Antankarana

The Antankarana hold the northern tip of Madagascar around the bay of Antsiranana; their name means the people of the tsingy, after the crags and caves of the Ankarana massif. They began as the Zafin'i'fotsy, a Sakalava branch that lost a sixteenth-century succession quarrel and migrated north beyond Sakalava power.

Their first king, Kozobe, ruled from 1614, but late in the century Sakalava armies under Andriamandisoarivo overran most of the country. In 1692 Andriantsirotso founded the kingdom and led his people into the Ankarana rocks; with soldiers from his kinsman Raholo, he drove the Sakalava back after three years.

As Imerina expanded in the early nineteenth century, Merina governors reduced King Tsialana I to vassalage. His son Tsimiaro I rose in 1835 and fought until 1837, when reprisals drove him and his people into the Ankarana caves. The Antankarana lived by fishing and herding.