Monsoon Postcards. David H. Mould

The sparse cattle pasture soon dried up. There were no minerals. Smart sent out ships to seek trading opportunities, but they returned with discouraging news; the French and Dutch had established settlements on the east coast and threatened hostile action if the English tried to trade. By August, the St. Augustine colony was running out of supplies. The locals, writes Mervyn Brown, “who were usually friendly and ready to trade . . . became either non-cooperative or openly hostile when they realized that the visitors intended to settle and take some of their land.” The settlers got into disputes over cattle and rashly joined local clans in raids on their enemies. Dysentery and fever took their toll. When the colony was abandoned in May 1646, only sixty-three of the original settlers had survived. “I could not but endeavour to dissuade others from undergoing the miseries that will follow the persons of such as adventure themselves for Madagascar,” wrote one of the survivors, Powle Waldegrave.⁴

      So ended, after little more than a year, the first English attempt to establish a colony. French trading settlements lasted longer, but none of the European trading powers succeeded in establishing a permanent commercial foothold on the island until French colonization in the late nineteenth century. English ships continued to call at St. Augustine, and some locals adopted English names, but no attempts were made to reestablish a settlement. After the French abandoned Fort Dauphin in 1674, trading contacts were mostly with pirates who preyed on European ships bound from the Cape to India and the Far East, and Arab vessels trading with East Africa. Pirate ships called in at St. Augustine and other west coast anchorages for provisions but did not establish settlements because of opposition from the powerful Sakalava kings and the danger of encountering warships on the main route to India. Although the south became part of the Merina Empire, its clans were never fully subdued. The French colonial government imposed nominal control, but historically this has been a region that has always resisted central authority.

      The City That Never Sleeps