ABSTRACT
Madagascar and its population commanded a surprisingly wide range of association during the period 1680-1730. This coloured its links with piracy, and now offers us valuable insights into contemporary culture. While Madagascar became identified with piracy from the 1680s, it had been in the public eye in Europe for considerably longer. There had been English colonization attempts in the 1630s and 1640s, followed by a spate of publications that excited keen interest. Madagascar, physically to one side of a vast continent, became a physical and metaphorical focus for displacement: a haven for renegades, a site of illegal trade, a place of imagined criminal wealth, a marker for a range of deviant behaviour. Madagascar affected Britain's relations with its American colonies, since colonists were notoriously prepared to supply pirates on the island, though pirates were judged to be enemies of the state. Navigators and geographers objectively recorded matters of interest relating to winds and weather along Madagascar's coastlines.
