The oldest known settler of Mananjary and buried in the city is Napoléon de Lastelle, associate of Ranavalona I. After a slowdown caused by the 1917-1918 crisis, coffee production on the central east coast recorded a remarkable growth rate, unaffected by the general crisis of 1921-1922. "After a long period of trial and error marked by the abandonment of unprofitable crops (rubber, cocoa, Liberia coffee), settlers in the region found coffee varieties suited to local conditions" (Jean Fremigacci). These include notably Narras de Mananjary and Agron de Vatomandry for coulou, and Brée de Vatomandry for robusta. While at Vatomandry and Mahanoro the number of settlers remained stabilized at around fifty in total and mostly Creole, at Mananjary, better served, they showed much more dynamism. "The established settlers continually expanded their estates or diversified their activities—around 1920 the dominant figure of Jules Venot emerged at Mananjary. But above all, the region saw an influx of numerous Réunionnais, who moved up the valleys in search of good land that had become scarce and labor that was moving inland." From twenty-one planters in 1910, the number rose to around a hundred by 1926. This prosperity was quickly interrupted. From 1926 to 1934, colonization suffered the fatal combination of repeated cyclones and a collapse in world coffee prices. At Mananjary, it was virtually nonexistent in 1926 and weak in 1927. The same observations were made at plantation level, such as in the Socia de Mananjary. In this case, the settler could not hope, despite the early maturity of coulou, to obtain a harvest before 1937. But cyclones and price falls are not the true causes of the crisis. "The influence of these factors was exaggerated at the time to mask a structural crisis that could not be recognized and even less admitted by colonization." The author then cites two reasons that made this conjunction possible. On one hand, he says, settlers are the first to ignore or conceal the thorny problem of production costs. On the other hand, it is extremely difficult to assess the exact damage from cyclones. The colonial administration had to try three times before forming an approximate idea, after correcting the most obvious, and probably unconscious, exaggerations of the settlers. "The conclusion that emerges is that cyclones were more spectacular than destructive." Crop losses, highly unequal depending on the concessions, are rarely irreparable. In fact, cyclones and price drops serve as the basis for requests for aid from the Administration to address two chronic problems of a poorly solid colonization. Namely, lack of money and insufficient labor. Inspector Poirier then wrote: "Settlers expect to obtain remission of their debts as easily as remission of sins. Of past loans, they care nothing; the January cyclones have settled their debts." But "besides a moratorium, settlers are requesting financial aid out of all proportion to their losses." In 1934, Damien Richard of Ifanadiana demanded 2,000 francs per month for eighteen months, when he harvested only one ton of coffee in 1933, worth 5,000 francs in gross product. "If such requests were considered, a cyclone would be a blessing for certain settlers and their dearest wish would be to suffer one at least once a year." The loss assessment commission he chaired had to reject a series of "astronomical" claims concerning properties previously poorly maintained and already burdened with mortgages: the real problem is therefore how they had come to this state. Moreover, cyclone years are an opportunity to resort to the traditional expedient—but increasingly impractical—of requisitioning labor. Indeed, after the January 1926 cyclone, settlers at Vatomandry obtained a thousand men, "renewed every thirty days, paid one franc per day." And five months later, they protested against a possible abolition of the measure. The situation repeated itself at Mananjary in 1928 and 1930, then again in 1934 in the Mahanoro district. Settlers at Vatomandry then demanded the same advantages. Cyclones and the global crisis thus play the "role of revealing the precariousness of the plantation economy." And Jean Fremigacci concludes: "In fact, at the source of all these problems and many others besides, we find the crisis of the mode of production characteristic of the first colonial period, which is first that of production relations established between settlers and population, and then that of economic behaviors developed on this basis." Pela Ravalitera