Lectures series in Global and Regional History - "Madagascar rice in the 19th century Western Indian Ocean: Production, trade and Political stakes", by Samuel Sanchez
Rice has played an important role in Madagascar’s political economy and historical trade within the western Indian Ocean. This subject has been recently explored in historiography, covering both ancient and early modern periods (see Beaujard, 2017; Hooper, 2017). The dynamics of the rice market at the time of the Kingdom of Madagascar (1817-1895) were examined by G. Campbell (2005), who relied mainly on British archives and French documents.
My current work is based on the administrative archives of the Merina monarchy, written in the Malagasy language, and allows new approaches to the rice economy in the nineteenth century. By examining these sources, I will first present the ritual and symbolic significance of rice in the construction of Malagasy political structures, particularly in the nineteenth-century Imerina. Next, I will analyze the fiscal archives of the Kingdom of Madagascar to explore specific aspects of regional rice production and its connection to the political-economic centralization of the royal Merina state. By examining various sources, including Malagasy, French, and Reunionese archives, I will assess the extent to which Madagascar functioned as a granary for the Indian Ocean region during the nineteenth century. The value of rice, deeply symbolic of Malagasy autonomy and self-sufficiency, has been a central theme in numerous political issues during the nineteenth century (and until today!). These issues often overshadowed the market value of rice as a consumer good. The final point of this paper will therefore be transversal and methodological: is a history of rice prices feasible, and can it contribute to a better understanding of the economic transitions that took place Western Indian Ocean in the nineteenth century?
