S4E20: Progress for the Few, Misery for Many

Large auction of enslaved workers in Antananarivo, 1860s.

The economic progress made under Ranavalona's early reign was seemingly awe-inspiring. The country had rapidly transformed from a feudal state pumping endless sums of cash into perpetually failing companies, into a more coherent system of state-run capitalism. However, this economic progress came at an enormous human price, and was propped up by a system of horrifically brutal exploitation.

Enslaved worker carrying cattle hides, 1880s.

This episode will focus on unfree labor within the Merina economy, with a focus on how the Merina system justified and explained the use of enslaved and corvee labor, the effect that reliance on unfree labor had on the Merina economy, and how unfree laborers responded to their oppression.