[7] The Tsimihety trace their origins back to the eastern coast, having migrated with their cattle to the Mandritsara plain in the 18th century as leaderless refugees fleeing the slave wars ongoing in their homeland.

Soon afterward they accepted the rule of the Volafotsy, a clan associated with the Maroserana who had migrated north from Sakalava territory.

However, in 1823, Radama I, the Merina king, brought the entire island under one rule, including the Tsimihety, and abolished the international slave trade.

To this day they have maintained a reputation as masters of evasion: under the French, administrators would complain that they could send delegations to arrange for labor to build a road near a Tsimihety village, negotiate the terms with apparently cooperative elders, and return with the equipment a week later only to discover the village entirely abandoned – every single inhabitant had moved in with some relative in another part of the country.

The Tsimihety represent one of the rare examples where the culture was innately anti-government, where states Graeber, all forms of government had effectively been withdrawn even from countryside and communities.

[13][14] The Tsimihety people are patrilineal, and kin relationships with the male ancestors and descendants are most important to both men and women.