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. 7s. 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.