5 - Industry

Summary

This chapter examines the reasons for the rupture of the Britanno-Merina alliance and, in the context of the adoption of autarkic policies, assesses the Merina court’s attempts to industrialize, and the role of the Madagascar Youths in such efforts. Following the 1820 Britanno-Merina treaty, the main aims of the Merina crown were to utilize the British alliance to create an island empire and to promote economic modernization through importing European skills and technology and exploiting the island’s human and natural resources. Thus, Radama sent a number of Madagascar Youths abroad to Britain and Mauritius to study British crafts and industrial techniques. He also encouraged an influx of ‘British’ military, agricultural, and craft specialists, chiefly British missionary and Mauritian Creole artisans to whom he assigned Malagasy apprentices. He intended that the apprentices, both those sent abroad and those trained locally, would quickly replace European personnel. This imperative increased from 1826, when Radama rejected the 1820 Britanno-Merina treaty and adopted autarkic economic policies, a decision endorsed from 1828 by his senior wife and successor, Ranavalona. This change of policy had profound implications for relations with the British, for foreign artisans in Madagascar, and, upon their return, the Madagascar Youths.