HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
145 
commenced, scarcely more than a century ago, with the 
pirates who had established themselves in the Isle of Saint 
Mary’s. It is reported in the island, though without any 
specific information existing on the subject, that the Dutch 
had previously carried on an occasional traffic in slaves on 
the coast of Madagascar. However this may have been, the 
systematic exportation of slaves in large numbers, appears 
to be correctly attributed to the pirates, who, having been 
checked by the European powers in their nefarious career 
at sea, carried into execution the murderous plan of foment¬ 
ing wars between some of the provinces in which they had 
traded on the eastern coast of Madagascar, and inducing 
the victorious to sell their prisoners in exchange for arms 
and ammunition. 
Rodion affirms, that various efforts had been made at 
former times by European traders, to induce the natives to 
sell their prisoners and malefactors, all which proved un¬ 
successful. The “ better feeling” of the savages resisted 
these unprincipled attempts of the civilized’’ traders, and 
it required no little malignant policy to overcome the natu¬ 
ral antipathy they felt to so outrageous an offence against 
humanity. This may possibly have been the case among 
the tribes by whom Rochon was surrounded; but it is evi¬ 
dent, from the testimony of Drury, that slaves were sold to 
white men, and taken for sale to other countries, before the 
pirates became the chief slave-factors in the island. De¬ 
ceived, however, by the artifices of the pirates, whom they 
never suspected of treachery, and whom they had long courted 
as friends, without knowing their real character and pur¬ 
suits, the Malagasy became the victims of the most atrocious 
perfidy, and that, too, under the impression, that as the 
whites were a superior race of men, they could not mate¬ 
rially err in following their advice. By wars of retaliation, 
ii. 
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