Service géographique des Colonies. Cartes d’étude série B. Madagascar (Carte administrative).

Description

This sizable map of Madagascar was issued by the Service géographique des Colonies around 1895, in the fragile interval between the French protectorate and outright annexation of the island. Labeled a Carte d’étude (“Study Map”), it was almost certainly intended for the instruction of colonial administrators, capturing both the growing reach of French power and the still improvised nature of its administrative structures.

From 1817 to 1892, Madagascar was governed by the Merina monarchy, which was recognized by many foreign powers but increasingly found itself caught between French and British ambitions. In 1892, France imposed a protectorate, retaining Queen Ranavalona III as a nominal ruler. The decision provoked the Menalamba revolt, followed by General Gallieni’s bloody “pacification” campaigns, and culminated in annexation in 1896–1897, with the queen’s exile to Algeria. This map belongs to the brief moment when Madagascar was neither fully independent nor yet a colony, but already being reorganized as a training ground for French bureaucrats.

The map plots approximately thirty forts, concentrated in the central and northern highlands, as well as rivers, streams, and other natural features whose detail reveals growing geographic knowledge. Yet the outlines of the “residencies” (equivalent to provinces) remain incomplete, requiring textual clarifications in the margins. Some forts are hastily elevated to the rank of “small military sub-governors,” exposing the patchwork and experimental quality of colonial rule. Distances between ports are carefully noted—Majunga one day by boat from Mayotte; Tamatave two days from Réunion—underscoring Madagascar’s integration into the French Indian Ocean system.

Places of Significance

1. Antananarivo (Tananarive)
At the center of the map stands Antananarivo, capital of the Merina kingdom. In 1895 it became the symbolic prize of French conquest, shelled and occupied by troops. Its prominence here reflects both its historic role as the seat of Malagasy power and its new status as the administrative heart of the colonial regime.

2. Fort-Dauphin (Tolagnaro)
The survival of this name in the far south recalls the first French colonial venture in Madagascar, a short-lived and bloody settlement of the 1640s. Though abandoned, “Fort-Dauphin” lingered in the French imagination as a reminder of early ambitions, and its reappearance on this 1890s training map connects past failures to the new colonial triumph.

3. Majunga (Mahajanga)
Marked as a key west-coast port, Majunga was the main French landing point during the 1895 campaign, making it crucial to the conquest of the Merina highlands. Its strategic importance is underscored by the notation of maritime travel times, linking it directly to Mayotte and the Comoros.

4. Tamatave (Toamasina)
On the east coast, Tamatave had long served as the main entry point for Europeans. It was bombarded by the French in 1883 and remained the island’s commercial gateway. The map highlights it as a port of connection to Réunion, emphasizing the logistical arteries of France’s Indian Ocean empire.

Rarity

We have found no record of another example of this map in the trade or in institutional collections. WorldCat/OCLC lists only a related item from Série B, also dated to the mid-1890s, depicting the central region of Madagascar, preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France from the library of Prince Roland Bonaparte.