Labour and the transport problem in imperial Madagascar, 1810–1895

Abstract

The absolute dependence upon human labour for the transport of goods and travellers in nineteenth-century Madagascar can only be understood in terms of the peculiar nature of the imperial Merina structure. A justifiable fear of European attack and takeover led the Merina regime to rely on ‘Generals “Hazo” and “Tazo”’ (forest and fever) and an underdeveloped road network to hinder and ultimately prevent any foreign military force reaching the central plateau. Simultaneously, however, the régime wished to expand both internal and external trade so as to be accepted as an independent member of the international trading community. It therefore needed an efficient transport and communications system. This was created through an imperial porterage organization of slave and forced (fanompoana) labour. This system held attractions for the Merina political élite, by being both servile and unpaid. Investment in alternative transport arrangements remained unattractive. The deterrents were natural conservatism, lack of capital, and the significant profits to be made from hiring out slave porters to carry trade commodities which increased in volume from the 1860s. Under these conditions an indigenous ‘proto-trade union’, based upon the growing organizational strength of themaromita(porter) movement emerged in the island. Its power however rested on the absence in the Merina economy of any alternative transport system. When the French colonial régime instituted a modern road and rail transport network from 1895, the imperial porterage system disintegrated.