Until the beginning of the 20th century, porterage was almost the only means of transport in Madagascar, both for goods and for people: Portage by pendulums for goods and by sedan chair or during the colonial period for people. Thus, for all the people disembarking in Tamatave on these dates, the recruitment of porters was the first concern if they wanted to reach Antananarivo. It took, at that time, about two weeks of walking through the deep bush of a still green Madagascar. It took three teams of four porters for one person on a filanzane, to which are added all the baggage porters, so a traveler had to recruit between twenty and thirty porters to accompany him on his journey to the heights of the central highlands. .
The horse was introduced to the island through a diplomatic gift to the King and was exclusively made available to the King and his first cavalry who were able to go to Tamatave in 1827.
The portage will disappear quite quickly on the main roads, with the abolition of slavery in September 1896 for the island, and especially because of the construction of roads which put the rickshaw in front of the transport scene followed by the first automobile introduced before 1902 by General Gallieni. In 1909, Governor Augagneur inaugurated the first section of the TCE line (Tananarive Côte Est) which would link Antananarivo to the East coast. The first airplanes appeared in the sky of Madagascar in 1911 and followed in 1913 by the commissioning of the last section of the TCE line.
From the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20thth, there has been progress in terms of transport on the island but this progress is confined to the main axes but as soon as you cross the borders of the Malagasy bush, the landscape of modes of transport has hardly changed apart from the zebu carts which have gained strength because of the poor state of the tracks.
This gives an authentic cachet to the image of the island but to the great detriment of development and the working conditions of these porters and rickshaw pullers have hardly changed, still just as harsh.
Guides 08/10/2020
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