From its base in Menabe, the kingdom gradually expanded to dominate the west-central region within a few decades, according to traditions, and Sakalava rulers tried to maintain good relations with the groups they encountered and eventually conquered.43 Neighboring states became tributaries to Sakalava royalty, either willingly or after defeat by Sakalava forces. Sakalava rulers integrated prominent families into their own through a process of intermarriage and blood-brotherhood ceremonies (fati-dra). The fati-dra ceremonies, described at length by European visitors to the island in later years, served to create quasi-familial alliances between the royal family and local leaders.44 Sakalava rulers also married into these families and, from them, may have adopted many local religious practices, including ancestor worship. Thanks to these ceremonies and marriages, the descendants of rulers from incorporated communities were now celebrated as part of the Sakalava ruling family and dynasty. Sakalava rulers also allowed the groups they conquered to remain on their land, thus benefiting from the commerce and labor of their newly acquired tributaries.45 By the early eighteenth century, Europeans observed that tributary groups sent the Sakalava royalty annual gifts in the form of silk, rice, sheep, vegetables, and slaves, in return for peace.46 Tributary leaders appear to have retained, at least ostensibly, some of their independence and freedom, as long as they continued to send regular supplies of food and slaves. In remembering the process of incorporation into the Sakalava state, the Vezo fishermen of the west coast stated that, despite being tributaries to the Sakalava for the past few centuries, they were never fully subservient.47
Sakalava traditions insist that the expansion of the state was due to the military power of their rulers. European observations suggest two other reasons why neighboring groups joined the Sakalava state: for protection against a growing slave trade and to safeguard food supplies. Other communities in the region may have agreed to be incorporated into the expanding Sakalava state as they sought protection from slave raiders, who seem to have been expanding their activities throughout Madagascar in response to demands from both European and non-European slavers.48 Although large numbers of slaves were not exported directly from the west-central coast until later in the seventeenth century, the slave trade from the northwest coast may have been carrying away men, women, and children from the interior of the island decades earlier. For instance, in 1665, a Frenchman living on the east coast of Madagascar described the devastation wrought by predatory slave raiders operating throughout the island.49 These attackers likely targeted the west-central region of the island as well, given the trading links that existed between port cities to the north and the Menabe region. According to seventeenth-century Portuguese visitors, the Sakalava king Andriamandazoala had at least five hundred armed men at his side in 1613.50 People living on the west coast of Madagascar may have desired the stability and protection of these men. By the early eighteenth century, men living in western Madagascar told Drury that they came willingly to the Sakalava king’s side, knowing that they “fight for their own security and ease, and when they get any plunder from their enemies, they think themselves sufficiently rewarded.”51 Drury also argues that Sakalava rule had enabled the country to grow “not only vastly populous, but rich, and the people live in plenty as well as peace.”52
In addition to protecting their subjects against enslavement, the Sakalava rulers also secured and redistributed food supplies within a relatively arid region. Exports of foods such as rice, beans, and tubers from St. Augustin Bay and Massaliege may have been stressing local communities by the mid-seventeenth century. It is telling that food, along with slaves, was included in tributary payments to Sakalava rulers. Supplies of cattle and rice were seen also as rewards for serving the king.53 Furthermore, around 1527, a Portuguese visitor to western Madagascar described finding little food for purchase, and there are no records of the Portuguese attempting to purchase provisions from the west-central region during the sixteenth century.54 It seems unlikely that large supplies of cattle and rice were for sale on the west-central coast, as rice was primarily grown further in the north and interior of the island and cattle were highly valued and seldom eaten, except on ceremonial occasions. This situation changed within the next century, at least in the west-central portion of the island. Portuguese sources describe how the king Andriamandazoala provided visiting priests with plentiful food in 1613, suggesting either increased agricultural production or the ability of the Sakalava to tap into additional supplies of food for export, through trade or frequent raiding.55 While the Portuguese did not list the food they obtained during this visit, we do know that people in the ports directly to the north at this time possessed rice, millet, “mungo,” beans, peas, nuts, bananas, ginger, sugarcane, and limes.56 Likewise, by the time Drury visited the island, coastal communities had devised means for supplying vessels with ample food and water during their stays in west-central Madagascar.57 During the early eighteenth century, the Sakalava king himself owned thousands of cattle, many of them acquired through warfare.58
According to seventeenth-century Portuguese reports, Andriamandazoala possessed a supply of unfree laborers obtained from throughout the island. One slave woman told the Portuguese that she had been marched across three countries (“pays”) before arriving at the ruler’s capital.59 Sakalava rulers probably used a variety of strategies to acquire these laborers, with some purchased from other groups and others captured through warfare or given in tribute. Drury mentions that many of the captives seized in warfare, especially women and children, were only kept as ransom and were returned to their families once the latter agreed to ally with the Sakalava.60 Those who remained enslaved may have been used for cattle herding, in addition to some agricultural and household labor. Royal ownership of slaves may have served to bolster Sakalava power, as it did in later periods.61
It appears, as historian Stephen Ellis has argued, that the Sakalava wars of the mid-seventeenth century predated the rise of a large slave trade with Europeans from the region.62 Despite the lack of slave exports to Europeans, there was evidence that Sakalava rulers were becoming more interested in engaging in trade with passing ships. According to traditions, the Sakalava ruler Andriandahifotsy (also referred to as Lightfoot, c. 1614–1683) established a permanent seat of power at his palace in Mahabo, a town along the shores of the Morondava River.63 Mahabo was a convenient base for controlling long-distance trade in the region, as the Sakalava ruler could easily reach interior portions of the island along the river as well as have access to the coastal port of Morondava. By the 1730s, Andriandahifotsy was particularly revered for the role he had played in consolidating Sakalava control over commerce from the region.64
European sources confirm that Andriandahifotsy began to take tentative steps toward forming a relationship with European merchants visiting western Madagascar, although this period was marked by considerable misunderstandings, as the following story makes clear. According to French merchant François Martin, a group of forty-five Frenchmen sailed to the west-central coast of Madagascar in the mid-seventeenth century.65 The French commander found a welcoming river inlet and went ashore to negotiate with a local ruler, named “Lahe Foutchy” (likely Andriandahifotsy). The French narrator described Lahe Foutchy as not only one of the richest lords of this region, but one of the greediest. After the king refused to sell the Frenchmen provisions for cheap prices, the French commander led his troops inland into a region rich in cattle and, the French hoped, gold. On their march into the interior, the French forces encountered an army numbering twelve to fifteen thousand men, all armed with spears. The men, led by Lahe Foutchy, massacred all of the soldiers save one, a Portuguese man who later escaped to the French trading post at Fort Dauphin.66
A few years later, the French sent another ship to explore the western coastline.67 In passing the region controlled by Andriandahifotsy, the French captain sent representatives to the shore, where the sailors met with some islanders. They appeared peaceful, so the French ship came to anchor along the coast. Around