18 August Pirate cemetery

We walked from town past the oldest Catholic church in Madagascar to the village which owns the island which is Pirate Cemetery. (The oldest church has been locked ever since the bells were stolen.)

We hired a guide to give us the tour which included not only the cemetery, but also an informed guide to the plants and trees; clove leaves, cinnamon bark, cashew and nutmeg trees .

David meets dinner - Zeba

Oldest Catholic church in Mada

cemetery

Jules told us that from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century Ile St Marie was key a pirate island. It had a sheltered harbour in Ambodifotatra, easy access to the Indian Ocean trade routes and no law enforcement. All that remains today are their remains in a cemetery on a small mount overlooking the old harbour. There's a monument to Scottish Captain Kidd, once a privateer for the British and then a pirate when he disobeyed an order to 'donate' his crew to the navy. He was here for many years, but was executed in London, tied to a stake in the Thames river for three tides. If you were alive after the third high tide you were free to be tried as a witch. If not you were dead.

With the pirate graves are graves of the French administrators who arrived in the 19^th century, sailors who died from malaria, friends who killed each other in a duel over a local lady and children of the settlers.