The Scramble for Madagascar

The world’s fourth largest island was among the prizes of Europe’s ruthless African land grab. When one American diplomat made plans for his own enterprise, he soon found that the French had other ideas for Madagascar.

I n March 1894, John Lewis Waller, an African American former United States consul to Madagascar, wrote to the prominent Black statesman John Mercer Langston with exciting news. Queen Ranavalona III, ruler of Madagascar, had approved a contract allowing Waller to lease nearly 225 square miles of valuable land on the Great Island. Waller was enthusiastic, informing Langston that ‘these lands are covered with valuable rubber, the finest of timbers, plenty water & grass for grazing purposes’, suspecting also that the concession offered the promise of mineral wealth, including gold, silver, lead, iron and copper. In the letter, Waller outlined his plans for capitalising on this windfall. He would recruit labourers from the neighbouring island of Mauritius and then supposedly encourage African Americans to settle on the territory which would be known as ‘Wallerland’.

But a year after Waller secured his land grant, his fortunes changed. On 5 March 1895, French authorities arrived at the house where Waller was staying in Tamatave, a port city on the northeast coast, and placed him under arrest. He was brought to trial less than two weeks later before a naval court martial. He was charged on two counts. The first was a charge of violating a French law requiring that all correspondence pass through approved channels where it could be reviewed; the second rested on the contents of the letters themselves. Waller had chosen to send two letters via separate means to avoid the French gaze, particularly as the letters discussed observations of French military activity. The first charge helped support the second: espionage.

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