[^0]
[^0]:    4 Other nineteenth century sources, specifically written Malagasy sources (including registers of the freed Masombika) suggest a more plausible minimum estimate of 350,000 East African captives imported and enslaved in Madagascar during the nineteenth century.
5 Although the servile population was numerically more significant in the central highlands (particularly in Imerina) than in the less densely populated western region, the proportion of slaves to the total population was probably equivalent in these different regions of the island, reaching a figure of between 20 and 25 per cent of the total population by the end of the nineteenth century.
6 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 which were not under Antananarivo control.  
ceased with French colonization, which also involved the closure of continental horizons for inhabitants on the west coast, with a substantial decline in traffic across the Mozambique Channel.