Sihanaka

The Sihanaka were a people of the Lake Alaotra region in northeastern Madagascar, where rice growing and trade supported fortified villages.

By the mid-seventeenth century they supplied enslaved people to traders serving the Mascarene plantations, and around 1700 traded rice and cattle with the Betsimisaraka. In the eighteenth century they fought unsuccessfully to escape Boina’s rule. Around 1800 Andrianampoinimerina’s armies conquered their territory for Imerina, bringing an influx of Merina settlers.