Feeding Globalization - Jane Hooper Indian Ocean Studies Series

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century. By the nineteenth century and with the advent of the steamship, fewer merchants tended to call at Madagascar for provisions as they crossed the oceans.17

      Despite the short-lived role of the island as an important node in transoceanic trade, these years of exchanges would have far-reaching ramifications for both the islanders and Europeans who encountered one another across the feasting table. The sudden presence of kings wielding firearms in Madagascar’s ports was the clearest innovation. As elsewhere in Africa, these individuals seemed to gain power as a consequence of the slave trade. Scholars from J. E. Inikori to Warren Whatley have repeatedly emphasized the negative impact of the transatlantic slave trade on African societies and noted an increase in political instability and economic impoverishment during the era of the slave trade. The transatlantic slave trade produced “a series of unfortunate transformations” in Africa, in the words of Patrick Manning.18

      More recently, some historians have presented a more nuanced version of this history. By identifying the traffic in slaves as part of broader economic transformations within the continent, they suggest that while the slave trade was disruptive, it did not completely sever trading connections between African communities, nor did the trade completely destroy opportunities for economic advancement for some Africans. Some of this literature focuses on understanding the transition to “legitimate” (non-slave) commerce, frequently in agriculture, following abolition, but a number of historical studies have been published recently that examine the florescence of other production, also agricultural, in the midst of the transatlantic slave trade. Despite these efforts to consider the slave trade in a broader context, most historians would still agree that it is impossible to write about African communities on the shores of the Atlantic without examining the role the transatlantic slave trade played in their histories.19

      The history of Madagascar reveals even more powerfully that the traffic in slaves was not the only factor contributing to violent political transformations within Africa. Guns were purchased not only with slaves but also with bags of rice on the shores of Madagascar. In 1600, individuals sold cattle for iron wire or colored beads in St. Augustin Bay. Scarcely a century later in the same location, a ruler known as Prince Will dictated the exact weight of gunpowder he would accept for a strong bull. State rulers also engaged in frequent battles with their neighbors, which contributed to a brief period of large-scale slaving from the island and the intensified use of unfree labor within the island itself. Leaders in Madagascar sought to defend and expand their political authority; as in Dahomey, this was a “period marked by war, political instability, and economic turbulence.”20 However, unlike West Africans, the islanders engaged in warfare to obtain and protect food supplies, as well as to acquire captives.

      Until the early seventeenth century, much of the island’s trade was overseen by merchants in the north of Madagascar who wore robes of imported cloth and spoke some Kiswahili. In their harbors, East India ships anchored beside East African vessels, as the captains of both sought to purchase captives from coastal rulers. The merchants of Madagascar, emboldened by this competition for their exports, demanded fine Asian cloth and silver from passing European merchants but did not rely on this trade as a base for their continued political power.21 This picture would change dramatically by the close of the century. Although the political changes that came to the island following the arrival of Europeans were felt first and most strongly in the south, not the north, even this part of the island was eventually enveloped by waves of warfare emanating from elsewhere on the island.

      The history of provisioning from Madagascar thus brings together two seemingly disparate pasts and processes, of African societies negatively impacted by the slave trade and communities along the Indian Ocean engaging with European merchants from a position of strength. Direct engagement with global commercial networks contributed to turmoil throughout Madagascar by providing new opportunities for some, but not all, on the island.22 The provisioning trade from Madagascar predated, complemented, and contributed to the large-scale export of slaves, yet the rise of this trade was in some senses a historical accident. That the island became a center of provisioning was due as much to the island’s geographical advantages and the unique demands of European maritime trade as to the availability of food on the island’s shores.

      PROVISIONING INDIAN OCEAN COMMERCE

      This perspective on trade from Madagascar is at odds with that presented in some publications examining early modern global commerce. The maps and accompanying narratives in these publications suggest that trade from Africa was primarily in captives (from West Africa to the Americas) and, from Asia, in pepper and silk intended for elite European consumption.23 In both cases, the distraction posed by the horrific sale of humans on one hand, and that of luxury goods on the other, has led us away from studying the more routine and short-distance exchanges that supported global commerce. By focusing on higher-value goods, entire parts of the world, including Madagascar, disappear from maps of commerce that also ignore the complex trade routes that existed within regions and between the land and sea.24 In fact, frequent short-haul trips by vessels carrying woods, foodstuffs, and simple cloth underpinned exchanges in the Indian Ocean for centuries prior to the arrival of European ships. These premodern exchanges, according to Michael N. Pearson, had a much longer history and proved more stable over the longue durée than more expensive exports of luxury items. The circulation of necessities by land and sea also shaped trade routes within the ocean well before the arrival of Europeans in 1498, although such trades have proved difficult to trace and have attracted only limited attention from scholars.25

      The continued emphasis on luxury goods is apparent in publications on European oceanic explorations after the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.26 In his Histoire de l’océan Indien, Auguste Toussaint describes how spices fueled European competition, but gives no consideration to how men on board the vessels transporting these commodities were fed.27 In his lengthy histories of the Indian Ocean, K. N. Chaudhuri likewise restricts food to discussions about regional patterns of consumption among coastal populations.28 In spite of these omissions, alongside the trade in silks and spices were indispensable exports of food that forced regular contact between Europeans and a diverse number of communities around the world. Spices, after all, were nutritionally “superfluous,” according to one popular history.29

      The focus on spices and silks can lead historians to exclude the participation of groups such as the people of Madagascar who engaged frequently in trade, but rarely provided Europeans with expensive exports.30 In recent years, scholars such as Judith Carney have focused on the role that African agricultural labor played in the expanding global economy.31 The food production and exports from Indian Ocean societies likewise reveal the contributions of a more diverse group of people in fueling resource-intensive global commerce during the early modern period. It is unsurprising that the few scholars of Indian Ocean history who do mention provisioning primarily focus on coastal East African communities.32

      Access to food supplies motivated Europeans to explore the Atlantic and determined the conduct of their trade in the ports of West Africa and the Indian Ocean.33 Trade between Europe and Asia was even more resource intensive than that within the Atlantic, particularly in terms of the materials required to build, maintain, fuel, and sustain the crews of merchant fleets on extremely long voyages. Building upon experiences trading in northwestern Africa and the Mediterranean, European merchants at first tried to carry necessities from Europe, and only occasionally purchase additional supplies during their time in the Indian Ocean.34 This strategy quickly proved unfeasible. Europeans realized that they needed to find reliable sources for obtaining additional provisions before arriving at their destinations in India and the Middle East, especially as the risk of sudden, unforeseen challenges ran high on lengthy voyages. Storms could place stores of food in danger and delay voyages, with deadly consequences. Leaky barrels ruined meat and bread; spoiled food led to the under-nourishment of crew members, which further imperiled the success of a voyage. With the existence of such serious dangers, finding and maintaining access to reliable sources of food became paramount.

      In a competitive environment where the speed with which merchants delivered nutmeg and silks to Europe determined the profit from their trading missions, securing rapid local access to the right types

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