Forced and forest labor regimes in colonial Madagascar, 1926-1936

Ethnohistory

Volumn 52, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 407-435

  Sodikoff, Genese ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 18844451751     PISSN: 00141801     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/00141801-52-2-407     Document Type: Article

References (121)

1. L. Lavauden, Le problème forestier à Madagascar (Paris, 1931), 57. Karen Middleton writes that in the years 1924 to 1930, Governor-General Olivier's social policy "saw the complete overhaul of land and labour laws in Madagascar." She notes the significant coincidence of Olivier's implementation of SMOTIG and the legislative triumph of Petit and Henri Perrier de la Bâthie's "Nature Protection" efforts;
2. Middleton, "Who Killed 'Malagasy Cactus'? Science, Environment, and Colonialism in Southern Madagascar (1924-1930)," Journal of Southern African Studies 25 (1999): 215-48; quotation on 227.
3. Pierre Boiteau writes that during the first fifty years of colonialism, the island's 12 million hectares of "exploitable forest" dwindled by one-third; Boiteau, Contribution à l'histoire de la nation malgache (Paris, 1958), 227-32.
4. Boulmer, Report on the camps in the region of Fianarantsoa, for Inspector General Pegourier, 1927-1928; CAOM MAD GGM 3 D13.
5. On the history of SMOTIG, see, e.g., Maureen Covell, Madagascar: Politics, Economics, and Society (London, 1987);
6. and Lesley A. Sharp, "Laboring for the Colony and Nation: The Historicized Political Consciousness of Youth in Madagascar," Critique of Anthropology 23(1) (2003): 75-91.
7. Glen Green and Robert Sussman's comparison of satellite imagery of Malagasy forests from 1950 to 1985 offers evidence of the rate of deforestation by tavy in the forests of eastern Madagascar. Green and Sussman, "Deforestation History of the Eastern Rain Forests of Madagascar from Satellite Images," Science 248 (1990): 212-15. Christian Kull discusses the complex of reasons why Malagasy people have burned landscape;
8. see Kull, "Madagascar Aflame: Landscape Burning as Peasant Protest, Resistance, or a Resource Management Tool?" Political Geography 21 (2002): 927-53.
9. For a discussion of the foundations of colonial conservationism, see Richard H. Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens, and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600-1860 (Cambridge, U.K., 1995);
10. Roderick P. Neumann, "Dukes, Earls, and Ersatz Edens: Aristocratic Nature Preservationists in Colonial Africa," Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 14 (1996): 79-98;
11. and William Beinart, "Soil Erosion, Conservationism, and Ideas about Development: A Southern African Exploration, 1900-1960," Journal of Southern African Studies 11 (1984): 52-83. While conservation labor has not been addressed as an object of study, select studies, including Beinart's, suggest that colonial officials began to address the need for natural resource conservation in the sites of labor reserves;
12. see, e.g., Donna Pankhurst, "Similar but Different? Assessing the Reserve Economy Legacy of Namibia," Journal of Southern African Studies 22 (1996): 405-20.
13. Other studies of dimensions of colonial forestry include Edmond O. Egboh, "Legal Efforts to Control Nigerian Forests Interest of the Metropolitan Economy, 1897-1940," Quarterly Review of Historical Studies 19.1 (1979): 64-90,
14. Edmond O. Egboh, "Legal Efforts to Control Nigerian Forests Interest of the Metropolitan Economy, 1897-1940," Quarterly Review of Historical Studies 19.2 (1980): 79-98;
15. K. Sivaramakrishnan, Modern Forests: Statemaking, and Environmental Change in Colonial Eastern India (Stanford, CA, 1999);
16. and Raymond L. Bryant, "Romancing Colonial Forestry: The Discourse of 'Forestry as Progress' in British Burma," Geographical Journal 162 (1996): 169-78.
17. Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (Cambridge, U.K., 1996).
18. Constant Southward, The French Colonial Venture (London, 1931), 41-42.
19. Andrée Corvol and Jean-Paul Amat, eds., Forêt et guerre (Paris, 1994).
20. Concerning Etienne de Flacourt in Madagascar, see Gillian Feeley-Harnik, A Green Estate: Restoring Independence in Madagascar (Washington, DC, 1991), 38.
21. Grove (Green Imperialism) addresses Pierre Poivre's conservation research in Mauritius.
22. Colbert's 1669 ordinance, cited in Peter Sahlins, Forest Rites: The War of the Desmoiselles in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge, MA, 1994), 14.
23. François Reitel, "Le rôle de l'armée dans la conservation des forêts," in Corvol and Amat, Forêt et guerre, 34; my translation.
24. Sahlins, Forest Rites, 16-19.
25. Anne Bergeret argues that the French conquest of Algeria in 1830 entailed an assault on forests. The occupation of Madagascar differed insofar as the French vilified Malagasy slash-and-burn agriculture from the outset; see Bergeret, "Discours et politiques forestières coloniales en Afrique et à Madagascar," Revue française d'outre mer 79.298 (1993): 23-47.
26. Général Gallieni, Neuf ans à Madagascar (Paris, 1908), 149.
27. I thank Gillian Feeley-Harnik for this formulation.
28. M. Lonifavski, "L'avenir de la colonisation à Madagascar: Le domaine-Les concessions," Bulletin économique, rcr trimestre (1922): 61-62.
29. "Titre III, Forêts des particuliers, article 30, "Bulletin officiel du ministère des Colonies 49 (1936): 709.
30. Leblond, La grande île de Madagascar (Paris, 1907), 42.
31. Cited from a summary of forestry decrees in Madagascar between 19 February 1900 and 2.8 August 1913; see A. Guichon, "La législation et la réglementation de l'exploitation forestière à Madagascar et leur application pratique," Terre malgache, Tany malagasy 6 (1969): 139.
32. Gallieni, Neuf ans à Madagascar, 62.
33. M. M. Louvel, "Les reboisements," Bulletin de l'Académie malgache, numéro spécial du cinquantenaire (1952): 43-51.
34. Denise Bouche, Flux et reflux (1815-1962), vol. 2 of Histoire de la colonisation française (Paris, 1991).
35. For a history of the institution of fanompoana labor, see Feeley-Harnik, Green Estate;
36. and Gwyn Campbell, "Slavery and Fanompoana: The Structure of Forced Labour in Imerina (Madagascar), 1790-1861," Journal of African History 29 (1988): 463-86.
37. Virginia Thompson and Richard Adloff, The Malagasy Republic: Madagascar Today (Stanford, CA, 1965).
38. Laurence Dorr, Plant Collectors in Madagascar and the Comoro Islands (Washington, DC, 1997), 214-18. Dorr describes Henri Humbert (1887-1967) as a "taxonomist, phytogeographer, conservationist, and one of the foremost explorers of Madagascar." Humbert was instrumental in the creation of Madagascar's first twelve réserves naturelles intégrales in 1927.
39. Henri Humbert, Destruction d'une flore insulaire par le feu: Principaux aspects de la végétation à Madagascar (Antananarivo, 1927), 14; my translation.
40. Jeffrey C. Kaufmann, "La Question des Raketa: Colonial Struggles with Prickly Pear Cactus in Southern Madagascar, 1900-1923," Ethnohistory 48 (2001): 87-122.
41. P. V. Cotte, Regardons vivre une tribu malgache: Les Betsimisaraka, preface by Marius-Ary Leblond (Paris, 1946), 66.
42. Maurice Bloch, "People into Places: Zafimaniry Concepts of Clarity," in The Anthropology of Landscape: Perspectives on Place and Space, ed. Eric Hirsch and Michael O'Hanlon (New York, 1995), 63-77.
43. See also Yvette Sylla and Eugène Mangalaza, "L'image représentative de la forêt betsimisaraka," Série Sciences de l'homme et de la société (Toamasina, Madagascar, 1988): 1-10.
44. André You, Madagascar: Colonie française, 1896-1930 (Paris, 1931), 413-14.
45. Louvel, "Reboisements," 43-51;
46. Georges Boussenot, La presse coloniale illustrée: Madagascar industriel (Paris, July 1925), 18;
47. Lavauden, "Problème forestier";
48. Annual Reports of the Service de l'Agriculture and thé Service Forestier, CAOM MAD GGM 5 D (18) 1-20.
49. Griess, inspecteur principal des Eaux et forêts, "Note sur le Service des forêts à Madagascar," 1923, CAOM MAD GGM 5 D (18) 9; my translation.
50. Ibid., 3.
51. Ibid., 14.
52. Dimpault, Inspecteur des Colonies, "Mission Pegourier: Forêts." CAOM MAD GGM 3 D13.
53. Confidential letter from the chef de la province of Moramanga to the governorgeneral (Service des Affaires Economiques), 3 June 1929, CAOM MAD GGM 5 D (18) 15.
54. L. Lavauden, "Rapport général sur le fonctionnement du Service forestier en 1930," 14 April 1931: 57, CAOM MAD GGM 5 D (18), 15.
55. Louvel, "Reooisements," 50.
56. Confidential letter from the chef de la province of Moramanga (probably Marchand) to the governor-general, "Objet: A.S. des mesures à prendre contre la deforestation," CAOM MAD GGM 5 D (18) 15.
57. Marcel Olivier, Six ans de politique sociale à Madagascar (Paris, 1931).
58. Léon Perrier, "Rapport au Président de la République française," in Instruction provisoire sur le Service intérieur des camps du Service de la main-d'oeuvre des travaux d'intérêt général à Madagascar (Antananarivo, 1926), 1, BIB AOM B 6571. Gwendolyn Wright discusses how urban policies, implemented with SMOTIG pioneers in Madagascar, sought both to protect cultural traditions and to modernize;
59. see Wright, "Tradition in the Service of Modernity: Architecture and Urbanism in French Colonial Policy, 1900-1930," in Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, ed. Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler (Berkeley, CA, 1997), 311-45; quotation on 337.
60. Stephen H. Roberts, History of French Colonial Policy (1870-1925), vol. 2 (London, 1929), 411.
61. Cooper, Decolonization and African Society, 38.
62. Perrier, "Rapport au Président"; my translation.
63. I b i d.
64. Like Humbert, Henri Perrier de la Bâthie (1873-1958) was a strong advocate of "Nature Protection" and instrumental in helping to establish the island's first ten (subsequently twelve) nature reserves in 1917; see Dorr, Plant Collectors, 338-39.
65. See also Middleton, "Who Killed 'Malagasy Cactus'?" 223.
66. Henri Perrier de la Bâthie, "Le salariat indigène à Madagascar" (paper presented at the Congrès International et Intercolonial de la Société Indigène, Paris, 5-10 October 1931), CAOM BIB B 6620; my translation.
67. After World War I, there were a large number of requests by French officers to the governor-general of Madagascar be assigned to the Travaux Publics, in contrast to the rare requests of metropolitan foresters to be posted in Madagascar's Eaux et Forêts; see CAOM MAD GGM series 3 B.
68. Arthur Stratton, The Great Red Island (New York, 1964), 96.
69. M. Boulmer, Report on Service de la main d'oeuvre des travaux d'intvrêt general [SMOTIG], camps at Ambalanjanakomby and Vohitrosy, mission 1927-28, CAOM MAD GGM 3 D13.
70. Lebegue, Report on the verification of M. Goguely, administrateur en chef des colonies, chef du SMOTIG, mission 1933-34: 57-60, CAOM MAD GGM 3 D 20.
71. Coursin, "Rapport annuel pour 1930, présenté par le directeur des travaux publics," 24 December 1930, CAOM MAD GGM 5 D (8) 60.
72. Ibid., 54; my translation.
73. Ibid., 61; my translation.
74. M. Olivier, "Instructions confidentielles" to the administrateur supérieur chef de la région de Tananarive, Tamatave, Fianarantsoa, Tulear, Majunga, Diego," no. 915, 21 December 1927:192, CAOM MAD GGM 3 A (2) 15.
75. Instruction provisoire sur le Service intérieur des camps du Service de la maind'oeuvre des travaux d'intérêt général à Madagascar (Antananarivo, 1926), BIB AOM B 6571.
76. Labegue, "Report on M. Goguely," 53-56.
77. A. Vally, "Etude sur la question de la main-d'oeuvre à Madagascar" (présentation to the Chamber of Commerce, Antananarivo, 1928).
78. See also Boulmer, "SMOTIG: Camps d'Ambalanjanakomby et de Vohitrosy," report for Inspector Pegourier, mission 1927-28, CAOM MAD GGM 3 D 13. Chantal Valensky shows how such racial ideology informed French assessments of Malagasy men's potential to be soldiers in the regular military;
79. see Valensky, Le soldat occulté: Les Malgaches de l'armée française, 1884-1920 (Paris, 1995).
80. Confidential letter from Charles Poirier to M. Chataux, chef du district in Ivohibe, concerning the Tribunal of Bara Opinion, "Rapport no. 63," January 1928, 3 D114.
81. Boulmer, "SMOTIG."
82. Silence on these incidents was not always possible, however. Olivier defended the institution of SMOTIG before the International Labor Organization, after the ILO established the Convention on Forced or Compulsory Labor in 1930, against charges SMOTIG claimed "a million victims in 1928"; see Raymond K. Kent, From Madagascar to the Malagasy Republic (New York, 1962), 77;
83. Thompson and Adloff, Malagasy Republic, 446.
84. Cooper, Decolonization and African Society, 29-31, 38, 55, 91.
85. See also "Summary of Annual Reports under Article 22 of the Constitution of the ILO; Twenty-Fifth Session" (presented at International Labor Conference, Geneva, 8-28 June 1939). For the history of the forced labor institution in Niger begun in 1925,
86. see Myron Eschenberg and Jean Filipovich, "African Military Labour and the Building of the Office du Niger Installations, 1915-1950," Journal of African History 27 (1986): 533-51.
87. See Cooper, Decolonization and African Society, 39.
88. Biaise Diagne, letter to the governor-general of Madagascar, "Objet: Institution de sections de travailleurs par voie de recrutement libre," 14 February 1931, CAOM MAD GGM i B 80; my translation.
89. Lebegue, "Rapport concernant la vérification de M. Goguely, administrateur en chef des colonies, chef du SMOTIG," mission 1933-34: 57-60, CAOM MAD GGM 3 D 20.
90. Covell, Madagascar, 20. Middleton writes that Tandroy people of the south were sent as far as Réunion to work on sugarcane plantations in 1922;
91. Middleton, "Who Killed 'Malagasy Cactus'?," 229.
92. On the emergent Malagasy nationalism in the wake of World War I, see Bouche, Flux et reflux, 345-46;
93. Philip M. Allen, Madagascar: Conflicts of Authority in the Great Island (Boulder, CO, 1995);
94. and Gabriel Hanotaux and Alfred Martineau, Histoire des colonies françaises et de l'expansion de la France dans le monde (Paris, 1933), 268.
95. Hubert Deschamps, Histoire de Madagascar (Paris, 1960), 259.
96. See Lavauden, "Rapport général";
97. and M. Louvel, "La vieille forêt malgache," Bulletin de l'Académie malgache 32 (1954): 76-78; quotation on 76.
98. Griess, "Note sur le Service des forêts," 6.
99. Ibid., 5.
100. Poirier, "Rapport no. 103," 169.
101. Ibid., 1.
102. Humbert, Destruction d'une flore insulaire, 10-11.
103. Ibid., 13. For a summary of legislative acts protecting forested domaines through 1932,
104. see "Inspection des provinces: Répertoire analytique des principaux textes en vigueur, arrêté au 31 Avril 1926; Supplement au J.O." (Antananarivo, January 1932), AOM BIB 41903.
105. Lavauden, quoted in Guichon, "Législation et réglementation," 148.
106. Léon Cayla, "Madagascar et dépendances: Notice géographique, politique et économique," in Le livre d'or de l'Exposition coloniale internationale de Paris (Paris, 1931), 105.
107. Lavauden, "Rapport général," 12.
108. Hanotaux and Martineau, Histoire des colonies françaises, 256.
109. Calculations in Dimpault's 1928 report on the forest service show that the European salary for a principal forest guard was 25,500 francs a month, while a Malagasy principal guard earned 3,800 francs a month.
110. Lavauden, "Rapport général," 13-15.
111. From a confidential letter from the chef de la province de Moramanga to Governor-General Olivier, "Objet: A.S des mesures à prendre contre la déforestation, no. 277," 3 June 1929; CAOM MAD GGM 5 D (18) 15.
112. Lavauden, "Rapport général," 17.
113. Poirier, "Rapport no. 103."
114. Dimpault, "Mission Pegourier."
115. Lavauden, "Rapport général," 11.
116. In the confidential letter from the chef de la province de Moramanga to the governor-general (3 June 1929), the author notes the "insufficiency of forestry personnel and the passivity of indigenous surveillance agents in this matter." CAOM MAD GGM 5 D (18) 15; my translation.
117. Dimpault, "Mission Pegourier"; my translation.
118. Lavauden, "Rapport général," 12-13; my translation.
119. I b i d.
120. I b i d.
121. R. Rarijaona cited in Jacques Colom, "La protection de l'environnement à Madagascar, à Maurice, aux Comores et aux Seychelles," Annuaire des pays de l'Océan Indien, 11 (1991): 65-88.