Andriantsoly

Who is Andriantsoly?

Andriantsoly, born Tsi Levalou, was a Sakalava prince of Madagascar who became the last reigning Sultan of Mayotte before French colonization. He was among the last claimants to the throne of the Sakalava kingdom of Iboina in northwestern Madagascar, but was driven from power in the early 1820s by Ramanetaka, a commander loyal to the Merina king Radama I. Fleeing Madagascar, he took refuge on Mayotte around 1831, married into the local sultan's family, and adopted the name Andriantsoly. He seized the sultanate for himself in 1832, displacing the ruling sultan Bwana Kombo, and ruled over an island left weak and depopulated by decades of Sakalava raids and regional conflict. Facing continued threats from the neighboring sultanates of the Comoro archipelago and from Malagasy raiders, and lacking the military strength to defend Mayotte alone, he opened negotiations with French naval officers based on nearby Nosy Be. On 25 April 1841 he signed the treaty ceding sovereignty over Mayotte to France in exchange for a lifelong personal pension and protection, an act that began more than a century and a half of French rule culminating in Mayotte's later status as a French overseas department. He died in 1847; his exact date and place of birth are not reliably documented in surviving records.

Sources: Andriantsoly, Wikipédia (French), fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriantsoly · Histoire de Mayotte — Hégémonie sakalave, puis française, techno-science.net · Mayotte, Wikipedia (English), en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayotte