was Massaliege (also referred to as Mazalagem, Mathaledge, etc.). The port was home to six or seven thousand people, many of them Muslim with ties to East African populations.42 Ports throughout northwest Madagascar functioned as entrepôts for the fertile interior of the island, as the bays on this coastline, such as Boina, were connected to long rivers.43 These rivers provided access to rich agricultural land and enabled the easy transportation of provisions as well as other trading commodities to the island’s shores. The Portuguese learned that the “fair Island of St Laurence” was home to “sheep and much rice and maize, also many oranges and lemons.” Fish were plentiful along the coast and in rivers. The availability of goats, cows, corn, fruits, cloth, and timber also enticed Portuguese captains.44 Rice particularly interested the Portuguese, who became aware of a brisk export in the grain to the Middle East via Kilwa.45 During their early explorations, they noted that rice supplies in the northwest of Madagascar were so plentiful that twenty ships could not exhaust supplies of the grain.46
Food exports were complemented by a traffic in captive laborers. According to one visitor, the large ports along the northwestern coast were surrounded by farmland and large herds of cattle, with much of the work completed through slave labor.47 While this Portuguese assessment was made on the basis of only tenuous evidence, it was clear from other sources that thousands of people were sold on the shores of the island throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As early as 1506, Portuguese passing by the northwest coast of Madagascar observed a bustling slave trade conducted by “Moors.”48 Other sixteenth-century visitors to the island described a traffic with “Arab” traders whose ships carried as many as five thousand slaves from the northwestern ports of Madagascar annually.49 The exact magnitude is difficult to judge, in part because the enslaved individuals were shipped to a wide variety of destinations, including Malindi, Mombasa, Mogadishu, Muscat, and Aden.50
Many slaves came from the interior of the island, along with quantities of foodstuffs. In 1640, the captain of the English vessel Frances described his visit to “Mattaledge” (likely Massaliege), where he observed the trade between the people near “Mackamby island” (Nosy Komba?) and those on Madagascar. In March and April of each year, he reported, people from the interior (the “Hoves”) moved in a caffalo (caravan) with ten thousand head of cattle and two to three thousand slaves, both to sell on the coast. Other exports included rice, hides, goats, hens, and various exotic woods.51 The trade the Portuguese first observed may have been conducted in a similar manner, with slaves being sold for luxury goods such as fine cloth and precious metals.52 By the mid-seventeenth century, Portuguese traders had established a regular slave trade on the northwest coast, judging by Dutch mentions of a Portuguese trading agreement with the “strongest king” on the island, perhaps residing in Massaliege.53 Slaves that originated in Madagascar may have been purchased by Portuguese merchants visiting the Comoro Islands or on the East African coast.54 The Portuguese preferred other sources for slave labor, although the trade from East Africa was not particularly large before the late eighteenth century.55
Even with the establishment of this food and slave trade with the islanders, misunderstandings were rife. Following their visits to the ports of Madagascar, Portuguese noted the lack of strong centralized authority, with the rule of coastal leaders rarely appearing to stretch far beyond their port cities. Portuguese visitors viewed political, religious, and linguistic divisions among the islanders as a positive feature, making the island more easily conquered.56 This was not the reality. Northern coastal communities participated in trading networks that were openly hostile to the Portuguese, particularly in light of their frequent battles for control with Muslims. In 1506, shortly after their discovery of Madagascar, Portuguese sailors and soldiers raided the port cities of “Sada” and “Langane” in northwestern Madagascar. They burnt homes and seized supplies as coastal inhabitants fled.57 The Portuguese attackers pursued them into the interior, where they captured the frightened islanders, while other Portuguese watched from the shore as “the sea [became] strewn with drowned men, women, and children.” In a letter to the king, Albuquerque estimated that over a thousand people had died in the two raids. Those who survived were taken captive and given to the Portuguese soldiers, with each “to take as many as he liked.” As their final act of treachery, the Portuguese commander oversaw the theft of goods from the ports, including fine cloth from India, some silver and gold, as well as a large quantity of rice. It took the Portuguese forces three days to complete their plundering.58
Further aggravating tensions, Portuguese missionaries endeavored to convert coastal peoples in Madagascar, including Muslim populations.59 The inhabitants of northwestern Madagascar were willing to trade with visiting European merchants in times of peace, but showed increased concern when the Portuguese threatened to become a more permanent presence on their shores, such as when they established a settlement for trade and Catholic missions at Massaliege in 1585.60 The growing antagonism between the missionaries and the coastal people resulted in the murder of a Portuguese
