# Diversity in Masombika status  
The Masombika in Madagascar experienced a variety of circumstances. Their legal status, social conditions and emancipation modes varied, depending upon where they lived and the period of time at which they were introduced to the island. In the central highlands, the majority of the enslaved came from inland (a large section of the servile population were former war captives), but on the west coast the Makoa were frequently the largest group amongst the slave population. ${ }^{11}$ At the crossroads of various models of enslavement, ${ }^{12}$ slavery practices and servile functions appear to have been very diverse in the west of Madagascar during the nineteenth century. Slaves were soldiers, craftspeople, cooks, sailors, porters, ox keepers or domestic servants. Royal slaves were assigned ritual or military tasks. Kings, chiefs and their entourages were surrounded by Makoa concubines. ${ }^{13}$ The majority of Makoa slaves, both men and women,  
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[^0]:    11 Thus, in the western regions under Antananarivo rule, such as Mahajunga, where the Makoa were particularly numerous, the collective liberation of the Masombika decreed in 1877 dealt a blow to the institution of slavery itself, and numerous slave owners opposed this royal decree, specifically by moving to areas that were not under Antananarivo control.
12 A distinction may be drawn, amongst other practices, between plantation slavery, 'domestic' slavery and other endogenous practices which defined relationships of dependency in Madagascar.
13 The figures of the soldier slave and the concubine, common in the Sakalava kingdoms in the west, were unknown in Imerina. Soldiers were recruited from the free population.