There was a flourishing system of slavery in Madagascar, the economy of which Mutibwa has described as "dependent largely on the use of slave labour." Thus there was a vigorous slave trade until the imposition of French colonial rule over Madagascar at the end of the nineteenth century. It is important to note, however, that slave labour on Madagascar did not serve only the domestic economy of the island. The Hova hierarchy was deeply involved in commercial agriculture for export, especially in the rice trade to Mauritius, and the entire economy was orientated outward after the early 1860s. Like the slave trade to Zanzibar, then, that to Madagascar cannot be dismissed simply as the product of an anomalous Arab or Malagasy slave economy, but must also be seen in the context of Madagascar's becoming an economic satellite of the West.2