How can we assess the material damage caused by the Malagasy uprising ?

Econometric interpretations of the effects of modern colonial domination based on colonial statistics, and research questioning the interactions between colonial empires, colonized populations and international institutions, are sparking renewed interest in imperial statistical production. However, little is known about it.

Discover the fifth session of "Encrypting and deciphering empires, XVIII-XXIth centuries” seminar: "How can we assess the material damage caused by the 1947 Malagasy uprising and its repression? " with Noami Bell, a contract PhD student since September 2023 at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, attached to the Institut des Mondes Africains (IMAF) and in collaboration with the Centre de Recherche en Informatique (CRI) and the Pôle Informatique et de Recherche en Histoire (PIREH). His thesis is entitled “Se révolter à Madagascar en 1947 : destructions, ‘dommages de guerre’ et indemnisations. An economic and social reading of a revolt in a colonial context”, under the supervision of Anne Hugon and Samuel F. Sanchez. The aim is to take a fresh look at the 1947 Malagasy revolt through the lens of compensation files.

On the night of March 29 to 30, 1947, a revolt broke out on Madagascar's east coast, inflicting extensive human and material damage not only on colonial property but also on the indigenous inhabitants. While the question of the number of victims has been debated in French historiography, the question of material damage and reparations remains absent. This aspect is now accessible to the historian thanks to the classification of the Madagascar High Commission's collection, which includes almost 9,329 claims for reparations, mainly following the 1947 insurrection. This paper will study the practices used to assess the material damage caused by the insurgents during the 1947 insurrection, not forgetting that caused by military troops during the repression. In other words, how can we use this encrypted documentation to re-read the 1947 revolt, and indeed anti-colonial revolts, as well as compensation processes in the French colonial empire? First, we'll take a look at archival documents, i.e. compensation files and their component parts. Next, we'll look at how the valuation process works, allowing us to question the construction of the figure. Finally, we will put forward some interpretative hypotheses as to the possible uses of these data in order to re-examine the Malagasy revolt of 1947.