Chapter XVII: The French in Madagascar

The Island of Madagascar is possibly alluded to by the Alexandrian
Greek geographer, Ptolemy, who wrote during the 2nd century after
the birth of Christ, as “Menouthias[211],” and by other classical
geographers as Monouthis or Menoutheseas; though it is more probable
that at most Pemba, Zanzibar or one of the Komoros was meant both by
Ptolemy’s informants and the unknown authors of the Periplus of the
Erythræan Sea who first used the term “Menouthias” a century earlier
(about 50 A.C.). Then comes a break, and when the study of geography
is resumed in Europe the allusions to this island are more obvious,
and evidently come through post-Islamic Arabs; a large island in the
Indian Ocean is alluded to as “Albargoa,” and “Manutia-Alphil.”
Older Arab names were rendered in medieval European geography as
Serandab, Phenbalon, Quambalon. Later an allusion is made to it in
Arab writings as “Jazirat-al-Komr”—“Island of the Full Moon”; but
this name more probably applies to what are still called the Komoro
Islands, an adjoining archipelago. On the maps of the Venetian
geographers Fra Mauro and Andrea Bianco, between 1457 and 1459,
wherein use has been made of Arab information, the Cape of Good Hope
is indicated (forty years before the discovery of Diaz) as Cavo di
Diab(olo), and Madagascar is given as a triangular island to the
north-east, and has on it the names of Sofala and Xengibar. From
Arab sources we learn that an Indian dau in 1420 rounded the
southernmost point of Africa—“Cape Diab”—and, turning again
eastward, sailed back past Madagascar, on the shore of which island
they discovered a rukh’s egg[212]. Madagascar was mentioned and
described in much fuller detail and with allusions to the gigantic
bird (whose fossil remains were discovered in the 19th century) by
Marco Polo the Venetian explorer at the beginning of the 14th
century. Polo obtained his information from Arab sea-captains of the
Persian Gulf. More authentic news of Madagascar was sent to Portugal
near the end of the 15th century by Pedro de Covilham, whose
journeys overland to India have been alluded to in Chapter IV. On
the 1st of February, 1506, a Portuguese fleet sent out by King
Manoel, under Francisco de Almeida, discovered the east coast of
Madagascar; but the island had already been sighted by a Portuguese
sea-captain on the 10th August, 1500, and named “São Lourenço,”
because the discovery was made on St Laurence’s Day. In 1507 its
west coast was visited and its shape more clearly defined by Gomez
d’Abreu. The name “Madagascar,” like the adjective “Malagasy,” is
probably of native origin, the former having been introduced in its
present form by Marco Polo and the Portuguese, and the latter by the
French.

It was not until 1540 that any Portuguese actually settled on the
island, and those who made this venture at its south-east extremity
were nearly all massacred in 1548. At the end of the 16th century
the Dutch visited Madagascar, and about the same time Dominican,
Ignatian, and Lazarist monk-missionaries made an unsuccessful
attempt to obtain a hearing for Christianity. Between 1618 and 1640
English and Dutch adventurers nibbled at Madagascar, but the hostile
and treacherous attitude of the natives and the unhealthy climate of
the island coasts caused these attempts to end invariably in
disaster. In 1642, however, the French “Company of the East” was
formed under the patronage of Cardinal Richelieu with the main
object of colonizing Madagascar. Pronis, a French Protestant of
dissolute habits, was sent out as Governor. Two years later a rival
project for the same purpose was started in England under the
presidency of Prince Rupert, and a small station was founded at St
Augustine’s Bay; but this was soon after abandoned, and the Company
broken up on account of the Civil War in England.

The name of the first French settlement at the south-east extremity
of Madagascar was “Fort Dauphin.” Pronis, whose immoral life shocked
the French settlers, was replaced as Governor by Flacourt, but the
fortunes of the settlement were chequered. The parent Company got
into trouble, and its charter was abolished. The royal concession of
Madagascar was then bandied about from nobleman to nobleman, and was
finally sold to Louis XIV, who, having reassumed these rights on
behalf of the crown, sent out the Duc de la Meilleraye. One of the
officers of the staff of the Duc de la Meilleraye was Vacher de
Rochelle, who explored the country, and acquired the rare advantage
of winning the friendship of the Malagasy. Vacher de Rochelle, for
some unknown reason nicknamed and ordinarily known as La Case[213],
was admired by the natives for his courage, and was invited to marry
the heiress of a powerful native chief. He did so, and becoming
dissatisfied with the mismanagement of the French settlement retired
into the interior, and became King-Consort of the state of Ambole at
the death of his father-in-law. Nevertheless, when the French got
into difficulties with the natives and were hard pressed, Vacher de
la Rochelle came to their assistance with great bravery. This
remarkable person, whose life should be written by some framer of
romances, died about 1671, assassinated by a native.

In 1664 the French East India Company was founded, and took over
Madagascar amongst other concessions under the pretentious title of
Gallia Orientalis. As if to punish them for this overweening
assumption, a great massacre occurred eight years afterwards,
leading to the almost entire extinction of the French settlers round
Fort Dauphin. The few survivors fled to the Island of Bourbon, which
the French had taken in 1638-43. Nevertheless, in spite of this
disaster, the French Government calmly annexed Madagascar by an
Order in Council of 1686, which was confirmed in 1719, 1720, and
1725.

At the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century,
European pirates—English, French, and Dutch—who had begun to infest
the eastern seas, and to trade in defiance of the commercial
monopolies given to various Chartered East Indian companies,
gradually made Madagascar their headquarters, and formed several
strongly fortified settlements hidden away up creeks or inlets or
the mouths of rivers. Some of these pirates founded a cosmopolitan
city of freedom which they called “Libertatia,” on the island of St
Marie, off the east coast of Madagascar. They were swept away by
British and French war vessels in 1722-23. Numerous half-caste
offspring—known as _Malata_ by the Malagasies—arose from these
unions with the native women; and men of this hybrid type sometimes
became powerful chiefs.

In 1750 the French East India Company created a settlement on the
island of St Marie de Madagascar, which underwent violent
vicissitudes of fortune for the first few years of its life. In 1768
Fort Dauphin was for a short time reoccupied. In that year a man of
superior scientific attainments, M. Poivre, was appointed Governor
of Mauritius and initiated a scientific investigation of Madagascar
by sending thither a French naturalist, Philibert Commerson, who, as
the result of his brief examination of the flora and fauna, pointed
out the isolated character of Madagascar. In 1774 the French
naturalist Sonnerat[214] visited Madagascar, and discovered the
Ravenala or “Traveller’s Tree,” and that extraordinary aberrant
lemur, the Ayeaye (_Chiromys_).

In 1772 Madagascar was visited by a type of adventurer then very
uncommon, an Austrian Pole, called Benyowski, who alternately
offered his allegiance to France and England, and ultimately tried
to carve out for himself a native Malagasy principality, as the
result of which he was killed by the French in 1786.

Allusions were made in the first two chapters of this book to the
Malay invasion of Madagascar. This great island seems to have at
first been peopled by negro or negroid races from East Africa, while
Arabs had from very early days settled for trading purposes in the
adjoining Komoro Islands[215] and in the north of Madagascar. But at
a period of time probably antecedent to the Christian era Madagascar
was invaded by a people of Malay stock, coming thither from the
Malay Archipelago. Despite the vast distance which separates Java
and Madagascar, there is a current always streaming from the Sunda
Islands towards the east coast of Madagascar and the Komoro Islands;
another flows more towards Ceylon, the Maldivs, and the Seychelles.
Aided by the east Trade Winds, Malay outrigger canoes with sails
might conceivably be driven across the Indian Ocean to Madagascar in
a few weeks. Even of recent years cases have been known of Javanese
junks being stranded on the Komoro Islands, in one case with a
Javanese crew on board. However, numbers of Malays or rather
Polynesians must have invaded Madagascar simultaneously in order to
be able to overcome and absorb the previous negro inhabitants. It
would almost seem as though we had here an instance of deliberate
over-sea colonization on the part of this interesting race, which at
the same time was pushing eastward, almost further from its base, to
the Hawaii Islands. When the term “Malay” is used to describe these
Asiatic invaders of Madagascar it does not necessarily imply the
direct descendants of the Malays of the Malay Archipelago, but those
of an older race, from which Malays, Polynesians, and other
non-Papuan peoples of the Pacific are descended—a divergent branch
of the Mongol stock intermixed with an Indonesian (Caucasian)
element, perhaps also tinged with the Melanesian[216].

About the middle of the 18th century there was a tribe dwelling on
the high plateau of East-central Madagascar, known as the Hovas but
really bearing the name of Merina (Imerina) or even calling
themselves “Malagasy.” They were more recent colonizers of
Madagascar from across the sea, who, having landed on the coast of
the great island, some hundreds or even a thousand years ago, left
as quickly as possible the malarial coast region and forced their
way through the forests to the cool and open plateaus of Imerina.
Here they were much harried by the more mixed races around them, who
were of stronger physique. At last, driven into a corner, they
turned at bay, and from being the persecuted became the persecutors;
by means of much better military organization they pursued and
conquered the tribes which had harassed them; and their conquests,
spreading to the east coast and the south, brought them into contact
with European traders and settlers.

In 1792 the National Assembly of France sent M. Lescallier to visit
Madagascar. In 1801 Bory de St Vincent went thither and announced
that the colonization of Madagascar would atone to France for the
loss of San Domingo. In the following year Mr Inverarity, of the
Honourable East India Company’s service, made a survey of Bembatoka
Bay, a harbour on the west coast, since better known by the name of
its principal town, Mojanga. Lord Keith, a British admiral cruising
in these waters, visited the place in 1791, and directed the
attention of the Indian Government to the worth of Madagascar. In
1807 the French, in spite of British hostilities, made a determined
attempt to settle at Foule Point[217]. In the following year,
Impoina, the most powerful Hova chief on the Imerina plateau, died,
leaving the supreme Hova chieftainship to his second son, Radama.

When the British had seized Mauritius, Bourbon, and the Seychelles
Islands, it was determined to finish the work of clearing the French
out of the Indian Ocean by taking the trading stations which still
remained in their possession on the east coast of Madagascar,
namely, Tamatave and Foule Point. In 1811 this was effected, and
Tamatave was occupied by British soldiers. This capture was ratified
by the definite treaty signed at Paris on May 30, 1814, which ceded
the settlements in Madagascar as “one of the dependencies of
Mauritius[218].” The Island of Bourbon was, however, restored to
France by this treaty. (In 1848 it was re-christened Réunion.) Sir
Robert Farquhar, a very enterprising governor of Mauritius, obtained
soon afterwards a large concession from the native chiefs of the
north-east of Madagascar, which included Diego Suarez Bay. Various
proclamations were issued in the _Mauritius Gazette_ claiming
Madagascar as a British possession. On the other hand, it had been
agreed that all French possessions in Madagascar which were in
existence in 1792 were to be restored to France by England; but as a
matter of fact, in 1792 France held no post in Madagascar, all
places having been abandoned. Tamatave was not founded till 1804.
All this confusion was due to the ignorance of local geography, then
most characteristic of both British and French Government offices.
Nevertheless, it is clear that France imagined that she still had
rights over Madagascar, because in 1817 the French Governor of
Bourbon protested against the British proclamation declaring
Madagascar an appendage of Mauritius, and the French protest was
further supported by the reoccupation of the island of St Marie de
Madagascar. While Sir Robert Farquhar was in England on leave of
absence, the Acting-Commissioner, a military officer named Hall,
deliberately undid much of Sir Robert Farquhar’s work, and thereby
prejudiced any further insistence on British claims over Madagascar.
Subsequently, when Sir Robert Farquhar returned, he deemed it the
better policy to back up the efforts of the Hova king Radama to
conquer the whole of the island, and proclaim himself king of all
Madagascar, in spite of a protest from the French, which was
absolutely disregarded.

In 1818 the first missionaries of the London Missionary Society
arrived, and established themselves on the Hova Plateau. Radama was
much helped in his conquests by the loan of several English soldiers
and non-commissioned officers, amongst whom one made himself
specially prominent, a Mr Hastie. By degrees Radama took possession
of Tamatave (held for some years by a French mulatto, Jean René),
and of all other French posts on the mainland of Madagascar,
including Fort Dauphin. Here he cut down the French flag and
deported the small French garrison to the island of St Marie de
Madagascar. Radama died in 1828, and was succeeded in a very
irregular, Catherine-the-Great manner by his senior wife,
Ranaválona. But her policy was not that of her great prototype in
Russia, for it was a reactionary return to barbarism. She persecuted
the native Christians and the missionaries, showed the greatest
enmity to any foreign influence, and so flouted the French that the
latter were compelled to take some notice of her hostility. In 1829
the Government of Charles X decided to send a small expedition
against Madagascar, which was to be largely composed of Yolof
soldiers from Senegambia—a new departure in European warfare in
Africa to be afterwards largely followed. The French bombarded
Tamatave successfully, but were repulsed at Foule Point, though they
made a successful attack on another Hova post. Still, the results of
the expedition were ineffective, though the Prince de Polignac wrote
to the Queen of Madagascar proposing a French protectorate, with
French stations at Diego Suarez, St Augustine’s Bay, and other
places on the coast. But the Government of July reversed this
policy, and evacuated all French posts on the mainland of
Madagascar, after which there was not for years a Frenchman on
Madagascar soil, with the exception of a remarkable personage named
Laborde, originally a French shipwrecked sailor, who had been sent
up to the Queen of Madagascar for her to decide on his fate. From
his comely appearance he found great favour in her eyes, and was the
only European tolerated at her court, where he attained a very
influential position. In 1833 a French surveying party had
pronounced Diego Suarez Bay to be a very suitable place for a
settlement.

During the thirties of the last century Queen Ranaválona had made
herself infamous by her persecution of the native Christians and by
forcing all European missionaries to leave the island; in addition
to which her soldiers, in exacting tribute and in emphasizing their
conquests over the Sakalavas, committed the most atrocious cruelties
and wholesale slaughters. The Queen of Madagascar, feeling at last
even in her remoteness that she was banned by Europe, sent an
embassy in 1836 to William IV of England, but the envoys effected
nothing in the way of renewing friendly relations.

In 1840 the Sakalavas[219], driven to desperation by the Hova
attacks, placed themselves under French protection, with the result
that France, to enforce her protectorate, occupied the islands of
Nosi Mitsiu, Nosi Bé, and Nosi Komba, as well as the island of
Mayotta, in the Komoro Archipelago. In 1845 the Hova Government
intensified its unfriendliness to Europeans by expelling all foreign
traders from Tamatave. This action roused the French and English
Governments, who replied by a joint bombardment of Tamatave.
Unhappily, the bombardment was followed by a landing party, which
met with a most disastrous repulse, which neither France nor England
thought fit to revenge otherwise than by breaking off all political
and commercial relations with Madagascar. Between 1847 and 1849 the
French had abolished slavery in Réunion and in their Madagascar
possessions; but this philanthropic action subsequently caused
outbreaks among the Sakalavas, who were angry at having their
slave-trading operations interfered with by the French.

Between 1847 and 1852 the queen’s son, Rakoto, heir-apparent to the
throne, applied at intervals for French protection, in order that he
might depose his mother and put an end to her ferocious policy. No
very definite answer was made to these appeals (which possibly were
not genuine, but fabricated for their own purposes by the Frenchman
Laborde, who still lived at the Malagasy capital, and by a M.
Lambert, who visited Madagascar as a slave-trader); nor were they
followed up by any action on the part of the French Government. In
1853 the merchants of Mauritius, finding that the Madagascar
Government continued to refuse to pay the indemnity demanded by the
British Government for the disaster of Tamatave (in consequence of
which refusal trade with Tamatave was forbidden), subscribed amongst
themselves and paid up the indemnity to the extent of £3125. Trade
was then reopened. In 1855 the French adventurer and
ex-slave-trader, Lambert, visited Tanánarivo, the Hova capital, and
after an interview with Prince Rakoto, conveyed from him to the
French Government fresh proposals for a French protectorate; but
these were rejected by the Emperor Napoleon III, because he was
loyal to the British alliance and would do nothing in Madagascar
which might seem unfriendly to Great Britain.

In 1856 Mr Ellis, one of the pioneers of the London Missionary
Society’s agents, who, after many years of work had left Madagascar
in despair in 1836, was invited to return thither to confer with the
Queen, and went out as an informal messenger of the British
Government. His mission resulted in nothing, however. Lambert, the
French adventurer, returned to Madagascar in that year, and escorted
to the capital Mme Ida Pfeiffer (one of the earliest of women
travellers, the Mrs Isabella Bird of her day). Lambert plotted a
_coup d’état_ which should place Rakoto on the throne under French
influence, with Lambert himself as Prime Minister. But Rakoto was
frightened, and kept his mother informed of the conspiracy. It was
therefore nipped in the bud, and Lambert and Laborde were promptly
expelled from the country, the latter after many years’ residence
losing in one day all his property in lands and slaves. But in 1861
this ferocious old Queen, who had ruled Madagascar with a rod of
iron for 33 years, and had successfully set Europe at defiance,
died, and was succeeded by her son Rakoto, who took the title of
Radama II.

If Ranaválona, his mother, was like Catherine of Russia, Radama II
resembled in his brief career Catherine’s predecessor, the unhappy
Peter III. He reversed the Queen’s anti-Christian policy, abolished
customs’ duties, and was such an enthusiastic reformer as almost to
suggest flightiness. He invited and received an English envoy in
1861. Laborde and Lambert returned, and were received by him with
almost extravagant affection. The foolish King signed without
hesitating a deed presented to him by M. Lambert which gave the
latter the most extravagant concessions in Madagascar. He is also
supposed to have created Lambert “Duc d’Emirne,” a title, however,
which the ex-slave-trader soon found it wiser to drop owing to the
ridicule it entailed. At this time also Roman Catholic
missionaries[220] came out to settle in the Hova country. Mr Ellis
also returned, and brought letters of congratulation from the
British Government. The English missionaries re-established
themselves, and in 1862 British and French Consuls were established
at Tanánarivo. The French Consul was Laborde, who had resided for so
many years in Madagascar. But the Hovas were profoundly dissatisfied
with their King’s reforms and extraordinary generosity to Europeans.
A palace revolution took place in 1862, and the unhappy Radama was
strangled. A female cousin, Rabodo (Rasohérina), was proclaimed
Queen, but was dominated by the Prime Minister, as have been
subsequently all the remaining queens of Madagascar. The French
treaty was denounced on account of Lambert’s claims. These last were
compounded for finally by the payment of £36,247. 7_s._ in silver.
The concession was returned to the Malagasy envoys, and solemnly
burned at Tamatave.

The whole procedure of the French Government in supporting Lambert’s
unfair claim profoundly affected the Hova people, and caused them to
be suspicious in future of all European enterprise. Queen Rasohérina
died in 1868, and was succeeded by her cousin, Ranaválona II, who
established Christianity as the state religion. In her reign arose a
very powerful Prime Minister, afterwards to be famous as the
opponent of the French, Rainilaiarivóny. In 1872 the French
Government again allowed its influence in Madagascar to wane, and
withdrew its subsidy from the Jesuit missionaries; but with
returning energy, and in the dawn of the new phase of colonial
activity, it resumed a more active policy at the beginning of the
eighties. Laborde, the French Consul, died in 1878, but the Malagasy
Government opposed his landed property passing to his heir on the
plea that he was only a life tenant, and that no land could be
alienated in Madagascar. The French Government supported the claims
of Laborde’s heirs, and disputed the matter between 1880 and 1882,
at the same time reviving the idea of a French protectorate over the
Sakalava of North-west Madagascar. The situation becoming strained,
the Madagascar Government sent a mission to Europe, but it was
unsuccessful in obtaining assurances of support. The Malagasy argued
with some justice that the French treaty of 1868 recognized the
Queen’s rule over the whole mainland of Madagascar, and made no
mention of any French protectorate over the Sakalavas. But we know
in the fable that the lamb’s arguments availed but little with the
wolf. The French had endeavoured in 1881 to find cause for a quarrel
in the murder by the Sakalavas of four French subjects on the west
coast of Madagascar, and claimed an indemnity from the Hova
Government; which, logically, they could not have done if the
country had been under a French protectorate. The Malagasy
Government promptly paid the indemnity demanded; but, when later on
they endeavoured to strengthen their authority over the Sakalavas,
they were forbidden to do so by the French. In the following year,
1882, a French protectorate over the northern coast was distinctly
asserted, and the demand was made that the Hova flag should be
withdrawn from those territories. The demand was refused, and the
French Commissioner left Tanánarivo. Lord Granville in 1882
protested against the assertion of French claims to the North-west
coast of Madagascar, but received no immediate reply, nor was the
opposition of the British Government deemed an obstacle worth taking
into account, seeing that we had already tied our hands with the
occupation of Egypt. It was, however, asserted by the French with
some degree of truth that a certain Sakalava chief opposite Nosi Bé
had concluded protectorate treaties with France in 1840 and 1843.

Another cause of complaint which France urged against Madagascar was
the passing of a law in 1881 forbidding the Malagasy to sell their
land to foreigners; but in 1883 this complaint was somewhat obviated
by other edicts facilitating the transfer of land on perpetual
leases[221]. Nevertheless in May 1883 war broke out between France
and Madagascar, and the French fleet under Admiral Pierre captured
Mojanga. Subsequently Admiral Pierre steamed round the island, and
anchored in the roadstead of Tamatave, where he found H.M.S. Dryad,
Commander Johnstone, already watching events. The French admiral,
after delivering an ultimatum, which was rejected, bombarded and
occupied Tamatave, and destroyed other Hova establishments on the
East coast. Mr Shaw, an English medical missionary, was established
at Tamatave, and, beyond rendering medical assistance to the wounded
natives, took no part in the struggle. Nevertheless, his dispensary
was broken into, and he was arrested, accused of poisoning French
soldiers[222], and closely confined as a prisoner on the French
flag-ship. The British Consul, Pakenham, who had gone down to
Tamatave and was very ill, was ordered to quit the town in 24 hours,
but died before this time elapsed. Anglo-French relations were
severely strained by the attempt of the French to intercept Captain
Johnstone’s mails. When the news of French action reached England Mr
Gladstone made a very serious speech in the House of Commons
regarding Mr Shaw’s arrest. The French Government, feeling its
agents had gone too far, made a conciliatory reply. Mr Shaw was
released, and given an indemnity of £1000. In the meantime the Queen
of Madagascar died, and was succeeded by another Queen, Ranaválona
III. Admiral Pierre also fell ill, and died just as he reached
Marseilles. His successor, Admiral Galiber, did much to restore
cordial relations between the British and French officials by his
courteous manner. In 1884 an Englishman named Digby Willoughby, who
had been a volunteer in the Zulu war, succeeded in running a cargo
of arms and ammunition across to the south coast of Madagascar, and
in reward for his energy was taken into the service of the Malagasy
Government, made an officer in their army, and finally rose to be
their Commander-in-Chief. The war dragged on through 1885, causing
some dissatisfaction and lassitude in France. It is probable that
the French Government would not have insisted on the protectorate
but for German action on the adjoining coast of Africa, which caused
the French to feel that in the African scramble they should be
fairly represented. At last a treaty of peace was negotiated, and
finally concluded in January, 1886. General Willoughby represented
the Malagasy Government at Tamatave, and concluded a treaty in their
name. This agreement gave France a virtual protectorate over
Madagascar—at any rate, a control over her foreign relations—an
establishment at Diego Suarez Bay, and an indemnity of £,400,000.

A few months later, in June 1886, France declared her protectorate
over all the Komoro Islands, of which she had already annexed
Mayotta in 1840.

In 1890, England, in return for the waiving of French opposition to
a British protectorate over Zanzibar, recognized a French
protectorate over Madagascar. But the Malagasy themselves had been
sullenly refusing their recognition of any such protectorate and
endeavouring to shake themselves free of the trammels of the 1886
treaty. It was believed in England and in France that the conquest
of Madagascar would be an extremely difficult undertaking, that the
opposition of the Hovas would be a determined one, and that their
warlike energy combined with the terribly unhealthy climate would
make success doubtful or dearly purchased. For some nine years,
therefore, the French Government put up with many a rebuff from the
powerful Prime Minister of Madagascar. But at last the French were
obliged either to let their protectorate become a dead letter or
enforce their right to a predominant influence at the Malagasy
court. Their ultimatum in 1895 was rejected. A powerful French
expedition was sent—over 10,000 French soldiers, and an equal number
of Senegalese. The idea of landing at Tamatave and forcing a way up
to the capital through dense forests and across steep mountain
terraces was wisely abandoned, and in preference the forces entered
Bembatoka Bay (Mojanga), on the west coast, and were transported up
the Ikopa river. From the point where its navigability came to an
end they started overland for Tanánarivo, which was captured after
the feeblest resistance on the part of the Hovas[223].

At first an attempt was made to continue the government of the Queen
of Madagascar under French protection, but this only led to
treachery and intrigue on the part of the Hovas. The Prime Minister
was exiled, the Queen was deposed, and exiled first to Réunion and
subsequently to Algiers. In 1896 the island was annexed to France,
and became a French colony. At the same time, and by this act of
annexation, the commercial treaties of other nations with Madagascar
were annulled; the coasting trade was confined to vessels flying the
French flag; and the fiscal policy adopted was that of the severest
Protectionist type, the commerce and enterprise of other nations
being practically excluded from Madagascar. These actions gradually
came to be apprehended and resented in England, where in the
previous recognition of the French protectorate no intention
whatever had existed of abandoning British commercial rights.

The Hova rule was bloody and barbarous, and more recent by quite a
hundred years than the first establishment of European influence.
But it at least established freedom of religion[224], and complete
freedom of commerce and enterprise for all civilized nations. By
pursuing this retrograde policy in commerce and religion France has
somewhat alienated the sympathy and interest with which one might
otherwise have watched her resolute intention to civilize
Madagascar. But from all accounts—British and French—the persistent
efforts of the first great administrator of Madagascar (General
Galliéni) to restore law and order and to open up this island of
228,000 square miles to cultivation and civilization produced
favourable results between 1897 and 1905[225]. The slaves have been
emancipated (in 1896); Tanánarive (the French, as it was the Hova
capital) has been transformed into a fine town of European aspect.
Roads are being rapidly made, canals have been dug to connect the
coast lagoons with the sea and the mouths of rivers, and railways
into the interior are in course of construction[226]. Already the
connection of Tamatave, the principal port on the East coast, by
railway with Tanánarivo the capital is nearly complete. Gold, iron,
copper, lead, silver, zinc, and many other metals and minerals are
being worked. Agriculture has not been neglected, and of late
Madagascar has begun to export rice. Rubber, wild and cultivated, is
entering into the list of exported products, of which the principal
are gold, cattle, hides, coffee, vanilla, cloves, and silks. The
land has not been taken from the natives, and the native population,
said to have at first decreased under French rule, has of late shown
a distinct increase. In 1911 it was found by census to number
3,054,658; of whom only 13,539 were of European race (7606 being
French). Forced labour in the public service was abolished in 1901.
The natives are a good deal governed by their own elected chiefs and
notables, and of late years very little local legislation has been
enacted without taking the leading native authorities into
consultation.

The mass of the Malagasy people are growing in contentment and
well-being under the paternal rule of a French governor-general, but
the volume of trade has not markedly increased and remains at about
an annual value of £3,000,000. And nearly the entirety (£2,300,000)
of this is done with France or French possessions, differential
duties and other forms of protection having greatly hampered foreign
trade with Madagascar since 1896.

As already mentioned, France had annexed the Mascarene Islands of
Mauritius (Ile de France) in 1715 and Réunion (called Bourbon from
1649 to 1848) in 1643. Both were taken from her by Britain in the
Napoleonic wars; but, though Mauritius was kept by the British,
Réunion was restored to France in 1815. (Both islands had been held
by the French East India Company till 1767, when they became
appanages of the Crown.) Réunion has an area of 965 square miles and
a population—nearly all white—of about 174,000.

The Komoro Islands to the north-west of Madagascar (area, about 760
square miles, population of Muhammadan negroids about 100,000) were
finally annexed to France in 1910 and are now under the Madagascar
government.

-----

Footnote 211:

There is stronger evidence to show that Menouthias was a little
island—Zanzibar, probably—close to the African coast. Menouthias
is repeated in the Arab name _Manutia_, and Al-phil means
“ivory”—the ivory island or market.

Footnote 212:

Almost certainly this was an egg of the gigantic _Æpyornis_. The
Æpyornis, a ratite bird as large as, or larger than, an ostrich
and distantly allied to both ostriches and cassowaries, lived on
in Madagascar to the human period—say two thousand years ago or
even later. It was quite possibly seen alive by the earliest Arab
visitors to the island.

Footnote 213:

But by the natives as Andrian Potsy, i.e. “White King.”

Footnote 214:

Already famous for his discoveries in India; a beautiful jungle
fowl is named after him.

Footnote 215:

The Malay immigration into the Komoro Islands was relatively
slight. The bulk of the population here is composed of East Coast
negroes, speaking a Bantu dialect allied to the tongues spoken on
the Zanzibar coast. There was a large influx of Arabs, however;
and this mingling with the negroes produced the present race of
the Komoro Islanders, a very fine type of the successful results
that attend the mixture of the Semite and the negro.

Footnote 216:

The Hovas, or Merina, as they are properly called, of Central
Madagascar bear a strong physical resemblance to the Javanese.
They seem to have reached east Madagascar much later than the
ancestors of the Sakalava and Betsi-misáraka, and subsequently to
the Arabs. The Merina ruling caste is very “Malay” or Mongoloid in
appearance.

Footnote 217:

A post a little to the north of Tamatave on the east coast.

Footnote 218:

Further confirmed by the treaty of the 13th of November, 1815.

Footnote 219:

The tribes of the western half of Madagascar, a finer race
physically than the Hovas owing to their greater intermixture with
negroes. They now number about 156,000.

Footnote 220:

In 1840 Jesuit priests had again endeavoured to establish
themselves in Madagascar, on the north-west coast, but they all
died from fever.

Footnote 221:

This law was completely abrogated by the French in 1896, and
foreigners can now acquire land as easily as natives.

Footnote 222:

Who had made themselves ill by appropriating and drinking his
claret—that was all.

Footnote 223:

Whether the Hovas had overlooked the Mojanga route and had decided
to concentrate all their resistance on the approach from Tamatave
is not known; but after their repeated boasts as to the determined
resistance they would make to an invader, the collapse of their
defence and the feebleness of the resistance they offered to the
French are matters of considerable astonishment. It must have been
mainly due to the fact that the Hova rule over the bulk of the
island was hated, and that the other tribes were not inclined to
fight for its maintenance.

Footnote 224:

Since the annexation to France, and the consequent dominating
influence of the Roman Catholic missionaries, many natives have
been constrained to exchange their Protestant faith for Roman
Catholic Christianity.

Footnote 225:

Particulars as to General Galliéni’s reforms and the resulting
condition of Madagascar are given in an article “French Policy in
Madagascar,” in the October _Journal_ of the African Society,
London, 1904.

Footnote 226:

The French occupation of Madagascar has resulted in great gains to
science. Noteworthy are the investigations in palæontology of the
two Grandidiers and of M. A. Jully, which have revealed a
marvellous extinct fauna of lemurs, hippopotami, carnivores,
birds, and giant reptiles.