The State and Pre-Colonial Demographic History: The Case of Nineteenth-Century Madagascar

Abstract

This paper analyses the demography of nineteenth-century Madagascar in the light of the debate generated by the demographic transition theory. Both supporters and critics of the theory hold to an intrinsic opposition between human and ‘natural’ factors, such as climate, famine and disease, influencing demography. They also suppose a sharp chronological divide between the pre-colonial and colonial eras, arguing that whereas ‘natural’ demographic influences were of greater importance in the former period, human factors predominated thereafter. This paper argues that in the case of nineteenth-century Madagascar the human factor, in the form of the Merina state, was the predominant demographic influence. However, the impact of the state was felt through natural forces, and it varied over time. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Merina state policies stimulated agricultural production, which helped to create a larger and healthier population and laid the foundation for Merina military and economic expansion within Madagascar. From the 1820, the cost of such expansionism led the state to increase its exploitation of forced labour at the expense of agricultural production and thus transformed it into a negative demographic force. Infertility and infant mortality, which were probably more significant influences on overall population levels than the adult mortality rate, increased from 1820 due to disease, malnutrition and stress, all of which stemmed from state forced labour policies. Available estimates indicate little if any population growth for Madagascar between 1820 and 1895. The demographic ‘crisis’ in Africa, ascribed by critics of the demographic transition theory to the colonial era, stemmed in Madagascar from the policies of the imperial Merina regime which in this sense formed a link to the French regime of the colonial era. In sum, this paper questions the underlying assumptions governing the debate about historical demography in Africa and suggests that the demographic impact of political forces be re-evaluated in terms of their changing interaction with ‘natural’ demographic influences.

Cultural macroevolution matters

“…The cultures that evolved on these islands ranged from small kin-based groups, such as the Berawan (56), up to federated kingdoms, such as Southern Toraja (57). Population sizes ranged from ∼200 people on Anuta (58) to approximately half a million people in the case of the Merina of Madagascar (59). No less diverse were their religious systems, with supernatural beliefs including anthropomorphic, animistic, and nature deities, and religious rituals ranging in scale from humble personal offerings to multiday community-wide festivals (14).…”

Stealing the sacred: Why ‘global heritage’ discourse is perceived as a frontal attack on local heritage-making in Madagascar

“…Historically, dislocation from land has triggered violent conflicts between the state and local communities. During the pre -colonial Merina kingdom, when domestic slavery was implemented on the island to meet specific political and economic objectives (Campbell 1991), land was forcibly denied as a means of control, de -historicization and pacification, breaking links between Malagasy people and their ancestors and eventually making them andevo (slaves). Andevo were 'lost people', lacking links to ancestral lands and permanent tombs and thus precluded from becoming ancestors themselves -the essence of the Malagasy identity (Bloch 1971, 1989, Feeley -Harnik 1982, Graeber 1997, Evers 2002.…”

Closed circles of mistrust: envy, aspirations and urban sociality in coastal Madagascar

“…On other occasions, I heard that young students who worked with foreign NGOs in the city's countryside refused invitations to eat in villages because they were anxious about poisoning. Throughout the nineteenth century, ordeals by poison ( tangena ) were common in the Merina empire; they were ordered by the elites against witches, but also against slaves, servants and insubordinate rivals or villages (Campbell 1991; Ellis 2002).…”