Complex Strands: Changing Textile Trades in Western Madagascar and the Mozambique Channel in the Nineteenth Century, Evidence from Nosy Be Island

Abstract

This article examines the textiles trades of the west coast of Madagascar through the commercial relations and connections of Nosy Be with East Africa, the Comoro islands, the Mascarenes, India, French and other European imperial and metropolitan interests. It argues that, despite having been overlooked by historians in favour of Madagascar’s east coast economy centred on Tamatave, the island of Nosy Be in the far north-west of the island provides a critical vantage point from which to study the commercial exchange dynamics centred on a variety of textiles in the nineteenth century, a period of marked upheaval in the western Indian Ocean. Despite competition from European and American cloths — involving state perquisites granted to French textiles — Indian and other regional cloth continued to maintain important markets amongst Malagasy consumers into the early twentieth century.