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Droughts and Political Crisis in Imerina, Madagascar, 1825–1829

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Droughts, Floods, and Global Climatic Anomalies in the Indian Ocean World

Part of the book series: Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies ((IOWS))

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Abstract

This chapter is the first to interpret the rupture of the 1820 Britanno-Merina alliance in the context of human–environment interaction, rather than in purely human terms. In 1825–1826 and 1828–1829, Imerina, the central province of Madagascar, experienced environmental crises, notably severe droughts that were probably part of a wider drought crisis affecting Indian Ocean Africa. The droughts, and accompanying events such as locust plagues and epidemics, contributed to provoke a political crisis that led the Merina under Radama I (r. 1810–1826) and his successor Ranavalona I (r. 1828–1861) to reject the 1820 treaty and British pretensions to political hegemony, and emboldened it in the late 1820s and early 1830s to expel the British Resident Agent, declare suzerainty over the entire island, and implement autarky—events that indelibly shaped the history of nineteenth-century Madagascar.

This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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  • 07 October 2022

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Notes

  1. 1.

    British Library (hereafter: BL) Add. 20131 f. 116 Papers Relating to the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the Mauritius: 1817–1820, vol. 18 (House of Commons, 1821), 360.

  2. 2.

    See: Gwyn Campbell, An Economic History of Imperial Madagascar 1750–1895: The Rise and Fall of an Island Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

  3. 3.

    James Sibree, ‘Imerina, the Central Province of Madagascar, and the Capital, Antananarìvo,’ Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, 14, 11 (1892), 742; Samuel Pasfield Oliver, Madagascar: An Historical and Descriptive Account of the Island and Its Former Dependencies (London: Macmillan, 1886), I, 222–23.

  4. 4.

    Sibree, ‘Imerina,’ 742.

  5. 5.

    Ibid., 742.

  6. 6.

    BL Add.18128 Nicolas Mayeur, ‘Voyage au pays d’ancove, autrement dit des hovas ou Amboilamba dans l’intérieur des terres, Isle de Madagascar’ (1777), 162–63, 171–72; Alfred Grandidier and Guillaume Grandidier, Histoire Physique, Naturelle et Politique de Madagascar (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1908), IV, I, 79–80; Guillaume Grandidier, Histoire Physique, Naturelle et Politique de Madagascar (Paris: Hachette et Societe d’Editions Geographiques, Maritimes et Coloniales, 1928), IV: Ethnographie de Madagascar, IV, 3, 5, 9, 30–31, 40; Charles Robequain, Madagascar et les bases dispersées de l’union française (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1958), 275; Archives de l’Académie Malgache (hereafter: AAM) Raombana, Histoires (1853), 24, 26–27, 35; François Callet, R.P. Histoire des Rois. Tantaran ny Andriana, trans. George S. Chapus and Emmanuel Ratsima (Tananarive: Librarie de Madagascar, 1974), III–IV, 749, 754; Oliver, Madagascar, I, 250–51 and II, 53; Raymond Decary, ‘La population de Madagascar,’ Bulletin de l’Académie Malgache, 28 (1947–8), 36–37.

  7. 7.

    Archifdy Llyfrgell Genelaethol Cymru / Archives of the National Library of Wales (hereafter: ALGC) Jones to Hastie, 23 Oct. 1820, quoted in: Hastie to Griffiths, Port Louis, 18 Feb. 1821, 19157E.

  8. 8.

    BL Add.18128 Mayeur, ‘Voyage au pays d’ancove, par le pays d’ancaye autrement dit des Baizangouzangoux,’ related by Dumaine (1785), 224.

  9. 9.

    BL Add.18128 Mayeur, ‘Voyage au pays d’ancove’ (1785), 224; National Archives, Kew, London (hereafter: TNA, UK) CO 167/34 James Hastie, ‘Diary’ (1817), 187; Grandidier, Histoire (1928), 3–7, 11; H.M. Dubois, Monographie des Betsileo (Madagascar) (Paris: Institut d’ethnologie, 1938), 429; Campbell, Economic History, 26.

  10. 10.

    Maksika Sipa, ‘The Grain of Life—Rice Cultivation in Madagascar,’ Mada Magazine, https://www.madamagazine.com/en/das-korn-des-lebens-reisanbau-auf-madagaskar/ [accessed: 23 Mar. 2021].

  11. 11.

    Ralph Linton, ‘Rice, a Malagasy Tradition,’ American Anthropologist, 29 (1927), 654.

  12. 12.

    David Griffiths, Hanes Madagascar, neu Grynodeb o Hanes yr Ynys, ei Chynyrch, ei Masnach, ac Ansawdd ei Thrigolion (Machynlleth: Richard Jones, 1843), 16. As a Malagasy informed Linton: ‘For breakfast we have Sosoa, whole rice boiled with a great deal of water. This is also given to sick people. For dinner we have Ampangoro, rice boiled until the water is all gone. We also make rice dumplings, doing up the meal in pieces of banana leaf and boiling it’ (Linton, ‘Rice, a Malagasy Tradition,’ 658).

  13. 13.

    Linton, ‘Rice, a Malagasy Tradition,’ 655.

  14. 14.

    Ibid. See also: James Sibree, ‘The Changing Year in Central Madagascar,’ Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar Magazine, 18 (1894), 214.

  15. 15.

    André Coppalle, ‘Voyage dans l’intérieur de Madagascar et à la capitale du Roi Radama pendant les années 1825 et 1826,’ Bulletin de l’Académie Malgache, 7–8 (1909–1910), 79.

  16. 16.

    Sibree, ‘Changing Year in Central Madagascar,’ 213.

  17. 17.

    BL Add.18128 Lescalier, ‘Voyage à l’isle de Madagascar’ (1792), 320; Grandidier, Histoire (1928), 31; Oliver, Madagascar, II, 4–5, 53; TNA, UK CO 167/34 Hastie, ‘Diary’ (1817), 187; Maurice Bloch, Placing the Dead: Tombs, Ancestral Villages, and Kinship Organization in Madagascar (London: Seminar Press, 1971), 75–76, 93–94; Campbell, Economic History, 25–27; Sibree, ‘Changing Year in Central Madagascar,’ 210–32.

  18. 18.

    James Sibree, A Naturalist in Madagascar (London: Seeley, 1915), 92.

  19. 19.

    Ibid., 103.

  20. 20.

    Sibree, ‘Changing Year in Central Madagascar,’ 213.

  21. 21.

    Sibree, A Naturalist in Madagascar, 104.

  22. 22.

    ALGC Jones to Hastie, 23 Oct. 1820, quoted in: Hastie to Griffiths, Port Louis, 18 Feb. 1821, 19157E.

  23. 23.

    Callet, Histoire des Rois, I, 135.

  24. 24.

    Linton, ‘Rice, a Malagasy Tradition,’ 656–57.

  25. 25.

    AAM Raombana, Annales (1853), 8.

  26. 26.

    James Richardson, A New Malagasy-English Dictionary (Antananarivo: LMS, 1885), 453; Herbert F. Standing, The Children of Madagascar (London: Religious Tract Society, 1887), 178–79; Gwyn Campbell, David Griffiths and the Missionary ‘History of Madagascar’ (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 189.

  27. 27.

    Gabriel Ferrand, Les Musulmans à Madagascar et aux iles Comores Pt. I. Les Antaimorona (Paris: E. Leroux, 1891), 30–31; Callet, Histoire des Rois, I, 124; David Griffiths, Hanes Madagascar, neu Grynodeb o Hanes yr Ynys, ei Chynyrch, ei Masnach, ac Ansawdd ei Thrigolion (Machynlleth: Richard Jones, 1843), 18.

  28. 28.

    William Ellis, History of Madagascar: Comprising also the Progress of the Christian Mission Established in 1818; and an Authentic Account of the Recent Martyrdom of Rafaravavy; and of the Persecution of the Native Christians (London: Fisher, Son, & Co., 1838), I, 224–25, 402–3, 407–10; Callet, Histoire des Rois, 1, 177, 207; R. Valmy, ‘Les sampy. Idoles royales,’ Revue de Madagascar, 27 (1956), 56.

  29. 29.

    Gwyn Campbell, ‘Crisis of Faith and Colonial Conquest. The Impact of Famine and Disease in Late Nineteenth-Century Madagascar,’ Cahiers d’Études Africaines, 32, 127 (1992), 413.

  30. 30.

    Ellis, History of Madagascar, I, 412–13.

  31. 31.

    Jørgen Ruud, Taboo: A Study of Malagasy Customs and Beliefs (Tananarive: Trano Printy Loterana, 1970), 21.

  32. 32.

    Campbell, David Griffiths, 543; Ellis, History of Madagascar, I, 417; Herbert F. Standing, ‘Malagasy “Fady”,’ Antananarivo Annual & Madagascar Magazine, 7 (1883), 70–71; Ibid., 66–73.

  33. 33.

    Richardson, New Malagasy-English Dictionary, 145, 591.

  34. 34.

    Lucy A. Jarosz, ‘Taboo and Time-Work Experience in Madagascar,’ Geographical Review, 84, 4 (1994), 440.

  35. 35.

    Ellis, History of Madagascar, I, 84, 424–25.

  36. 36.

    Gwyn Campbell, ‘Environment and Enslavement in Highland Madagascar, 1500–1750: The Case for the Swahili Slave Export Trade Reassessed,’ in Bondage and the Environment in the Indian Ocean World, ed. Gwyn Campbell (Cham, CH: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 52.

  37. 37.

    Clare Kelso and Colleen Vogel, ‘The Climate of Namaqualand in the Nineteenth Century,’ Climatic Change, 83 (2007), 357–80; Clare Kelso and Colleen Vogel, ‘Diversity to Decline-Livelihood Adaptations of the Namaqua Khoikhoi (1800–1900),’ Global Environmental Change, 35 (2015), 257–58; Clive Spinage, African Ecology: Benchmarks and Historical Perspectives (Berlin: Springer, 2012), 186–88; Rudolf Brázdil, Andrea Kiss, Jürg Luterbacher, David J. Nash, and Ladislava Řezníčková, ‘Documentary Data and the Study of Past Droughts: A Global State of the Art,’ Climate of the Past, 14 (2018), 1930; Dirk Verschuren, ‘Decadal and Century-Scale Climate Variability in Tropical Africa During the Past 2000 Years,’ in Past Climate Variability Through Europe and Africa: Developments in Paleoenvironmental Research, eds. Catherine E. Stickley, Richard W. Battarbee, and Françoise Gasse (Dordrecht: Springer, 2004), 153; M.D.D. Newitt, ‘Drought in Mozambique 1823–1831,’ Journal of Southern African Studies, 15, 1 (1988), 19.

  38. 38.

    Brázdil et al., ‘Documentary Data and the Study of Past Droughts,’ 1931; Sharon E. Nicholson, Amin K. Dezfuli, and Douglas Klotter, ‘A Two-Century Precipitation Dataset for the Continent of Africa,’ Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 93, 8 (2012), 1227.

  39. 39.

    Joëlle L. Gergis, ‘Reconstructing El Niño-Southern Oscillation: Evidence from Tree-Ring, Coral, Ice and Documentary Palaeoarchives, A.D. 1525–2002’ (PhD diss., University of New South Wales, 2006), 219; W. Quinn and V. Neal. ‘The Historical Record of El Niño Events,’ in Climate Since A.D. 1500, eds. R. Bradley and P. Jones (London, Routledge, 1992), 623–48.

  40. 40.

    Nicholson, Dezfuli and Klotter, ‘A Two-Century Precipitation Dataset,’ 1227.

  41. 41.

    Indian Ocean World Centre, McGill University (hereafter: IOWC), ‘Appraising Risk’: https://www.appraisingrisk.com/ [accessed: 13 Apr. 2021].

  42. 42.

    Richard Grove and George Adamson, El Niño in World History (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 147; Joëlle L. Gergis and A.M. Fowler, ‘A History of ENSO Events Since A.D. 1525: Implications for Future Climate Change,’ Climatic Change, 92 (2009), 369.

  43. 43.

    BL. Add.18137 Hugon, ‘Aperçu de mon dernier voyage à ancova de l’an 1808,’ 11; TNA, UK CO.167/34 Le Sage, ‘Mission to Madagascar’ (1816), 102; Oliver, Madagascar, I, 450, 465; Grandidier, Histoire (1928), 6–8, 30–39; Robequain, Madagascar, 58–59; Hubert Deschamps, Les Migrations Intérieures à Madagascar (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1959), 13, 15.

  44. 44.

    Coppalle, ‘Voyage dans l’intérieur de Madagascar,’ 65.

  45. 45.

    Ibid., 69.

  46. 46.

    TNA, UK CO 167/116 Robert Lyall, ‘General Remarks on the Weather in Madagascar, and Chiefly at Its Capital, Tananarivou, from 27 June 1828 Till 1 January 1829’: https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-precipitation-Rainfall,antananarivo,Madagascar [accessed: 23 Mar. 2021].

  47. 47.

    Robert Lyall, ‘General Remarks on the Weather in Madagascar, and Chiefly at Its Capital, Tananarivou; with a Meteorological Journal,’ Journal of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 1 (1831), 47–56.

  48. 48.

    Coppalle, ‘Voyage dans l’intérieur de Madagascar,’ 70.

  49. 49.

    Gergis and Fowler, ‘A History of ENSO Events,’ 343–87.

  50. 50.

    Grove and Adamson, El Niño in World History, 165–66.

  51. 51.

    Coppalle, ‘Voyage dans l’intérieur de Madagascar,’ 70.

  52. 52.

    Gwyn Campbell, ‘Malaria in Precolonial Imerina (Madagascar), 1795–1895,’ in Disease Dispersion and Impact in the Indian Ocean World, eds. Gwyn Campbell and Eva-Maria Knoll (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 150.

  53. 53.

    Gwyn Campbell, Africa and the Indian Ocean World from Early Times to 1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 221.

  54. 54.

    Gwyn Campbell, ‘The Adoption of Autarky in Imperial Madagascar, 1820–1835,’ Journal of African History, 28, 3 (1987), 395–411; Ibid., 207, 221.

  55. 55.

    Campbell, Africa and the IOW, 242.

  56. 56.

    Callet, Histoire des Rois, I, 219. See also: William Ellis and Joseph John Freeman, Madagascar and Its Martyrs: A Book for the Young (London: John Snow, 1842), 28–29; J.J. Freeman and David Johns, A Narrative of the Persecution of the Christians in Madagascar (London: John Snow, 1840), 100.

  57. 57.

    Callet, Histoire des Rois, I, 135.

  58. 58.

    Jarosz, ‘Taboo and Time-Work Experience in Madagascar,’ 448.

  59. 59.

    David Stifel, Marcel Fafchamps, and Bart Minten, ‘Taboos, Agriculture and Poverty,’ Journal of Development Studies, 47, 10 (2011), 1456.

  60. 60.

    Ellis, History of Madagascar, II, 398. See also: Griffiths, Hanes Madagascar, 46; Standing, ‘Malagasy “Fady”,’ 73–74.

  61. 61.

    Ellis, History of Madagascar, II, 399.

  62. 62.

    Council for World Missions/London Missionary Society (hereafter: CWM/LMS) Madagascar Incoming Letters (hereafter: MIL) Bx.3 F.2 J.C Minute Book of the Madagascar Mission, 1828; CWM/LMS MIL Bx.3 F.2 J.A Jones to Hankey, 29 July 1829; Ibid., 416.

  63. 63.

    CWM/LMS MIL Bx.3 F.2 J.C Minute Book of the Madagascar Mission, 1828; Ellis, History of Madagascar, II, 416.

  64. 64.

    Griffiths, Hanes Madagascar, 48.

  65. 65.

    CWM/LMS MIL Bx.3 F.2 J.A. Extracts of the Minutes of the Madagascar Mission (4 May–8 July 1829); TNA, UK CO 167/116 Lyall to Colville, Tamatave, 9 June 1829.

  66. 66.

    Quoted in: William Burder, Religious Ceremonies and Customs; or, the Forms of Worship Practised by the Several Nations of the Known World, from the Earliest Records to the Present Time; on the Basis of the… Work of Bernard Picart. To Which Is Added, a Brief View of Minor Sects Which Exist at the Present Day (London: T. Tegg, 1841), 564.

  67. 67.

    Griffiths, Hanes Madagascar, 20; Linton, ‘Rice, a Malagasy Tradition,’ 654.

  68. 68.

    Jarosz, ‘Taboo and Time-Work Experience in Madagascar,’ 443.

  69. 69.

    Coppalle, ‘Voyage dans l’intérieur de Madagascar,’ 69.

  70. 70.

    Callet, Histoire des Rois, I, 255.

  71. 71.

    Ibid., 316–17.

  72. 72.

    Ruud, Taboo, 13.

  73. 73.

    Griffiths, Hanes Madagascar, 129.

  74. 74.

    Charles Theodore Hilsenberg and Wenceslaus Bojer, ‘A Sketch of the Province of Emerina, in the Island of Madagascar, and of the Huwa, Its Inhabitants; Written During a Year’s Residence,’ in Botanical Miscellany; Containing Figures and Descriptions of Such Plants as Recommend Themselves by Their Novelty, Rarity, or History, or by the Uses to Which They Are Applied in the Arts, in Medicine, and in Domestic Economy Together with Occasional Botanical Notes and Information, ed. William Jackson Hooker (London: John Murray, 1833), III, 257–58.

  75. 75.

    Campbell, David Griffiths, 189.

  76. 76.

    Coppalle, ‘Voyage dans l’intérieur de Madagascar,’ 70; Ellis, History of Madagascar, I, 224–25, 407–8.

  77. 77.

    Quoted in: Campbell, David Griffiths, 685.

  78. 78.

    Coppalle, ‘Voyage dans l’intérieur de Madagascar,’ 3, fn.3; Ellis, History of Madagascar, II, 371–74.

  79. 79.

    National Archives, Mauritius (hereafter: NAM) HB 4 ‘Convention passé entre Sa Majesté Radama, Souverain de Madagascar, et le Sr. Louis Blancard, agissant au nom de M.M. Blancard & Co., Négociant de Maurice,’ Tananarive, 25 Oct. 1826. See also: CWM/LMS MIL Bx.2 F.3 J.D Jones and Griffiths to [LMS], 9 Nov. 1826.

  80. 80.

    NAM HB 4 Radama I, ‘Proclamation,’ 25 Oct. 1826.

  81. 81.

    NAM HB 4 Radama I to Cole, 9 Mar. 1827.

  82. 82.

    NAM HB 4 Dupuy frères to Cole, 13 Dec. 1826.

  83. 83.

    See: Gwyn Campbell, The Travels of Robert Lyall, 1789–1831: Scottish Surgeon, Naturalist and British Agent to the Court of Madagascar (Cham, CH: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).

  84. 84.

    NAM HB 3 Hilsenberg and Boyer to Burke, 24 Oct. 1823.

  85. 85.

    Lyall, ‘Journal,’ 2 Nov. 1827, in Le Journal de Robert Lyall, eds. Georges-Sully Chapus and Gustave Mondain (Tananarive: Imprimerie Officielle, 1954), 82; Lyall, ‘General Remarks on the Weather,’ 47–56; A Resident [Edward Baker], Madagascar Past and Present: With Consideration as to the Political and Commercial Interests of Great Britain and France; and as to the Progress of Christian Civilisation (London: R. Bentley, 1847), 49.

  86. 86.

    AAM Raomabana, Annales (1853), 181; Ellis, History of Madagascar, II, 417–18.

  87. 87.

    TNA, UK CO 167/116 Lyall, ‘Journal,’ 15 Jan. 1829, 21 Feb. 1829.

  88. 88.

    Lyall, ‘Journal,’ 2 Nov. 1827, in Journal de Robert Lyall, eds. Chapus and Mondain, 82; Lyall, ‘General Remarks on the Weather,’ 47–56; Resident, Madagascar, Past and Present, 49.

  89. 89.

    Richard Lovett, The History of the London Missionary Society 1795–1895 (London: Henry Frowde, 1899), II, 687. Rakelimalaza’s many taboos included horses. See: Griffiths, Hanes Madagascar, 18; Callet, Histoire des Rois, I, 186.

  90. 90.

    Ellis, History of Madagascar, II, 418.

  91. 91.

    AAM Raombana, Annales (1853), 249–51, 254, 445; Régis Rajemisa-Raolison, Dictionnaire Historique et Géographique de Madagascar (Fianarantsoa: Librarie Ambozontany, 1966), 283; Georges-Sully Chapus and Gustave Mondain, Un Homme d’état Malgache. Rainilaiarivony (Paris: Diloutremer, 1953).

  92. 92.

    TNA, UK CO 167/116 Lyall, ‘Journal,’ 1 Oct. 1828; Callet, Histoire des Rois, 211–12; Ellis, History of Madagascar, I, 224–25, 407–8, II, 419; Kari Mason, ‘Customs and Habits of the Merina Tribe of Madagascar’ (Unpublished MS: Leicester, 1959), 22; Rajemisa-Raolison, Dictionnaire Historique et Géographique, 163.

  93. 93.

    Ellis, History of Madagascar, II, 420–21.

  94. 94.

    Campbell, ‘Malaria in Precolonial Imerina (Madagascar), 1795–1895,’ 150.

  95. 95.

    ALGC 19157 Johns to Thomas Philip, 26 Nov. 1832.

  96. 96.

    NAM HB 9 Freeman to Dick, 13 Oct. 1834; Thomas Trotter Matthews, Thirty Years in Madagascar (London: Religious Tract Society, 1904), 100; Charles Moss, A Pioneer in Madagascar. Joseph Pearse of the L.M.S. (London: Headley Bros, c1913), 142, 164–65.

  97. 97.

    Edward Baker (1831), quoted in: Joannes Chatin, ‘Recherches pour server à l’histoire botanique, chimique et physiologique du tanguin de Madagascar’ (Thèse: École Supérieure de Pharmacie de Paris 1873), 10. See also the claims in: George L. Robb ‘The Ordeal Poisons of Madagascar and Africa,’ Botanical Museum Leaflets, Harvard University, 17, 10 (1957), 272.

  98. 98.

    ALGC 19157 Johns to Thomas Philip, 26 Nov. 1832.

  99. 99.

    Ibid.

  100. 100.

    AAM Raomabana, Annales (1853), 330.

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    Gwyn Campbell

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Campbell, G. (2022). Droughts and Political Crisis in Imerina, Madagascar, 1825–1829. In: Gooding, P. (eds) Droughts, Floods, and Global Climatic Anomalies in the Indian Ocean World. Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98198-3_6

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