ABSTRACT
During the nineteenth-century Merina Empire in Madagascar, virtually the entire non-elite population were subjected to some degree of unfree labour, either as slaves or as victims of fanompoana, or unremunerated forced labour for the Merina state and ruling elite. Both forms of unfree labour (slave and fanompoana) were subjected to forms of exploitation against which they protested. Moreover, some forms of protest against ‘unfree’ labour became infused with ethnic (anti-Merina) and political (anti-imperialist) sentiment. With illustrations drawn from nineteenth-century Malagasy proverbs,1 this chapter analyses the nature of unfree labour (including slavery) in imperial Madagascar, outlines the main forms of protest against such labour and examines the way in which some of it was channelled into political protest.
