The youngest of eight siblings, Marc Ravalomanana was born on 12 December 1949 to a farming family of humble means in the village of Imerinkasinina, east of Antananarivo in Manjakandriana District. Ravalomanana's parents worked as peddlers before opening a small shop in a rural village in Tamatave Province. Anticipating the regional violence that erupted during the 1947 Malagasy Uprising against French colonial rule, the family relocated to a village near their ancestral lands outside Antananarivo. Once resettled in the highlands, Ravalomanana's mother worked as a seamstress in addition to assisting her husband with farming their land.