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a brief note on Madagascar's position in African history
plus, early industrialization in the Merina kingdom.
The island of Madagascar has for long languished on the periphery of African historiography. The reluctance of some Africanists to look beyond the east African coast stems partly from the perception of Madagascar as insular and more 'culturally' south-Asian than African, despite such terms being modern constructs with little historical basis in Madagascar's society. Recent research on the island's history has bridged the chasm between the island and the mainland, revealing their shared political, economic and genetic history that defies simplistic constructs of colonial ethnography.
The long chain of islands extending outwards from the east African coast through the Comoros archipelago to northwestern Madagascar comprised a series of stepping stones that formed a dynamic zone of interaction between the African mainland and Madagascar. Its on these stepping stones that African settlers continously travelled to Madagascar, establishing settlements along the northern and western coasts of the island and in parts of the interior, where they were joined by south-Asian settlers from the eastern coast to create what became the modern Malagasy society.
The north-western coast of Madagascar was part of the 'Swahili world', with its characteristic city-states, regional maritime trade, and extensive interaction with the hinterland. From these interactions emerged an economic and political alliance which drew the Malagasy and Swahili worlds closer: warring Swahili and Comorian elites recruited Malagasy allies to conduct long-distance naval attacks, Malagasy elites were integrated in Swahili society, and the movement of free and servile Malagasy into the east African coast was mirrored by a similar albeit smaller movement of both free and servile east Africans onto the island.
The evolution of states on the island and their complex interactions with their east African neighbors and the later colonial empires, closely resembles that of the kingdoms on the mainland. At the onset of European imperial expansion on the east African coast, the largest power on the island was the kingdom of Merina, which controlled nearly 2/3rds of the Island during the reign of king Radama (r.1810-28) and Queen Ranavalona (1828-1861). Often characterized as a profoundly sage monarch, king Radama recognized the unique threats and opportunities of the European presence at his doorstep, and like Afonso of Kongo, he invited foreign innovations on his own terms, and directed them to his own advantage. After the relationship between Merina and its European neighbors soured, Radama and his successors created local industries to reduce the kingdom's reliance on imported technology, and like Tewodros of Ethiopia, Radama retained foreign artisans inorder to establish an armaments industry.
<Next week's substack article will explore the history of the Merina kingdom from the 16th century to the late 19th century.>
The early industry of Merina is the subject of my latest Patreon post in which I explore the kingdom's economic history during the early 19th century when the Merina state, foreign capital and local labour, converged to create one of the most remarkable examples of proto-industrialization in Africa.
read more about it here:
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