Sada

Sada was a port on Madagascar's northwestern coast, in the maritime country around Ampasindava Bay. It belonged to a region connected by trade with the Comoros, East Africa and other shores of the Indian Ocean, where merchants exchanged goods carried across the open sea. The port formed part of a kingdom known in Portuguese accounts as Guingemaro, which emerged in the same region as the earlier trading town of Mahilaka.

Portuguese navigators reached Madagascar at the beginning of the sixteenth century. In 1506 they attacked and sacked Sada, bringing violence to a long established centre of trade. Its history reveals a coast already connected to the ocean before European ships began to challenge the merchants and rulers who held power there.