Ports of call, merchants and pirates

The Portuguese on the horizon

In the early 16th century, the Portuguese ships rounding Africa on their way to India reached the archipelago. They marked it on their charts but did not settle there: the islands had neither gold nor spices, and Portugal concentrated its forces on the coast of Mozambique and on India.

Johanna, the port of call on the way to the Indies

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Anjouan, which the English called Johanna, became one of the favourite ports of call for the ships of the English East India Company. Ships stocked up there on fresh water, cattle, fruit and rice. From 1601 to 1834, several hundred Company ships called there.

The sultans of Anjouan cultivated these relations, which brought them goods, weapons and sometimes allies against their rivals.

The age of the pirates

At the end of the 17th century, pirates from the Atlantic took the “Pirate Round”: Madagascar, then the Red Sea and the coast of India. The Comoros served them as a port of call.

In February 1695, the famous Henry Every stopped at Anjouan and left a letter there addressed to English captains, in which he claimed never to have attacked an English or Dutch ship. A few weeks later, Company ships tried in vain to capture him near the island. According to the historian Jean Martin, in the early 18th century the archipelago became a haven for buccaneers driven out of the Caribbean.

What was traded

The islanders sold food, cattle, coconuts and water; in return they received cloth, iron, weapons and coins. Trade with Arabia, India and the African coast continued alongside, carried by dhows.

This trade also included captives: the archipelago served as a relay in the slave trade between Africa, Madagascar and the Middle East. Read: Slave trade, slavery and raids.

Testimonies to be interpreted

Logbooks and travellers' accounts are precious: they give dates, names of sultans, prices and descriptions of towns. But they were written by men who stayed a few days on the coast, often without speaking the language, and who saw the islands as a larder. To understand what these encounters meant for Comorians, they must be compared with the chronicles and traditions of the archipelago.