Bemanevika

Bemanevika lay on the Bemarivo River in northeastern Madagascar, on a coast linked to Indian Ocean trade from the eleventh century. Muslim towns on the northern shores drew Arab and Swahili settlers.

Coastal communities lived under local filohany chiefs, while European pirates settled among them from the 1680s and fathered zana-malata communities. In 1710 Ratsimilaho, a British pirate's son, united coastal clans in the Betsimisaraka kingdom. His successors weakened the alliance, which submitted to Radama I of Imerina in 1817.