Chinese people in Madagascar
Encyclopedia
Chinese people in Madagascar form Africa
's third largest overseas Chinese
population. , roughly 40,000 to 60,000 lived on the island. They constitute a minority ethnic group of Madagascar
.
arrived in the east coast port of Tamatave (now renamed Toamasina
) in 1862, where he opened a shop, and later married a local Malagasy woman. Six others came to Nosy Be
off the northwestern coast in 1866, then three more in 1872. Fourteen were noted at Majunga (Mahajanga
), also in the northwest, in 1894. Then, a contingent of five hundred arrived at Tamatave in 1896. The following year, three thousand Chinese more labourers were brought in at the initiative of the French general Joseph Gallieni
to work on the construction of the railway
. Contract workers, intending to return home after their stint on the island, often became ill while working on the construction of the railway; though they survived to board ships back to China, many died en route. In absolute terms the resident population remained quite small: 452 in 1904, with 76 in the north, 31 in the west, 24 in the centre, 315 in the east, and 6 in the south. The vast majority were men. They had grown slightly by the time of the 1911 census, which found 649 Chinese in the country, making up about 3% of the country's foreign population and a minute fraction of the total population of 3.2 million.
The initial migrants came from Guangxi
, but were later supplemented by Cantonese-speakers, both those who came directly from Guangdong
and those who had been driven out of Mauritius by increasing competition from Hakka-speakers. Upon arrival, the Cantonese speakers colluded to prevent any Hakka migration to Madagascar. As a result, the Chinese population remained largely homogenous; 98% traced their origins not just to Guangdong, but specifically to the Shunde
district.
Chinese came not just as indentured labourers, but as free migrants too. Often, a Sino-Mauritian
would bring his relatives over from China to Mauritius for a period of apprenticeship in his business; after they had gained sufficient familiarity with commercial practises and life in a colonial society, he would send them onwards with letters of introduction, lending them his own capital to start up businesses in neighbouring countries, including Madagascar. Import-export was one popular business, with products such as coffee
, clove
s, vanilla beans, and sea cucumber
s flowing outwards. Intermarriage between Chinese men and native Malagasy
women was not uncommon.
1957 official statistics showed 7,349 Chinese living in Madagascar, in forty-eight of the country's fifty-eight districts. By 2006, that number had grown to roughly forty thousand, composed of thirty thousand of the original migrants and their descendants, as well as ten thousand new expatriates from the People's Republic of China
, and another hundred from the Republic of China
on Taiwan
. The recent migrants trace their origins to a more diverse set of provinces, including Fujian
and Zhejiang
. Half lived in either Toamasina
or Antananarivo
, with a further one-eighth in the Diana Region; the remainder were distributed among the other provinces.
, Chinese parents could no longer send their children back to China for their schooling, which fueled the expansion of local Chinese education. Two of the most well-known schools, the Kuomintang
-run Ecole Franco-Chinoise (兴文学校) in Fenerive, and the co-educational Ecole Chinoise Mixte (华体学校) in Toamasina, were both established the following year. By 1946, the island boasted eleven Chinese schools. However, after the end of World War II, and especially in the 1980s, parents began shifting their children towards French-language education instead. As a result, the number of schools decreased, and the ones which remained decreased the number of class hours devoted to Chinese-language teaching. Of eight schools in 1972, three disappeared by the mid-1980s; the Ecole Franco-Chinoise, which at its peak had enrolled 629 students, was forced to merge with the Ecole Chinoise Mixte to form the Collège de la Congrégation Chinoise (华侨学校).
By 1995, only two schools remained, in Fianarantsoa
and Toamasina. The one in Toamasina, the Collège de la Congrégation Chinoise, enrolled 398 students at the kindergarten through lower secondary levels ; it continues teaching both Cantonese and Mandarin. The school in Fianarantsoa had about 100 students, including mixed-race children of Chinese and Malagasy descent, as well as non-Chinese children.
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
's third largest overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese are people of Chinese birth or descent who live outside the Greater China Area . People of partial Chinese ancestry living outside the Greater China Area may also consider themselves Overseas Chinese....
population. , roughly 40,000 to 60,000 lived on the island. They constitute a minority ethnic group of Madagascar
Ethnic groups of Madagascar
The number of ethnic groups of Madagascar has long been a point of contention and debate. The island of Madagascar is predominantly populated by people broadly classified as belonging to the broader Malagasy ethnic identity...
.
History
The first Chinese migrant to MadagascarMadagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
arrived in the east coast port of Tamatave (now renamed Toamasina
Toamasina
Toamasina , meaning "like salt" or "salty", unofficially and in French also Tamatave, is a city on the east coast of Madagascar on the Indian Ocean. The city is the chief seaport of the country, situated northeast of its capital and biggest city Antananarivo, near the centre of the eastern coast...
) in 1862, where he opened a shop, and later married a local Malagasy woman. Six others came to Nosy Be
Nosy Be
Nosy Be is an island located off the northwest coast of Madagascar. Nosy Be is Madagascar's largest and busiest tourist resort. It has an area of 312 km2 and its population was officially estimated at 36,636 in 2001....
off the northwestern coast in 1866, then three more in 1872. Fourteen were noted at Majunga (Mahajanga
Mahajanga
Mahajanga is a city and a district on the north-west coast of Madagascar.- City :The City of Mahajanga is the capital of the Boeny region. Population: 135,660 ....
), also in the northwest, in 1894. Then, a contingent of five hundred arrived at Tamatave in 1896. The following year, three thousand Chinese more labourers were brought in at the initiative of the French general Joseph Gallieni
Joseph Gallieni
Joseph Simon Gallieni was a French soldier, most active as a military commander and administrator in the French colonies and finished his career during the First World War. He was made Marshal of France posthumously in 1921...
to work on the construction of the railway
Rail transport in Madagascar
Rail transport in Madagascar is primarily operated by Madarail, a subsidiary of Comazar.The northern railway is currently concessioned to Madarail...
. Contract workers, intending to return home after their stint on the island, often became ill while working on the construction of the railway; though they survived to board ships back to China, many died en route. In absolute terms the resident population remained quite small: 452 in 1904, with 76 in the north, 31 in the west, 24 in the centre, 315 in the east, and 6 in the south. The vast majority were men. They had grown slightly by the time of the 1911 census, which found 649 Chinese in the country, making up about 3% of the country's foreign population and a minute fraction of the total population of 3.2 million.
The initial migrants came from Guangxi
Guangxi
Guangxi, formerly romanized Kwangsi, is a province of southern China along its border with Vietnam. In 1958, it became the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, a region with special privileges created specifically for the Zhuang people.Guangxi's location, in...
, but were later supplemented by Cantonese-speakers, both those who came directly from Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
and those who had been driven out of Mauritius by increasing competition from Hakka-speakers. Upon arrival, the Cantonese speakers colluded to prevent any Hakka migration to Madagascar. As a result, the Chinese population remained largely homogenous; 98% traced their origins not just to Guangdong, but specifically to the Shunde
Shunde
Shunde District is a district of Foshan prefecture-level city in the Pearl River Delta, Guangdong Province, southeast China.-Administration:Shunde was a county-level city until December 8, 2002, when it became a district of Foshan prefecture-level city...
district.
Chinese came not just as indentured labourers, but as free migrants too. Often, a Sino-Mauritian
Sino-Mauritian
Sino-Mauritians, also referred to as Chinese Mauritians or Mauritian Chinese, are Mauritians of Chinese descent. They form about 3% of the local population.-Migration history:...
would bring his relatives over from China to Mauritius for a period of apprenticeship in his business; after they had gained sufficient familiarity with commercial practises and life in a colonial society, he would send them onwards with letters of introduction, lending them his own capital to start up businesses in neighbouring countries, including Madagascar. Import-export was one popular business, with products such as coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
, clove
Clove
Cloves are the aromatic dried flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae. Cloves are native to the Maluku islands in Indonesia and used as a spice in cuisines all over the world...
s, vanilla beans, and sea cucumber
Sea cucumber (food)
Sea cucumbers are marine animals of the class Holothuroidea used in fresh or dried form in various cuisines.The creature and the food product is commonly known as bêche-de-mer in French, trepang in Indonesian, namako in Japanese and in the Philippines it is called balatan...
s flowing outwards. Intermarriage between Chinese men and native Malagasy
Malagasy people
The Malagasy ethnic group forms nearly the entire population of Madagascar. They are divided into two subgroups: the "Highlander" Merina, Sihanaka and Betsileo of the central plateau around Antananarivo, Alaotra and Fianarantsoa, and the côtiers elsewhere in the country. This division has its...
women was not uncommon.
1957 official statistics showed 7,349 Chinese living in Madagascar, in forty-eight of the country's fifty-eight districts. By 2006, that number had grown to roughly forty thousand, composed of thirty thousand of the original migrants and their descendants, as well as ten thousand new expatriates from the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, and another hundred from the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
on Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
. The recent migrants trace their origins to a more diverse set of provinces, including Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
and Zhejiang
Zhejiang
Zhejiang is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The word Zhejiang was the old name of the Qiantang River, which passes through Hangzhou, the provincial capital...
. Half lived in either Toamasina
Toamasina
Toamasina , meaning "like salt" or "salty", unofficially and in French also Tamatave, is a city on the east coast of Madagascar on the Indian Ocean. The city is the chief seaport of the country, situated northeast of its capital and biggest city Antananarivo, near the centre of the eastern coast...
or Antananarivo
Antananarivo
Antananarivo , formerly Tananarive , is the capital and largest city in Madagascar. It is also known by its French colonial shorthand form Tana....
, with a further one-eighth in the Diana Region; the remainder were distributed among the other provinces.
Employment
Most of the Chinese in Madagascar are engaged in retail business. In the 1990s, they controlled half of the alcoholic beverages and textiles industries; by the mid-2000s, their share of the alcoholic beverages industry had fallen to one-fifth, while that of the textiles industry had increased to 90%. Others operated cake shops and ice-cream parlours, somewhat along the lines of coffee shops, where customers could sit down and enjoy a dessert; they controlled about 10% of this industry. Popular resentment at the influx of Chinese small traders, whose prices undercut those of their Malagasy competitors, has strained relations with the People's Republic of China.Education
Chinese-language education in Madagascar began in the late 1920s; with the 1937 onset of the Second Sino-Japanese WarSecond Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States...
, Chinese parents could no longer send their children back to China for their schooling, which fueled the expansion of local Chinese education. Two of the most well-known schools, the Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
-run Ecole Franco-Chinoise (兴文学校) in Fenerive, and the co-educational Ecole Chinoise Mixte (华体学校) in Toamasina, were both established the following year. By 1946, the island boasted eleven Chinese schools. However, after the end of World War II, and especially in the 1980s, parents began shifting their children towards French-language education instead. As a result, the number of schools decreased, and the ones which remained decreased the number of class hours devoted to Chinese-language teaching. Of eight schools in 1972, three disappeared by the mid-1980s; the Ecole Franco-Chinoise, which at its peak had enrolled 629 students, was forced to merge with the Ecole Chinoise Mixte to form the Collège de la Congrégation Chinoise (华侨学校).
By 1995, only two schools remained, in Fianarantsoa
Fianarantsoa
Fianarantsoa is a city in south central Madagascar.Fianarantsoa is the capital of Haute Matsiatra Region. It was built in the early 19th century by the Merina as the administrative capital for the newly conquered Betsileo kingdoms....
and Toamasina. The one in Toamasina, the Collège de la Congrégation Chinoise, enrolled 398 students at the kindergarten through lower secondary levels ; it continues teaching both Cantonese and Mandarin. The school in Fianarantsoa had about 100 students, including mixed-race children of Chinese and Malagasy descent, as well as non-Chinese children.