(ii) adequate controls on exploitation that can

2, 12). Recent PIKE values are unavailable

for western Tanzania, where illegal killing of elephants when reported was as high as or

record levels of 88% in 2008 (

12). Monitor

sample sizes limiting interpretation.

cale of illegal ivory trade demonstrates that most of Africa lacks adequate controls for protection of elephants. The petitioning countries are not succeeding in re

CITES decision, information on Tanzanian elephant population

So dominant did the Karany and Antalaotra become that foreign firms and local Sakalava chiefs increasingly hired them as their agents. By 1872 the large Hamburg firm of O'Swald was running its commercial operations in western Madagascar through a Nosy Be-based Karany whose involvement in the slave trade was notorious, while, lower down the west coast, all of George Ropes's agents were Karany by 1888. Similarly, Maintirano was ruled in the name of queen Bibiasa of southern Menabe by a Muslim Sakalava called Alidy who, in conjunction with Abd-er-Rhamen, an Antalaotra, dominated the slave trade of the mid-west coast. By the late 1880s an estimated 90 percent of arms and slaves dealers on the west coast were British Indians.31 By 1894, the commercial triumph of the Karany and Antalaotra was virtually complete; not only did they dominate the ports of western Madagascar, they had also captured much of the hinterland trade, it being perceived that "l'interieur des terres est absolument ferm6 aux Europ6ens."32 In addition, even before the 1882-1885 war the Karany had developed strong trading links with the Cape Colony and Natal and there is evidence that, by the late 1880s, they were also involved

in Mainti

ntalaotra for sale in the interior, and supplied the same merchants and creole traders with Merina and Betsileo slaves for export.11 Madagascar was traditionally an exporter of slaves, but a market for imported African slaves developed in the nineteenth century in the Merina empire, which covered approximately one-third of the island. This was due to the adoption of autarkic policies in the mid-1820s which promoted economic expansion based upon exploitation of "unfree" fanompoana and slave labor. The economic prosperity of the 18

oreign traders moved increasingly to independent regions of the island to avoid the higher duties charged in Merina controlled ports.14 In consequence, the Merina court intensified its exploitation of peasant fanompoana labor, which had always formed the basis of the imperial economy. Peasants reacted by fleeing in ever-greater numbers to the expanding areas of the island beyond Merina control, thus exacerbating the manpower shortage. At the same time the Merina elite, which witnessed a rapid

annually, or approximately 35 percent of the total imports. Many of these found their way to the main Merina port of Mahajanga, where Frere noted "the enormous numbers of African negroes everywhere seen."18 Contemporary accounts noted the rise in imports; for instance, in March 1888 alone more than 700 slaves were reported to have been landed on the northwest coast of Madagascar.19 The most important slave entrep6t next to Maintirano was the Tsiribihina delta which, in contrast, was a center for the export of slaves, as was Toliara in the southwest. In 1870 some 2,000 slaves were exported annually from the former, and an estimated 2,373 from the latter by the mid-1880s.2

d-1888 had gained a monopoly of armaments imports in exchange for slave exports along the coast between Ranopas and Maintirano. Some slave traders themselves gained quasiconsular status, like Norden at Toliara, and Govea who traded for some years at Maintirano.25 Such was the importance of these Mascarene middlemen that large foreign firms trading on the west coast of Madagascar regularly used them as agents until the late 1880s. For instance, the Boston merchant Geo. Ropes employed a Henry Smith, who was married to a daughter of Leo

were quickly drawn into the dubious engagE trade.35 As early as 1880 European merchants were trading along the entire coastline between the Capes St. Andrew and Ste. Marie, while Morondava alone boasted the presence of two American, two French, two Indian, two Arab, one British, and one Norwegian trader, all of whom maintained agents in the interior. In addition, two South African houses, one from Natal and

two

measuring from west to east 200 to 500 miles, and from north to south about 700 miles."45 In the early nineteenth century, the slave trade in the interior of Mozambique and in Malawi had been dominated by the Zambesia praze

The inability of Portuguese authorities, whose effective administration petered out 60 miles above the confluence of the Zambesi and Shire, to stem the slave trade from Mozambique increasingly angered the British government, which in 1888 called for an international blockade of the northern Mozambique coast. Portugal agreed on condition that the blockade would be mounted by her navy, but the embargo failed to prevent the clandestine trade in either arms imports or slave exports, while it hit customs revenues badly. Under such conditions the Portuguese could not afford to uphold the embargo and from mid1889 exceptions to it were granted with increasing frequency. About May 1889, for instance, two Portuguese traders cleared 12,000 lbs. of gunpowder and 1,000 guns through Quelimane, ostensibly for game hunters. The resurgence in the supply of arms by legitimate channels gave an added fillip to an already buoyant Mozambique slave trade to Madagascar. So great was the trade and such were the constraints on the slave traffic north of Lindi, that in 1889 it

1895 Africa is the coast of German East Africa, from Mikindani up to Tanga."54 Certainly in September that year the British consul in Zanzibar was informed by the governor general of German East Africa that large slave caravans converged regularly on the coast south of the Rufiji River, notably at Kilwa and Lindi, from where the slaves were shipped in "French" vessels to Madagascar and the Comoros.55 The two which crossed Portuguese East Africa terminated in the region of Ibo and Quelimane

mid-century as the activity of British anti-slave trade patrols in East Africa waters obliged slavers to deconcentrate the trade. As a result, a multitude of small slave ports developed

Slave traders again proved versatile in their tactics in the late 1880s, when as a result of increased British pressu

ns, ammunition, and gunpowder constituted the prominent articles of exchange, although beads, hoes, and iron bars were sometimes used.63 Profits on the trans-Mozambique Channel run were as high as 1,000 percent, inducing many of the dhows that had formerly specialized in coasting to turn to the slave trade, making multiple crossings in the same season.64 This was a reflection of growing demand. In Ime

1882-188

widely adopted by Antalaotra merchants. This was followed in 1890 by the formal British recognition of a French protectorate in Madagascar. Consequently, the British relinquished their right to search vessels in Malagasy waters. Indeed, when H.M.S. Redbreast stopped and searched a dhow carrying French colors off Madagascar, French authorities successfully claimed an indemnity from the British governme

aintained there the institution of slavery in defiance of the British treaty of 1883, which had proclaimed that slaves would be liberated by August 1889. As French demand fo

spite high slave mortality during transit, the numbers involved in the trans-Mozambique Channel trade grew considerably during the course of the nineteenth century. Although demand in hinterland East Africa for domestic and agricultural labor absorbed as much as two-thirds of the supply from the interior, the total number of slaves brought to the coast from the Malawi region was estimated in the early 1880s to be well in excess of 20,000 per annum; caravans heading for the coast with between 500 and

850s, Mozambique slave exports were sustained predominantly by demand from the French plantation islands, and from Madagascar. One estimate states that some 50,000 engages w

r in the early 1870s, rising to 17,000 by the end of the decade.84 By the 1880s, the main slave traffic from Kilwa and ports to the south was directed to Madagascar, which was absorbing an estimated 66 to 75 percent of all slaves shipped from East Africa to the islands of the Western Indian Ocean.85 Increased demand for labor in Imerina from the Franco-Merina War of 1882-1885 stimulated slave exports from East Africa. Given a lessening in British naval supervision in the region, it is probable that between 18,000 and 23,000 slaves per annum were imported into Madagascar from 1885, representing a market value at west coast prices of possibly $600,000 per annum. A significant number of slave imports were subsequently shipped to the Fre

Period Mozambique Swahili Coast East Africa 1861-70 18,691+ 70,000 1871-80 8,000+ 20,000+ 1881-90 20,000 10,000 [?]

1889 and 1894 respectively.89 Second, it did much to restrict the slave export trade at source in much the same way as the European advance into the hinterland of Zanzibar a decade previously had constricted the northern slave trade network, although Arab slavers put up a fierce resistance in Malawi, where the last big battle between British agents and Arab slavers occurred in 1899.90 The market for East African

It is this country, then, that I put before you as well worth a careful and thorough exploration. It has been, I believe, in the past, and it may, I think, prove in the future, one of the richest

MR. JOSEPH THOMSON,

Africa as being impossible unless Europeans were there, as if the Africans could not be ci~ilised in Africa~ and take care of themselves. Did not Scotland take care of itself after the Romans were away ? With regard to the want of a desire to work among the people, he thought they found this existed in Scotland as well as

from that described in the Paper just read. The climate of Southern Africa wa% he supposed, one of the best climates in the world. Those who had been in New Zealand and in Australia had told him repeatedly that the climate was equal, if

isation of the people had begun with its true root in Christianity.--Mr. A. L. ]~ruce said they were proud of Mr. Thomson as one of their ablest and most enterprising Scots

explorers took a different view of the country they visited, and that the missionaries took a different view from the explorers ; and he thought they must also agree that Africa was not a pleasant place in which to invest money.--Mr. Thomson, who