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Sacred Acquisition: Andrianampoinimerina at Ambohimanga, 1777–1790

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Gerald M. Berg
Gerald M. Berg
Affiliation:
Sweetbriar College, Virginia
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Extract

Between 1775 and 1810 Andrianampoinimerina laid the foundations of the Merina state which in subsequent decades was to rule most of Madagascar. Though various circumstances such as the development of irrigated riziculture and slavery, the monopoly of profits and of muskets from coastal trade, and the manipulation of ritual, contributed in part to the nascent monarchy's strength, they equally touched other political formations within Imerina and elsewhere and therefore do not explain why Andrianampoinimerina's organization endured while others did not. The distinctiveness of Andrianampoinimerina's case is revealed by returning to particular events, those culminating in his first successful attempt to rule at Ambohimanga in 1783. His success depended upon exploiting both good luck and pervasive kinship values which recognized individual financial prowess. Thus the resurgent trade with the east coast did not redefine Merina kinship. Rather, trade provided an expanded arena of economic activity in which Andrianampoinimerina demonstrated superior skill at kinship politics, expanding his kin group and assuming the role of sole mediator between the residents of Ambohimanga and their ancestors.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , July 1988 , pp. 191 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

* I wish to thank Claudia Chang, Marc Schloss, Maurice Bloch, Gillian FeeleyHarnik, Raymond Kent, Henry T. Wright, Joseph C. Miller and Cecilia Albin for helpful comments on earlier drafts. Research for this paper was made possible by generous grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Sweet Briar College Faculty Grants Committee. A version of this paper was read on 28 November 1986 at a conference on ‘Pre-Colonial Madagascar’ in London sponsored by the School of Oriental and African Studies and the Museum of Mankind.Google Scholar

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24 Mayeur, ‘Voyage…1777’, fol. 90r–91v.Google Scholar

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35 TA, 493: ‘ …ary izao tsy lafintany intsony fa efa lafinkavana’.Google Scholar

36 TA, 425–6.Google Scholar

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38 See Bloch, Maurice, ‘Almost eating the ancestors’, Man, xx (1986), 639–40.Google Scholar

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49 TA (1st ed., 1873), 162, notes 1 and 3.Google Scholar

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53 TA, 423, 938.Google Scholar

54 Raombana, Histoires, 289, 322; TA, 426, 428, 437, 940.Google Scholar

55 TA, 940–1.Google Scholar

56 TA, 424, 493.Google Scholar

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