Empire and information: the French Ministry of the Navy and Madagascar (1767–1819)

Abstract

Abstract This article discusses the question of how the history of administrative knowledge about distant world regions should be written. It analyses which intelligence was processed about Madagascar in the eighteenth century, and links the analysis of knowledge production about a specific world region with the colonial policy toward this region. A study of the texts written about Madagascar gives us insight into the ways the Ministry of the Navy ‘learned’ about the Indian Ocean colonies it took over from the Compagnie des Indes after the Seven Years War. This essay departs from the recent critique to the ‘colonial machine’ thesis, according to which the Ministry of the Navy could hardly take into consideration the great amount of information produced by officials in overseas. It contends that the commis of the Ministry did indeed read the letters from colonial officials, summarised their content for the minister, and proposed policies based on these information. However, while the propositions and claims of overseas officials clearly counted, this does not necessarily mean that the information received from overseas enabled the Minister of the Navy and their commis to design policies adapted to the reality on the spot. The case of writings about Madagascar shows why colonial policies might be built on wrong assumptions even when intelligence from overseas was taken into consideration. The article enhances particularly six factors that impacted information production: the degree of centralisation of the empire, the number of informers, patronage relationships, aristocratic sociabilities, the use of memoranda, and the Enlightenment.