of harboring their enemies following attacks in East Africa and used this “alliance,” along with the death of the priest, to justify a Portuguese attack on Massaliege in 1587.61 By the early seventeenth century, some Portuguese blamed an implacable hatred of Christians and the strength of the “commercial sphere of the Arabs” for discouraging the Muslims of the northwest ports of Madagascar from trading with them, although Portuguese violence was a more likely cause of this hostility.62
Even outside of the north of Madagascar, further from the influence of East Africa, the Portuguese were unable to develop a stable trading presence. Portuguese missionaries focused some of their earliest conversion efforts in Antanosy (near Taolagnaro), a region in the southeastern portion of Madagascar where Portuguese settlers were lured by promises of abundant silver and gold.63 Portuguese missionaries, traders, and soldiers formed a small trading post there in 1510. Their attempts to convert rulers were unsuccessful. The search for gold and silver mines was also abandoned. The Portuguese once again blamed their failures on religious differences, although the influence of Islam in this area was far more diffuse than in the north.64
By the seventeenth century, many Portuguese still struggled to maintain peaceful relationships with island leaders. An English visitor reported the following story in 1640 and some portions of his narrative can be confirmed by referring to a letter written by a Portuguese priest around the same period.65 King Tinguimaro (Itongomaro), the ruler of “Mangakelly” (Mangakely) on the island of “Assada” (likely Nosy Be) had been trading with the “Moors” and Portuguese for decades.66 These interactions were described as generally peaceful, until two of the king’s wives (or concubines) were found missing after the departure of some Portuguese merchants. The English narrator tells us that “it was knowne” to the islanders that the merchants had taken the women back to Mozambique. The king sent a message to Massaliege informing the Portuguese that they should not return to his island until they returned the women. He explained that he had already converted to Christianity and expected a certain level of respect from the Portuguese.67 Portuguese merchants returned the women to Nosy Be two years later and the king assured the kidnappers that he was not angry. Instead he told them that “they were wellcome and made them a great feast.”68 Yet after one of the women appeared with a light-skinned child of European parentage, the king was offended and killed one of the Portuguese men. Both women were also put to death. The king died soon after, his heirs suspecting poisoning by the Portuguese and vowing revenge, although there is no evidence they were ever able to achieve this aim.69 The English, trading rivals of the Portuguese by 1640, may have been told an exaggerated version of the story, but this incident suggests violence continued to mar relationships between Portuguese and island officials.
Another encounter, described by one of the first Dutch to visit the region, provides further evidence of Portuguese influence. When the ruler of the Comorian island of Mwali (Mohéli), dressed like a “Turque,” boarded a visiting Dutch ship in 1601, he instantly began questioning the Dutch captain, Admiral G. Spilberg, about navigation and European maps.70 By the time other European groups arrived in northwestern Madagascar, many of the leaders and traders could speak passable Portuguese and this ruler was no exception.71 The king on this small island, to the surprise of the captain, not only proved knowledgeable in the art of navigation, but also had recently traversed the Red Sea during a trip to Mecca. His ease in trade with the European merchants also reflected a century of engagement with Portuguese traders. As if to confirm this fact, a few days later Spilberg spotted a ship sailing between East Africa and Madagascar, carrying Indian cottons and slaves. Even more remarkably to Spilberg, “mulattoes” manned the ship. These “half-Portuguese” spoke Portuguese, were dressed in Portuguese clothing, and carried Portuguese firearms.72
Such trade was the norm between the ports of northern Madagascar and Portuguese settlements on the East African coast by the seventeenth century.73 By the early seventeenth century, a ship was reportedly dispatched annually from the Portuguese base at Querimba for cows, goats, ambergris, slaves, and cloth woven of “rushes” from northern Madagascar.74 Many of the ships that crossed the channel were African-owned, African-operated vessels, spurred on by Portuguese demand, and this trade remained free of Portuguese monopoly controls. The Portuguese used Indian cloth and firearms to buy food and slaves from the African merchants who frequented visited Madagascar.75 In spite of this regular commerce, the trade of the Estado da Índia remained far more focused on commodities found in the northern Indian Ocean and the East African interior.76 Without further research into Portuguese archives, the extent of the trans–Mozambique Channel traffic remains unknown, but Mozambique Island’s proximity to East Africa suggests that exports from Madagascar were less essential to the Portuguese colonists than those from the continent.77
Perceptions of Madagascar as an island both “beautiful and fertile” still persisted among the Portuguese.78 In 1667, the Jesuit Manoel Barretto argued that “if any European nation should take possession of St. Lourenço [Madagascar] Portugal may well give up all desire of the whole conquest from the Cape of Good Hope to the entrance of the straits, of which they will be masters who are masters of St. Lourenço.”79 Many seventeenth-century Portuguese may have agreed with him. Portuguese officials in East Africa looked on with dismay as the Dutch, English, and French all attempted to establish themselves on the large island to their east. In fact, when other Europeans expressed interest in settling Madagascar, the Portuguese reacted by attempting to prop up their own claims in East Africa. Newitt suggests that Portuguese dependence on the food of Madagascar and, by extension, the Comoro Islands, may also explain why the Portuguese never attempted to conquer the Comoros, as they feared disrupting regional commerce.80 Exports from Madagascar, even absent the fine cloth and desirable spices found elsewhere along the ocean’s littoral, still wielded a noticeable influence over Portuguese officials.
THE DUTCH AT MAURITIUS AND THE CAPE
By the middle of the seventeenth century, the Portuguese were no longer dominant in the trade of Madagascar. Their Dutch, English, and French rivals were newly influential on the island, as they were throughout the entire ocean.81 The Dutch began regularly visiting Madagascar after 1595 and the French and English followed less than a decade later.82 As Michael N. Pearson argues, the Dutch and English trading companies, unlike the Portuguese, “adroitly mixed skilful trade with the selective use of military force.”83 The careful focus on economic advantage that the Dutch brought to their plans for control in the ocean led them to only engage with Madagascar to support their trade elsewhere within the Indian Ocean. They had fewer colonial and religious aspirations on the large island than the Portuguese a century earlier and yet the Dutch had a greater impact on political and economic life on the island.
FIGURE 2.1. Dutch VOC ships visiting Madagascar, by decade, 1590–1780. Sources: See appendix for full documentation.
The rivalry between the Dutch and Portuguese formally began in 1602, with the formation of the Dutch Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC). The VOC intended to forcibly and violently dominate European trade in the ocean. In addition to competing in Southeast Asia, VOC merchants targeted Portuguese holdings in East Africa, already weakened by Arab and African hostility, and mounted an unsuccessful attack on Mozambique Island in 1607.84 Madagascar rarely enters into this history of conflict. The Dutch themselves knew little about Madagascar initially, as the sixteenth-century reports of Jan Huygen van Linschoten make clear.85 The Dutch were so focused on securing spices, as highlighted in historical studies of the VOC, that their engagements with Madagascar seemed to be an afterthought. Stories of negotiations for rice pale in comparison to those detailing bloody conflicts over nutmeg and cloves in Southeast Asia.86
It is true that most early Dutch fleets only landed on Madagascar by accident or out of great necessity. Yet, given the length of
