Malagasy Ethnic Groups and Their Points of Origin

Ambanja, as a migrant town, may be viewed in certain ways as a microcosm of Madagascar as a whole, since all groups—regardless of whether they are defined by ethnic, geographical, or religious categories—are represented. According to the 1986 census, the town had a population of 26,288 (25,945 nationals and 343 foreigners)^[7] (Madagascar, Service du Planification, 1986). Over the latter half of this century the population of the town has doubled every ten years, whereas the average national growth rate in Madagascar is 3.1 percent per annum (Covell 1987: xiii), the national doubling time being approximately twenty to twenty-five years. This population increase in the Sambirano has occurred as a result of the immigration of non-Sakalava. The rate of immigration has increased dramatically since 1975, following the Socialist Revolution and the subsequent expansion of state-run agricultural enterprises (Andriamihamina et al. 1987: 25). Estimates for the population of the town of Ambanja since 1950 reveal this doubling of the population (Andriamihamina et al. 1987: 21) (figure 3.4).

Statistics on the ethnic breakdown of the population of the district of Ambanja (the entire Sambirano Valley) are scanty, since they were collected regularly only from 1950 to 1971. Further problems arise since changes were made in the size of the district over time, as well as in the procedures used to collect census information. It is also unclear whether or not these figures include temporary residents of the valley. Since 1985 the timing of the census has been designed to avoid the coffee season (June and July), when there are many temporary laborers in town. The figures are now collected by local representatives for each neighborhood, drawn from registration books where they keep a log of all residents living there during the course of that year. Despite these disadvantages, I have reproduced these figures since they provide a rough picture of the ethnic composition of the Sambirano Valley (see figure 3.5).

These figures show that, first, the Sakalava remain the largest single group, comprising 37 to 54 percent of the population. Second, all officially recognized categories are well represented in each census, reflecting the presence of large numbers of non-Sakalava. The most significant groups, in terms of number (listed in descending order) are as follows:

1. Makoa are the descendants of African slaves; Makoa was an official ethnic category as late as the 1970s. Makoa are now considered to be indigenous to Sakalava territory in western Madagascar and are sometimes subsumed under the category designated for Sakalava. From the point of view of local Bemazava, they occupy an ambiguous category vis-à-vis tera-tany status: although they are perceived as a distinct group, they have special rights and privileges in reference to this status because they served the Sakalava in the past.
2. Tsimehety are pastoralists who originally came from the south and who have since migrated northward throughout this century. Today they occupy the territory to the south of the Sambirano; many also live along the northeast coast in an area referred to as the “Vanilla Triangle.”
3. Antaimoro are from the southeast, near Farafangana.
4. Antandroy are pastoral peoples from the far south.^[8]
5. Betsileo and Merina are the two major groups that occupy the high plateaux.

Dating the arrival of these different migrant groups to the Sambirano is difficult. By consulting the records of land titles held by one of the first plantation owners, de la Motte St. Pierre, it is clear that by 1907 he had worker villages situated on his lands (Title 140, Le Gabés) and by 1908 the Sakalava were living on indigenous reserves (Title 130 B. P.) (Service Topographique). Planters on Nosy Be used slave labor until slavery was abolished by the French parliament in 1896. After that they relied on land tenants and corvée labor. Attempts were made throughout Madagascar to recruit foreign laborers from China, Yemen, and the Comoro Islands, but these efforts were relatively unsuccessful (see Brown 1978: 249–250; Stratton 1964: 95–96; and Thompson and Adloff 1965: 442ff). The first Antandroy laborers were brought to Nosy Be in 1922 by Djamanjary Sugar (established 1918). These workers were recruited from the prison in Tulear and brought to Nosy Be by boat. Many of these Antandroy settled permanently in the north. It is possible that a few planters in the Sambirano continued this recruitment practice until migrants began to arrive on their own.

Betsileo are also among the early migrants to the Sambirano; evidence of their work can be seen on the road to Diégo, just north of Ambanja, where there are large rice paddies. As one Betsileo informant explained:

My parents decided to come north in the 1920s to search for work, and they came directly to the Sambirano, having heard that there were colonists here who needed laborers. My father came to work in the sugar cane and manioc fields, and he became a land tenant of one of the plantation owners. Under a system called miasa-talata [lit. “to work on Tuesday”; the French called these workers talatiers, cf. Feeley-Harnik 1984: 11] he was given land to farm where he grew rice; in exchange he worked every Tuesday for the landowner. When French and other large landowners left Madagascar in the 1970s, my father bought the land, so that now he owns approximately 110 hectares.

Today my informant’s father farms his land successfully with the assistance of a tractor and the labor of his wife and fifteen descendants, including children and grandchildren. Clearly, by the second decade of this century, the Sambirano was well-known throughout Madagascar as a place where one could find work, and it attracted people from all areas of the island.

In the 1959 census, Jonoro Houlder, the Chef du District, devoted special attention to a discussion of immigration and emigration of peoples to and from the Sambirano. He noted that a number of non-Sakalava were well established in the area, contracted by European planters to work as manual laborers. These included the Tsimehety (from Analalava, Antsohihy, and Bealanana), and peoples from the south and southeast (Antandroy, Antanosy, Bara, Antaimoro, Antaisaka). Others from the east coast (Betsimisaraka) and high plateaux (Betsileo and Merina) had also arrived in the area and had put down roots:

Le district d’Ambanja est un district plutôt d’immigration et d’emmigration. Il forme une plaque tournante où transitent obligatoirement tous ceux qui, venant d’Analalava, d’Antsohihy ou de Bealanana par voie de terre, se dirigent vers Ambilobe et Diégo-Suarez.…Dans cette région particulièrementfavorisée par une terre riche, la colonisation européene a introduit des travailleurs salairiés ordinaires du Sud, engagés par contrat, et qui forment l’essentiel de sa main-d’oeuvre: Antaimoro, Antaisaka, Antandroy, Antanosy, Bara.…Profitant de la décadence et de l’apathie des Sakalava qui peuple-rent initialement ce pays, d’outres éléments allongènes plus laborieux, se sont infiltrés et y ont fait solidement souche: Betsileo, Tsimehety, Hova [Merina], Betsimisaraka, etc. (Madagascar 1950–1971, report from 1959: 2)

Houlder then went on to discuss the presence of non-Malagasy, including Comoreans and Indians, and their activities as local merchants.

Similar comments are made about the immigration of Malagasy in the report from 1965, where the author spoke again of the importance of contract workers, especially Antandroy and Antaimoro; he also commented on Tsimehety migration, which had continued to grow. He stressed that most Tsimehety came from Bealalana (which is about 350 kilometers south of Ambanja) and that Tsimehety villages had been established in the Sambirano (Madagascar 1950–1971, report from 1965: 2).

A recurring theme in subsequent reports is the reluctance of Sakalava to emigrate to other areas of Madagascar. Such a statement is made by Houlder, above, and is reiterated by the author of the 1968 report: “les elements aborigènes sont ordinairement sedentaires et quittent difficilement le village natal” (Madagascar 1950–1971, report from 1968: 1). The authors of these reports comment on Sakalava resistance to work as wage laborers (cf. Feeley-Harnik 1984: 6, 1991b, especially p. 191ff and chapter 5).^[9] As discussed in the previous chapter, today these are themes which are voiced by Sakalava about themselves as well as by frustrated employers. The complexities that have arisen as a result of this constant immigration of non-Sakalava will be discussed below in this chapter, as well as in the chapter that follows.