Fort Dauphin

Fort Dauphin stands on a rocky promontory on Madagascar's southeastern coast, in the country of the Antanosy. Before the French established their fort, the site was known as Taolankarana. The surrounding region supported a substantial population and agriculture, and its harbours attracted ships travelling through the Indian Ocean.

In 1643 Jacques Pronis founded a French trading post here and named it for the dauphin, the future Louis XIV. Étienne de Flacourt, who governed from 1648, left a detailed account of Madagascar and its peoples, but his expeditions and demands for supplies contributed to conflict with local communities. Disease, hunger and fighting took a heavy toll on the colonists. After an Antanosy attack, the surviving French abandoned the settlement in 1674. At the end of the century the pirate Abraham Samuel became a local ruler amid the remains of the fort, another sign of the coast's changing connections across the ocean.