Independence Day Part I: How Madagascar accidentally became a Colony

Every country, or just about, has a national holiday. For the overwhelming majority of the world’s nations, that holiday in centered on the themes of either independence or revolution, mostly from colonial powers or the transition from one ideological government to the next. Coincidentally, most of those national holidays celebrate independence from one of two countries, Great Britain and France. Even the United States celebrates its independence from the British Empire. In fact, we Americans kind of started that trend. Similarly, Madagascar celebrates its independence from France on June 26th. I would have written about this topic closer to the date, but we left the capital and all its celebrations early on the 27th, and I only recently returned. It’s a long and complicated history, so I’ll break it up into three parts. But for now, let me tell you how Madagascar accidentally became a French colony.

Before colonization, Madagascar consisted of 18 major tribes until King Radama I and the Merina tribe conquered most of the island by the early 1800s with the help of new firearms provided by the British. His successor, Queen Ranavalona I, took the throne and began rapidly modernizing the country going so far as to build a major foundry in Mantasoa and establishing strong foreign relationships with European powers. There were actually quite a few noble Malagasy sent to the UK and France for education. Nonetheless, she continued a delicate dance between pleasing two major European powers who vided for influence over the island kingdom, Britain and France. Although the British were the first to send missionaries, build schools, and train craftsmen, both countries desired some of the island. In fact, this is why in Malagasy, the word for school and book are “sekoly” and “boky” and not écôly or livre. Still, the Protestant British missionaries soon found themselves in competition with French Jesuits all throughout the island.

Mind you, Madagascar never actually played a major geographical role in the Indian trade. The west cost of the island was not really suitable for building major ports because of the sparce and hostile population. Moreover, it was more sensible to travel along the coast of Africa rather than risk the cyclone-prone east coast of Madagascar where there were actual ports. To this day, the major port city of Madagascar, Tamatave, is located on the eastern shore. More importantly, once the Suez Canal was completed in 1869, Madagascar presented no viable value whatsoever for expanding trade in the Indian Ocean. Thus, both countries’ interest in the island are still a mystery.

Both Britain and France seemed to take interest in the island only insomuch as the other did. If Britain sent more missionaries, then France would send more. When France did so, Britain would increase again. So on, and so forth. Neither country really had much intention in colonizing Madagascar at all. In fact, the Malagasy government was at odds with both Britain and France over the local slave trade which the Malagasy government refused to abolish despite Britain’s coercive attempts and France’s blind eye to the Malagasy slaves being shipped to Réunion and Mauritius, sizeable plantation island several hundred miles east of Madagascar. Even so, the Malagasy preyed on this petty competition by making deals with both sides, knowing that either country would try to outdo the other.

Surprisingly, Madagascar actually had a stronger relationship with Britain than it did with France although France claimed a legal influence over the kingdom. After the first Queen, who persecuted Christians and slaughtered thousands of her own people, died, her successors built a church on the royal grounds, an Anglican church, not Catholic. And despite hating foreigners, the Queen also had many European advisors, both British and French. She’s the one who paid a Frenchman to build European foundries. She’s often called the cruel queen because during her 30-plus years of ruling the island, the population of Madagascar is suspected to have declined by about a million. Some Malagasy nationalists try to paint her in a better light these days. Particularly in the early 21st century, there were those who tried to interpret her as a strong Malagasy nationalist who tried to ward off the foreign conquerors. But the opinion is not held by many, and the overwhelming majority of evidence points to the fact that she was an insane ruler no matter what spin you want to put on it.

Nonetheless, in short, neither Britain nor France seemed to take their competition over the influence of Madagascar seriously, which makes the French colonialization of Madagascar that much more intriguing and bizarre.

This is the way it remained until the French finally invaded the island in 1895, which, if I might add, is an extremely late date for conquering anything in Africa considering the Berlin Conference, which split up Africa to the colonial powers, took place in 1884. Until the French invasion, however, Madagascar continued to live under its Merina monarchy which officially dissolved in 1897, but effectively ended after the death of Radama II, Ravanalona I’s successor. After Radama II’s death, only a few years after taking the throne, there was a succession of three Malagasy queens. Nonetheless, at this point, the Malagasy government had adopted a parliamentary system, whose prime minister craftily gave himself full reigning powers, not only in all decisions, but also by starting the tradition that the ruling queen marries the prime minister. He married each successive queen and remained in power until the French invaded the island. What a fox.

Anyways, at some point in the late 19th century, Britain claimed a territory that is modern day Zimbabwe, which, at the time, was a region collectively called Rhodesia. When Britain did this, France freaked out, to put it lightly. For whatever reason, France was dissatisfied with Britain’s annexation of Rhodesia and demanded satisfaction. The accord? Well France could finally take full influence of Madagascar and annex it as it saw fit. Britain happily agreed to this deal because, again, after the opening of the Suez Canal many years earlier, Madagascar presented no value as a colony. After the agreement, the French government realized they needed to do something about this new territory it had annexed without any notice or consent of the Malagasy government, which, at this point, was a recognized government by several nations. So, in 1895, France rounded up what soldiers it could and invaded the island from the north, which was not necessarily the easiest path.

By this time in Madagascar’s history, the island nation had a quite modernized army. The foundry built by French industrialist Jean Laborde in Mantasoa had produced thousands of small firearms, rifles, swords, and even modern artillery. In fact, the 500 cannons defending the island were of equal quality to those made in Europe and were manufactured entirely in Madagascar. By all measures, the Malagasy army not only matched the equipment of their French opponents, but had significant advantages in geographical knowledge, disease resistance, numbers, and, presumably, morale.

Nevertheless, Madagascar has a long history of incompetent leadership. The prime minister was afraid that if their modernized army confronted the French and lost, then they would lose all their valuable machines of war. His solution? Send an army with technology nearly 100 years out of date to fight one of the most professional armies in the world. That’s right, he sent thousands of untrained Malagasy soldiers with flint-lock muskets (which had been out of day before 1800) to fight against a French army with modernized rifles, perhaps even chamber loading carbines, and modern howitzer cannons. The results were inevitable.

The Malagasy army had never really fought in a modern war before, only used to fighting groups of rebels who wielded nothing more than axes, spears, and occasionally a captured sword or musket. Thus, when the Malagasy engaged the professional army of France, they broke ranks and hightailed it back to Antananarivo. The French slowly made their way to the capital, losing countless soldiers to malaria, typhoid, and other tropical diseases, until they reached the outskirts of the capital and began bombarding the city with artillery. It didn’t take long for the Malagasy to surrender. And so, within a few months, France had begrudgingly taken on another colony it didn’t really want, but felt it had to conquer to save face.

After the conquest of Madagascar, the French immediately began implementing a francophone system of, well, just about everything. This included expelling all British influence and deconstructing old institutions to replace them with enlightened French institutions from the French Revolution. But what French colonialism looked like is the topic for the next blog. Suffice it to say, this is how Madagascar accidentally became a colony of France and began a long, strained, and often violent relationship between the Red Island and the Hexagon (a nickname for France because it has 6 sides).

As always, know that you are in my prayers each morning. All I ask is that you do the same for me.

May God be praised.