Madagascar

Flag of Madagascar, for article on Madagascar independence

Madagascar declares independence from France, ending six decades of colonial rule

Madagascar independence arrived on June 26, 1960, when the new republic’s flag rose over Antananarivo after 63 years of French rule. Philibert Tsiranana became its first president, leading a nation woven from Austronesian seafarers, Bantu settlers, and the memory of a Merina kingdom ended in 1897. It was one of 17 African nations to gain sovereignty that year.

graphic node pxn nMy wew unsplash, for article on Madagascar settlement

Austronesian seafarers become the first settlers of Madagascar

Madagascar’s first settlers arrived sometime between 350 and 700 C.E., crossing roughly 6,000 kilometers of open Indian Ocean in outrigger canoes from what is now Indonesia. Centuries later, Bantu-speaking peoples joined them from East Africa, and the two founding populations gradually merged. The result was the Malagasy language and people — and one of humanity’s last great landmasses finally inhabited.