Africa, N.S., VI / 1, 2024 ISSN 2612-3258 | eISSN 2612-6702 © Centro Studi per i Popoli Extraeuropei “Cesare Bonacossa” / Viella editrice Liliana Mosca William L. Abbott in Madagascar: Unpublished Correspondence Relating to the Expeditions of 1890 and 1895* Abstract On 3 September 1895, the American naturalist Dr William L. Abbott wrote to the curator of the Smithsonian Institution Otis Mason stating that he had shipped artefacts for his department as well as other objects from Madagascar. In January 1895, Dr Abbott had returned to Madagascar, after his January 1890 journey to the Red Island, to fight alongside the Malagasy in their war against the French. Abbott accomplished the expedition of 1895 during an exceptionally dif- ficult period for the Kingdom of Madagascar, a period that ushered in the dramat- ic end of Merina sovereignty. The article studies such period through the unpub- lished correspondence of the American naturalist and proposes a reconstruction of his activity as collector in Madagascar. keywords: : william l. abbott; madagascar; smithsonian institution Introduction William L. Abbott’s letters from his Malagasy expeditions 1 are among the extensive documentation of ethnographic, biological, and unpublished archival materials held at the Smithsonian Institution. They provide useful information about Madagascar during the first half of the 1890s, when France succeeded in establishing itself on the island. The Smithsonian Institution Curator of Asian, European, and Middle Eastern Ethnology, Paul M. Taylor, has recently revealed the significance of those letters, written in 1890 and 1895 2 , when he made a one-man expedition to Madaga- * This paper benefited of the generous and precious assistance of Richard Gilreath, Reference Archivists, Smithsonian Institution Archives. The author wishes to thank John Keltner, Database Administrator, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution and Brian K. Schmidt, Museum Specialist Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Division of Birds, Smithsonian Institution. 1. I had the opportunity of examining the William L. Abbott Papers at the Smithsonian Insti- tution Archives during my visit to the Washington Institution in 1989 and again in 1997. 2. P.M. Taylor, “William Louis Abbott in Madagascar: Revisiting Archival and Museum Re- sources of a Smithsonian Naturalist from the 1890s”, Museum Anthropology, 38, 1, 2015, 32-36. https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/muan.12071 (accessed 3 June 2023); P.M. Taylor, “Ancestral Plaited Mats from Madagascar”, Arts & Cultures, 2018, 215-220; https://