'One That's More Torrid': The Pirates of Madagascar

Misson Part v Johanna

This island, northwest of Madagascar and off the coast of modern-day Mozabique now known as Anjouan, one of the Comoro islands, was in fact a regular port for European sailors. As Malyn Newitt notes in the "Encyclopedia of African History," Vol A-G (2005), the island was known for "fresh water, [...] relatively protected anchorages and a population anxious to do business."

While the proximity to mainland Africa meant clear "political and linguistic" connections between Comoro islanders and "the Swahili coast and southern Arabia," a version of a Madagascar's native language was spoken on the islands for centuries before the arrival of these pirates, Malagasy pirates often "put ashore" on the Comoro islands "as stepping stones in the trade between northwest Madagascar and the rest of the Arabian Sea" and in "times of political conflict, Comoran sovereigns sought mercenaries from the northern portions of the relatively populous and nearby Big Island" (Larson 331). 

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