Madagascar's Royal Enslavement: The Rise of the Antalaotra Slave Trade

Long before the Merina kingdom consolidated control over the highlands, Madagascar's northwest coast was a hub of Indian Ocean commerce — and one of its most lucrative commodities was people. This episode traces the rise of the Antalaotra, Muslim Swahili traders who established city-states along the Malagasy coast from the 13th century onward, and their transformation of the island into a major source of enslaved labor for the Mascarene Islands, the Comoros, and beyond. We follow the story of Nosy Be and Nosy Komba, where slave markets flourished under the shadow of an evolving Sakalava kingdom, and examine how the demand for slaves reshaped Malagasy societies, fueling conflict and state formation. We also explore the little-known kingdom of the Antalaotra themselves — a Muslim Malagasy culture that blended African, Arab, and Malagasy traditions — and their eventual absorption by the expanding Merina empire under Radama I. This episode draws on the accounts of early European visitors like Robert Drury and the French pirate-turned-governor Étienne de Flacourt, as well as oral traditions recorded in the sorabe manuscripts. #Antalaotra #MadagascarSlaveTrade #IndianOcean #SakalavaKingdom #RadamaI #NosyBe #NosyKomba #SwahiliCoast #RobertDrury #ÉtienneDeFlacourt #Sorabe #MascareneIslands #Comoros #MalagasyHistory #SlaveTrade #EastAfrica #History #FexingoHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo