“…all the Marks of Royalty about them…”: Malagasy Connections and Statecraft “On Their Own Terms” in the Long 18th Century

Histories of Madagascar have long emphasized the eclectic character of Malagasy culture and polities. In this essay I argue that Malagasy leaders took considerable influence and advice from Euro-American pirates but adhered to longstanding Indigenous traditions of celebrating foreignness and assimilating foreign ideas into their own, often malleable belief systems.Through a long eighteenth century starting in the mid-seventeenth century with the first use of muskets in Malagasy warfare and ending in the early nineteenth century with the consolidation of the Merina kingdom, the fortunes and failures of two Malagasy groups––the Sakalava of the west coast and the Betsimisaraka of the east coast––tell a remarkable story of indigenous groups’ discoveries of the Western world. Culminating in the establishment of the Merina kingdom in the central highlands of Madagascar, this period is a remarkable display of indigenous statecraft “on their own terms,” a process that made extensive use of foreign (especially piratical) connections, technology, traditions, and people while retaining distinctly indigenous traditions and sensibilities.