S4E14: Andrianampoinimerina part 2 - The Birth of the Merina Empire

href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvcqc984m44UpImrPpaU0fGyQOU_MCiyt2d0jziBtNaCp3_XM09FtJrq6BlcfXNxlvy3w_z3c64X5hzKcSuYaLEbUOcYDLOL2IgSVE2kiNhLYHpNZItgchIiBid4AqFbd67ZrbnoN5NzQNgxAlqD1CHZXZUGTtQ7luRQYBSlhorKZxYGwmscHUNBq1/s1280/expansionofimerina.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">Map of Andrianampoinimerina's Expansion of Imerina from 1787-1810.In our last episode, Andrianampoinimerina reunited the warring kingdoms of Imerina after seven decades of intermittent civil war. While this alone is a significant achievement, Andrianampoinimerina also had to shoulder the considerable burden of trying to repair his economically and socially devastated kingdom. Through smart and efficient use of the Fanamapoana corvee labor system, Andrianampoinimerina directed the repair, construction, and maintenance of hundreds of canals and dams, which greatly revitalized the region's agricultural output. Combined with the end of Sakalava raids, this resulted in a major population boom. Soil depletion and overpopulation, however, forced Merina people to expand their territory for further settlement, at the expense of neighboring people.

A 1900 sketch of a Betsileo man in traditional attire.

The Betsileo people were a relatively new identity in the late 18th century, with the term referring to a group of highlander Malagasy who banded together to defeat Sakalava raiders a few decades prior and had become applied to people within their political sphere of influence. Andrianampoinimerina defeated and conquered the federations of Betsileo people to his south, opening the region to Merina settlement. He also expanded north and east at the expense of the Bezanozano and Sihanaka people, marking the first period of Merina expansion outside of their traditional homeland.

Zoma market, for centuries the largest marketplace in Imerina, was one of many markets established by Andrianampoinimerina 

Andrianampoinimerina also instituted numerous reforms to transform his kingdom's system of trade. The old model of relying on Betsimisaraka or Sakalava middlemen to facilitate trade with coastal partners was replaced with a protectionist system which granted state agents major control over trade entering and leaving Imerina. Foreigners were confined to a single village, and rarely allowed to enter the kingdom. Meanwhile, the government merchants established formalized marketplace locations, standardized weights and measures, and a robust new system of laws to prevent fraud.