History of Madagascar

His son Radama I the Great expanded its authority to the island's other polities and was the first Malagasy sovereign to be recognized by foreign states as the ruler of the greater Merina Kingdom.

[10] During French rule, Malagasy people were required to fulfill corvée labor on French-run plantations while access to education or skilled positions were limited, although basic services like schools and clinics were extended across the island.

Popular unrest led to the socialist Democratic Republic of Madagascar under Admiral Didier Ratsiraka (1975–1992) distinguished by economic isolationism and political alliances with pro-Soviet states.

In 2009, archaeological excavations at Christmas River (south-central Madagascar) by Pat Wright and James Hansford located a purported elephant bird kill site, with bones showing human cut marks.

[17] Finally, a cutmarked pygmy hippo bone from Ambolisatra has been dated and calibrated to between 60 BC and 130 AD (2 SDs), but it is from a coastal swamp without indications of settlement in a heavily karstic region.

They probably arrived on the west coast of Madagascar with outrigger canoes (waka) at the beginning of our era or as much as 300 years sooner according to archaeologists,[28] and perhaps even earlier under certain geneticists' assumptions.

[44] By 600, groups of these early settlers had moved inland and began clearing the forests of the central highlands (Imerina), where they particularly planted taro (saonjo) and probably rice (vary).

The rising intensity of land cultivation and the ever-increasing demand for zebu pasturage in the central highlands had largely transformed the region from a forest ecosystem to barren grassland by the 17th century.

The Malagasy names for seasons, months, days, and coins in certain regions come from Arabic origins,[53][54] as do cultural features such as the practice of circumcision, the communal grain-pool, and different forms of salutation (such as salama).

Meanwhile, with competition in the new joint naval powers of Song China and Chola South India, the thalassocracies of Indonesia were in rapid decline, though the Portuguese still encountered Javanese sailors in Madagascar in the sixteenth century.

[64] Finally some sources theorize that during the Middle Ages, Arab, Persian and Neo-Austronesian slave-traders[49] brought Bantu people to Madagascar transported by Swahili merchants to feed foreign demand for slaves.

Notable pirates including William Kidd, Henry Every, John Bowen, and Thomas Tew made Antongil Bay and Île Sainte-Marie (a small island 12 miles off the northeast coast of Madagascar) their bases of operations.

Today, the people of Madagascar can be considered as the product of mixing between the first occupants, the vahoaka ntaolo Austronesians (Vazimba and Vezo) and those arrived later (Hova neo-Austronesians, Persians, Arabs, Africans and Europeans).

This fact would require a starting common home among the Proto-Malagasy vahoaka ntaolo (gone west to Madagascar) and the ancestors of the current Polynesians (left for the Pacific Islands in the East) between 500 BCE – 1 CE.

Those new immigrants of the Middle Ages were a minority in numbers, yet their cultural contributions, political and technological to the neo-Vazimba and neo-Vezo world substantially altered their society and is the cause of the major upheavals of the sixteenth century that led to the Malagasy feudal era.

The birth of these kingdoms/tribes essentially altered the political structure of the ancient world of the Vahoaka Ntaolo, but for the most part the common language, customs, traditions, religion and economy was preserved.

Even prior to their eventual domination and unification of the entire island, the political and cultural activities of Merina royalty were to leave an indelible mark on contemporary Malagasy identity.

Andrianampoinimerina distinguished himself from other kings by codifying laws and supervising the building of dikes and trenches to increase the amount of arable land around his capital at Antananarivo in a successful bid to end the famines that had wracked Imerina for decades.

The king ambitiously proclaimed: Ny ranomasina no valapariako (“the sea is the boundary of my rice-field”), and by the time of his death in 1810 he had conquered the Bara and Betsileo highland tribes, laying the groundwork for expansion of his kingdom to the shores of the island.

In years to come, the French would show the Lambert Charter and the prince's letter to Napoléon III to explain the Franco-Hova Wars and the annexation of Madagascar as a colony.

[79] Rasoherina married her prime minister, Rainivoninahitriniony, but public outcry against his involvement in the murder of Radama II soon forced his resignation and exile to Betsileo country south of Imerina.

In 1869, Queen Ranavalona II, previously educated by the London Missionary Society, underwent baptism into the Church of England and subsequently made the Anglican faith the official state religion of Madagascar.

[81] Angry at the cancellation of the Lambert Charter and seeking to restore property seized from French citizens, France invaded Madagascar in 1883 in what became known as the first Franco-Hova War (Hova as a name referring to the Merina aristocrats).

In Europe, meanwhile, European diplomats had worked out an agreement whereby Britain, in order to establish control over the Sultanate of Zanzibar, ceded its rights over the island of Heligoland to Germany and renounced all claims of influence in Madagascar in favor of France.

[citation needed] In 1895, a French flying column landed in Mahajanga (Majunga) and marched by way of the Betsiboka River to the capital, Antananarivo, taking the city's defenders by surprise (they had expected an attack from the much closer east coast).

The United States and the Kingdom of Madagascar concluded a commercial convention in 1867 after which Queen Rasoherina and Prime Minister Rainilaiarivoy exchanged gifts with president Andrew Johnson.

[84] During the reign of Ranavalona I, early attempts at industrialization took place from 1835 under the direction of the French Jean Laborde (a survivor of a shipwreck off the east coast), producing soap, porcelain, metal tools and firearms (rifles, cannons, etc.)..

[98] Zafy eventually won the power he sought after but suffered impeachment at the hands of the disenfranchised parliament in 1996 for violating the constitution by refusing to promulgate specific laws.

[95] Ratsiraka went on trial (in absentia) for embezzlement (the authorities charged him with taking $8m of public money with him into exile) and the court sentenced him to ten years' hard labour.

In January 2009, protests which then turned violent were organized and spearheaded by Andry Rajoelina, the mayor of the capital city of Antananarivo and a prominent opponent of President Ravalomanana.