Les recherches démographiques sur Madagascar au début de l'époque coloniale et les documents de « l'AMI »

Y.-G. Paillard — Demographie Research on Madagascar at the Beginning of the Colonial Period and AMI Documents. According to the estimates made at the end of the igth century, the population of Madagascar was then varying between two and eight million. When the island became part of the French territory in 1896, the colonial authorities proved most anxious to know the number of native taxpayers and the supply of labour force they could reasonably reckon on. Difficulties of ail kind, however, did not permit for a long time to collect reliable statistical data, and only that questionable information is available to historians. It is yet certain that the island was really sparsely populated, which considerably hampered its 'exploitation'. Hence a series of steps with a view to increasing the population as soon as Gallieni (1896-1905) came into power; the main initiative was the creation in 1899 of the AMI (Native Medical Assistance), a pioneering undertaking which was then repeated in other places, and the results of which proved quite significant. Thanks to these efforts, a large quantity of reports and publications is now available, the systematic exploitation of which, together with that of other sources of various kinds, should permit to have a better idea of the actual population of the island at the beginning of the 2oth century (between two and a half and three million?), to study its distribution, the changes in birth and death rates, the effects of epidemie diseases such as malaria, etc. The particularly large amount of documents on the capital, Tananarive, permits an in-depth analysis.Paillard Yvan-Georges. Les recherches démographiques sur Madagascar au début de l'époque coloniale et les documents de « l'AMI ». In: Cahiers d'études africaines, vol. 27, n°105-106, 1987. Démographie historique. pp. 17-42