Taolagnaro, Madagascar

In the southeast corner of Madagascar, nestled between the Indian Ocean and the Anosy mountain range, I find myself in Taolagnaro. A tropical city blanketed in sizzling heat, occasionally interrupted by the breeze from the sea. The beaches arc in long, golden stretches while the sea crashes in foamy bursts against the shore. The streets are buzzing with locals going about their daily business and yellow tuk-tuks weaving through the traffic, ferrying their passengers. 

One of those tuk-tuks dropped me off at Fort Flacourt, the remnants of a 17th-century stronghold. Not much is left of it, only enough to remind any passerby that at one time, Taolagnaro went by another name. Back in 1643, Jacques Pronis left Saint-Luce, a little further north on the coast, and sailed to Taolagnaro to set up a military stronghold, naming it Fort-Dauphin in honour of the Dauphin, Louis XIV, who was crowned the same year. Things didn’t go so well; relations with the locals soured, and his troops mutinied. Pronis was replaced by Étienne Flacourt, who was appointed governor and funded by the French East India Company. The trading company sought to establish a foothold in the fertile lands of Madagascar, where it could trade and use it as a base to travel further afield to the East Indies. 

The local Antanosy people were cattle herders and rice farmers, deeply connected to the land. At first, the French and Antanosy traded and even intermarried, but over time, tensions replaced trust. The settlers, many of whom were poorly prepared for life in the tropics, struggled with disease, isolation, and cultural misunderstandings. Eventually, conflict with the Antanosy grew more frequent and violent. By the 1670s, the colony had collapsed, and the French survivors abandoned Fort-Dauphin.

But not before Étienne explored the region and recorded many endemic plants and animals he discovered, which he later compiled into a small French book translated as “The History of the Grand Island of Madagascar”. Within his writings, Étienne described the spiralling form of the ‘Nepenthes madagascariensis’, the first recorded carnivorous plant, as well as the Madagascar rose periwinkle, which in recent years has played a role in treating leukaemia. 

Étienne continued in a subsequent chapter to describe what we now recognise as the ‘elephant bird’, a huge, endemic, flightless bird that laid eggs the size of ostrich eggs. He also referred to creatures resembling the extinct ‘Megaladapis’, a giant lemur with a squat, koala-like body, and the elusive pygmy hippopotamus. What makes these accounts fascinating is that they weren’t deduced from fossils or skeletal remains but rather recorded through direct observation or reports from local people. Centuries later, naturalists would revisit Flacourt’s writings and realise that he had captured some of the earliest descriptions of now-extinct Madagascan species, long before formal science recognised their existence.

However, Fort-Dauphin’s story didn’t end with Étienne’s departure. Two centuries later, in the late 1800s, the French returned and, this time, colonised the entire island. Fort-Dauphin was re-established as a regional hub until Madagascar gained full independence in 1960, when the city reclaimed its Malagasy name, Taolagnaro. 

As I walk away from the ruined fort, past crumbling colonial architecture, I wander into markets where the sound of Malagasy voices mingles with bursts of French. The people are vibrant and animated, absorbed in their work, their chatter full of energy and purpose. While I pause to ponder the city’s past, they remain rooted in the present, focused on their tasks and the promise of tomorrow.