Africana Periodical Literature 
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| Title: | An Industrial Experiment in Pre-Colonial Africa: The Case of Imperial Madagascar, 1825-1861 |
| Author: | Campbell, Gwyn |
| Year: | 1991 |
| Periodical: | Journal of Southern African Studies |
| Volume: | 17 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| Period: | September |
| Pages: | 525-559 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Madagascar |
| Subjects: | economic history industrial development Merina polity Development and Technology History and Exploration Economics and Trade Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Labor and Employment |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/2637197 |
| Abstract: | The period 1820-1861 witnessed an industrial experiment in the Merina empire, Madagascar, which is possibly unique in tropical Africa for four main reasons: it occurred in the precolonial era, was contemporaneous with industrial experiments in Western Europe and North America, it was the result of indigenous enterprise, and it involved large-scale factory machine-based production. This paper examines the rise and nature of this industry, which was based on 'fanompoana', or compulsory and unremunerated labour, and analyses the reasons for its failure. The debate about proto-industrialization and the question of the role of the State in initiating manufacturing, both generate issues useful in considering the origins of the industrial experiment in 19th-century Madagascar. It is here contended that, in the ultimate analysis, the State played the decisive role, but that the opportunity cost of industrialization, namely the undermining of the agricultural sector upon which the total economy depended, was too high and doomed the industrial experiment to failure. Notes, ref., sum. |
