The Scramble for Madagascar

In 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.

The judges came to a unanimous decision that Waller was guilty and sentenced him to 20 years in prison, the fullest possible penalty. It was thus that, four years after arriving on the island as a representative of the United States and a delegate of the Benjamin Harrison administration, John Lewis Waller found himself chained in the hold of the French ship Dejeune, en route to prison near Marseilles.

Waller’s time in Madagascar sheds light on the motivations and tensions preoccupying both individuals and nations at the end of the 19th century. The historian Randall Woods has described Waller as representing ‘black America’s version of the New Manifest Destiny’, and Wallerland does fit alongside the various ‘back-to-Africa’ movements which encouraged African Americans to emigrate from the US in search of a new life in Africa. Waller’s connection with the US State Department and his efforts to enrich American businesses specialising in materials such as rubber and wood reflects the imperial instinct among many Americans at the turn of the century, who walked a fine line between expanding their ventures while not antagonising the European powers who were at the time engaged in the ‘Scramble for Africa’. 

The Malagasy Protectorate

John Waller’s trajectory to becoming US consul is itself a remarkable story. Born into slavery in 1850 in the American South, he was 12 when his family were liberated. Upon liberation, Waller’s family moved to Iowa, where he received an education. He later found employment as a lawyer in Kansas. Waller became involved in politics as a way of championing the rights of Black Americans and was rewarded for his support of the Republican Party (and his influence among Black voters) with a diplomatic post. Though he had his sights set on Haiti or South America, he showed enthusiasm for his posting to Africa, and in 1891 prepared to begin his tenure as United States foreign consul in Madagascar.

At the time of Waller’s arrival on the island in 1891, Madagascar was considered a French Protectorate. This was a status that had been forced upon the island and its ruling ethnic group, the Merina. The Merina were one of many ethnic groups residing in Madagascar. Through a series of aggressive manoeuvres, the group succeeded in consolidating power on the island in the first half of the 19th century, making the Kingdom of Imerina the dominant power, and the one with which Europeans entered into treaties and diplomatic arrangements. Queen Ranavalona III ascended the throne in 1883, two years before the establishment of the French Protectorate. She was 21, and entered into a political marriage with the prime minister, Rainilaiarivony, who had also been the husband of, and prime minister for, the two preceding queens as well. The status quo under their leadership was not particularly stable, as many other ethnic groups on the island did not accept Merina authority. As a result, there were often internal conflicts that led to violence and disorder.

European presence in Madagascar had begun in earnest earlier in the century, led by competing missionaries of British Protestants from the London Missionary Society, and French Jesuits. Although the Merina appeared to prefer the British, it was France that asserted a claim to the island through military intervention in 1883-85, culminating in the establishment of the Malagasy Protectorate. The Treaty of Peace and Friendship between France and Madagascar was agreed at Tamatave in December 1885, allowing for the matrilineal Merina monarchy to continue its control of the island’s domestic affairs while France would be in charge of external affairs. France required the Malagasy government to pay an indemnity of ten million francs, plus interest on a French loan of a further five million francs, to cover the costs of the invasion. While French authority on the island was subsequently reinforced – at least in theory – by agreements with foreign governments, the extent of control over Madagascar, and access to the island’s resources, remained hazy over the course of the following decade.

American interests at the time were focused on commercial trade in cloth, oil, rubber, whale blubber and more. Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, American politicians and business owners recognised that access to Madagascar’s resources could be facilitated by a positive relationship with the Merina monarchy. Anthropologists Wendy Walker and Edgar Krebs have observed that Waller followed in his predecessors’ footsteps by making the cultivation of such relations a priority, striving to demonstrate both personal and professional recognition of the queen’s authority. Early in Waller’s time as consul, Queen Ranavalona III had welcomed him to the country in a lavish ceremony at her palace. Such a welcome had not been extended to other foreign consuls, leading to French concern over Waller’s rapport with the queen. The French saw this relationship in terms of race, with the colonial newspaper Le Madagascar asserting that the US had chosen a Black representative, someone with ‘the local colour’, as a means of winning favour with the Malagasy leadership.

Insults 

Upon arrival in Madagascar, Waller had sought his official recognition, or exequatur, not from the French Resident-General as the French expected, but from Queen Ranavalona. The question of granting exequatur was one of many disputes between France and the Merina leadership, and Waller was aware of this. In his letters to the State Department, he wrote that: ‘To make an application to the French Resident General will be taken as an insult by the Malagasy government.’ Both he and his successor as consul stressed to Washington that ‘American interests demand a conciliatory policy towards the Malagasy’. For their part, the French were irritated and frustrated by the arrival of this uncooperative American and his refusal to recognise French authority. Yet, as Waller rightly predicted, his loyalty to the Malagasy Crown was rewarded through investment opportunity, which arrived in 1894. Two months after Waller was replaced as consul by the recently elected Democrat president Grover Cleveland’s candidate, Edward Telfair Wetter, Waller was granted a large parcel of land in Fort Dauphin, on the southern end of the island.

French settlers learned of the concession through Le Madagascar, which published several articles denouncing the land grant and declaring it illegal. The concession agreement allowed Waller to lease the land for 30 years with the promise of renewal, with the right to cultivate all products that could be found profitable and not contrary to the laws of Madagascar. French businessmen were furious, complaining to the French Resident, Paul Larrouy, of lost time and expenses devoted to exploring the area. ‘Our surprise was great, Monsieur le Resident’, wrote one, ‘to learn that Mr. Waller had obtained large concessions from the Hova Government in the rubber region of Fort Dauphin, as well as access to mines, with the ability to bring in foreign workers for this exploitation, something that up until now has been refused to other concessioners.’ The French press publicly derided Waller and his connection to the Malagasy leadership, with Le Madagascar noting the ‘race affinities which always draw individuals closer together’. The paper saw the concession not as an expression of Malagasy enthusiasm for the foundation of an African American colony, but rather as a vindictive action done ‘simply for the pleasure of putting a spoke in the wheels of the Vazahas [white men] and above all the French, who carry on the rubber traffic in the South’.

Protests by French settlers and investors on the island, alongside Larrouy’s requests for intervention, made their way back to France. The Foreign Affairs Ministry responded in September 1894, with Foreign Minister Gabriel Hanotaux specifically condemning Waller and the Merina for infringing upon free trade. Asserting that the land grant was a violation of the 1885 treaty, Hanotaux declared that France would not recognise the validity of the concession. The news was met with great satisfaction among French residents on the island, and the local papers asserted that French colonists in Madagascar were growing increasingly united. As for Waller, they referred to his now foiled plans for the land as the epitome of ‘grandeur and decadence’. They revelled in the folly of the man they called the ‘coloured gentleman’, and reflected that Washington would never again be so foolish as to send a Black man to represent the United States abroad.

Bad luck

While Waller and his lawyers sought American support for the concession in hopes that it would demonstrate US commitment to Malagasy independence, the French had other ideas. As indicated by the exequatur question, as well as by the land concession, French authorities in Madagascar found themselves frequently at odds with the Merina rulers when it came to running the country. Asserting that the Merina had violated the terms of the 1885 treaty, the government in Paris decided that something needed to be done. In December 1894, by a vote of 377 to 143, the French Chamber of Deputies approved the funding of an expeditionary force to strengthen French control over the island. Though vastly superior in armed strength, the campaign presented unforeseen challenges: half of the 15,000 French troops succumbed to tropical diseases. Nonetheless, the French expedition resulted in victory for the colonial power, with French troops entering the royal capital of Antananarivo at the end of September 1895.

As for Waller, in the year since the queen had granted his land the former consul had suffered a run of bad luck. The colony was not proving as popular as he had hoped, despite advertisements strategically placed in British and American newspapers. He had also racked up a series of adversaries. One of these was the new US consul Edward Telfair Wetter – the son of a Southern plantation owner – who brought a case against Waller in the local consular court based on the mishandling of an estate during Waller’s time as representative. As a result of the judgment against him, Waller owed a significant sum of money and, in early 1895, he left his wife and family in Antananarivo and headed to Tamatave to attempt to raise funds to pay off his debts. Tamatave was at the time in the possession of the French military, and the French authorities had been watching Waller. Declaration of martial law on the island allowed for the interception of Waller’s letters that served as the basis for his conviction for espionage.

Press pressure

American reactions to Waller’s arrest and conviction supported the suspicions that France viewed him as an adversary as a direct result of the land grant. The New York Tribune noted: ‘The opinion appears to be growing that the action of the French government in imprisoning John L Waller, ex-consul at Marseille, is closely associated with the valuable concessions granted to him by the Malagasy government.’ The Independent took the connections a step further, telling readers that: ‘Indeed this grant is one of the occasions for the present war declared by France against Madagascar.’ Thankfully for Waller, the attention of the American press helped secure his eventual release. Black leaders and the Black press successfully lobbied the Cleveland administration into pressuring France to release Waller from prison, having served approximately ten months of his sentence.

The connections between Waller, Madagascar, France and the United States had one additional twist. As part of the arrangement for Waller’s release from French prison, the US State Department agreed to relinquish all American rights in Madagascar, accepting a proposal set forth by the French Foreign Office whereby France would release Waller in return for an explicit promise not to press for indemnity, and an understood pledge not to challenge French hegemony in East Africa. American trade profits fell precipitously afterwards. Within the year, France had officially annexed Madagascar into its colonial empire, banishing the queen and setting up a formal French authority in her place. Waller returned home to his family, a free man, but with no recourse to recover the land, or its value, left behind. 

Power struggle

The story of what transpired during Waller’s stay in Madagascar, from his arrival through to his conviction for espionage with the maximum possible penalty, provides insight into American, French and Malagasy goals for the island nation. All three parties sought to flex power and autonomy, putting their hopes for future profits and stature in the ownership and exploitation of land. Conversations between diplomats and articles in the press reveal racial tensions just below the surface, with an indication that Waller’s race and plans for a colony of Black Americans rankled French investors beyond what would have been the case had the land been granted to a white man. Moreover, the episode exposes France’s struggle to control Madagascar at the end of the 19th century, when the territory was under the ambiguous rule of a French Protectorate. Waller’s case highlights French anxieties that their dominance of the island and its Merina monarchy was under threat, jeopardising French prestige, power and investments. Military occupation, martial law and all that came with it, was viewed as a necessary step; Waller’s efforts to thwart it were seen as potentially dangerous. John Lewis Waller – an adventurer, a dreamer and a schemer (but not a spy) – paid the price.

Deborah Bauer is Associate Professor of Modern European History at Purdue University Fort Wayne and the author of Marianne is Watching: Intelligence, Counterintelligence, and the Origins of the French Surveillance State (University of Nebraska Press, 2021).