The Bloody Queen of Madagascar

Emerna or the Merna Kingdom, was the largest and most powerful kingdom on the Madagascar island. It was dense with natural resources and had achieved military supremacy and near full island dominance during the reign of Rotima, who allied with the British Empire, but that allegiance ended the moment Ratama

died and his wife Ranavala became Queen. Ranava tore up all the arrangements with European powers, ejected their ambassadors, and declared that the Marna Kingdom would exist under a policy of complete isolation, with an emphasis on returning back to native traditions and cultures. There would be no more Christian missionaries in in Marna. The mRNA people who had already converted would be accepted for the time being, but by the end of her reign they would suffer bloody persecution.

Queen Ranavolina had one priority to return Amerna to the way it had been before European settlers, and she would kill as many people as necessary in order to achieve her vision. I suppose that single mindedness does reveal a second priority, preserve her own power, protect the crown at any cost. The six ambassadors who came to meet with the British King William the Fourth were given a lovely diplomatic tour of England. They went to the mint, the dockyard,

the Tower of London, the zoological gardens. But however pleasant their stay, the ambassadors refused to budge from their message. The queen had sent them with two letters. She dictated in polite but unambiguous language, the law of her country would not be dictated by Europeans. Christianity would not be tolerated. Europeans were forbidden from living in Madagascar, with the exception of those soldiers taken as prisoners. Of war to England

about to welcome their own queen to the throne. Runovalinot was an object of fascination. Depictions of her in Victorian

sources ranged from bewilderment to outright racism. In contrast to tiny Queen Victoria, standing only five tall, a paradigm of domesticity and Christian femininity, Queen Navolina was terrifying, a bloodthirsty despot who would slaughter her own people, are enslave them, who refused trade alliances with Europe, and who obey traditional rituals that the nineteenth century Europeans seemed strange and superstitious. The problem wasn't that she was a woman, no, of

course not. Their next monarch was about to be a woman. But Victoria was going to be the right kind of woman, a civilized, domesticated woman. Run of Alina, they wrote, was what would happen if a woman allowed her bassist, most heathenistic impulses to run unchecked. It's no wonder, then, that the few depictions we have of Queen Ronavolina in the

English language are sparse and heavily woven with racism. She tops lists of the most bloodthirsty queen in history, often casually referenced as Queen Ronovolna the Bloody or Queen Ronovolna the cruel. Recently, there's been a small school of thought that attempted to recast her as a feminist hero, someone who fought off the imperialist forces in order to protect her kingdom. But that doesn't really fit her either. She's both and she's neither. Ronavolina was cruel, her reign was bloody.

She was a selfish and paranoid ruler, but she was also politically adept and militaristically minded. She continued the expansion of the Marina Kingdom that her husband began to this day. The few preserved relics of traditional Malagas culture that we do have are mostly thanks to her. So I begin this podcast with the disclaimer that there are very few reliable English language sources that present a clear picture of

Ronovolna's reign. Many of the writings come from the Christian missionaries that she expelled, who would have purposefully exaggerated their stories of her cruelty. All we can do is attempt to tease out what we do know from the sources we do have. The story beneath is of a distant and challenging woman who defied European supremacy, a woman who would rather kill than compromise. I'm danishchwartz and this is

noble blood. There are few details about Queen Roanevolina's early life, but most historical accounts put her birth in seventeen eighty eight. Sometime during her childhood, her father saved the life of the mRNA king from an assassination attempt. In thanks, the king betrothed his son Radama to Ranevolina and promise that she would be his senior wife and that their children would be prioritized in the line of succession. The two were married and an eighteen time, Radama's father died and

Radama became king of Inmerna. Radama was seventeen and Ronevolana was twenty two. As a leader, Rodama the first focused on expansion. His priority was building up the Marina Kingdom to one day control the entire island of Madagascar. To that end, he made a deal with Great Britain. They would provide him with weapons and Western style training for his army, and in return, Radama would eliminate slavery, which had been the cornerstone of most of the economies of

the kingdoms on Madagascar. The deal with the British, which had been meant to secure the future of the Marina economy, would in fact do the opposite. Eliminating the slave trade had been a strategic move on the part of the British, not one of benevolence. They undercut the economy of the kingdom, and before it could be rebuilt, they arrived in order

to trade under incredibly lucrative and one sided turns. If Madagascar could be made into a colony, all the better to keep it from the French first, but more importantly, it was a strategic stronghold, a resource rich island in the Indian Ocean. Under Rodama, the first nobles began to adopt a new Latin alphabet of the Malagas language. A brief side note, the native language on Madagascar is spelled Malagasy phonetically, but pronounced to the best of my ability

and understanding, Malagas. The Malagas written language had previously been closer to Arabic, and along with westernized militarization and language, Radama also welcomed Christianity missionaries throw I had done the island, setting up schools and converting mostly lower class Malagas people. The queen watched all of this but said nothing. Her husband's eagerness was understandable. They both wanted their kingdom to

be strong. They both wanted to control the resources of Madagascar, but he didn't seem to understand the threat of Christianity. Christianity meant worshiping a new God, for going the spiritual traditions of the Malagas people, the traditions that had given the monarchy it's very power. The king was only the king because the blood of holy ancestors flowed through his veins. Ruhama died at age thirty five, though the exact nature

of his death isn't known. He was a heavy drinker, prone to fits of rage and violence when he was drunk. It was a combination of poor health, erratic behavior, and alcohol. His wife had given him no children, and so before his death, he decreed that the next in line for the throne would be his nephew. But Ronavolino was prepared.

The night her husband lay dying, she gathered a small group of noblemen and military guardsmen and took the throne for herself, declaring herself Queen, the nephew, and the rest of her husband's family were brought to the palace. Any one of them could have a claim to the throne, could declare that she was illegitimate and raise an army to oppose her, and so Ranevolina ordered that every single

one of them be killed. Because there was a superstition that forbade spilling of royal blood, Ranavola had every death done by strangulation. Hers would be a bloodless coup. Technically, according to the writings of a missionary who was expelled by Ranevolna a few years later into her reign, during her coronation ceremony, the new queen was anointed with the blood of a freshly killed bull. That little anecdote an attempt to paint her as primitive and barbaric, is almost

certainly not true. There are no other sources corroborating that. What we do know about her coronation on May twenty seventh, eighteen twenty nine, is that she wore a dress in the French style, constructed from embroidered red velvet and silk, embroidered with her initials and rice stocks, a symbol of the indigenous plant life on the island. Her dress had a row of gold buttons. Ranevolina had specific tastes in her clothing, high quality European fabrics and silhouettes with specifically

Malaga's details. Clothing wasn't the only thing that the new queen had strong opinions on. As soon as her coup was complete, she dissolved the treaty her husband had made with the British. Both in terms of national and personal policy, Ronovolna was intensely private. Unlike members of the court, she

refused to be photographed. She almost never spoke in public, perhaps insecure about her lack of complete literacy in the new written Malagas alphabet, which would have made her unable to read long speeches, and so her few appearances in public were spectacles of red silk and imposing crowns. Her power was protected through fear and rumor, and she kept a close circle of nobles and officials, with whom she

consulted on matters of the state. Though Ronavolino never remarried, she did take a number of love hers after her husband's death, whom she would then make prime minister. But even they weren't immune from her wrath. Far from it. One of those lovers turned Prime minister, a man named Andreami Haja, was chastised for his pro European ideology, and so he was sentenced to undergo one of the ultimate

horrors of ronav Alamo's court, the Tanginna ordeal. The idea of trial by ordeal was nothing new on Madagascar, nor was it something new in Europe, especially not during the witch trials, but Ranavalina gloried in it. During the Tangina Ordeal, a suspect would be given a poison tanginent nut. He or she would then be forced to eat three pieces of chicken skin. If the poison forced them to vomit up all three pieces of chicken skin, they were innocent.

If they failed to vomit up all three pieces, or the poison just killed them out right, that meant they were guilty and deserved to die. And the queen's lover refused to undergo the ordeal, and so he was killed on the spot. About one in three people who underwent the Tangina ordeal survived. Nobles and slaves alike were sentenced

to the ordeal. When Ronovolina's niece died of whooping cough, all of the slaves that had served her were accused of witchcraft and sorcery and forced to undergo the ordeal. There were other malogust traditions that Ronovolina were vitalized. Her spirituality revolved around the sun or golden idols that were heavily guarded, and she made policies based on a process called sick kid, which you threw dried beans on a board and used mathematical formulations to come to a decision.

But Ronovolina was also one who recognized the utility of Western technology, especially when it came to technology that would help keep her island entirely self sufficient, and a gift came to Madagascar in the form of a French adventurer by the name of Jean la Board. In eighteen thirty one, Jean la Board was sailing off the coast of Madagascar attempting to rescue treasure from other ships that had sunk

in the Indian Ocean. Surprise, surprise, La Board himself was shipwrecked, and thanks to a royal decree, everything and everyone that washed up on shore became property of the Marina government. La Board was summoned to Ranavalina's court. La Board wasn't just an adventurer. He was also a brilliant engineer, and he and Ronavolina immediately struck up a mutually lucrative partnership.

He would be given all of the land and resources he needed in order to manufacture military equipment for Marina, so that Ranavolina would have no more need for trading at all. La Board set to work. The man began with an arms and munitions factory, but soon he had created an entire city of production, complete vertical integration. He had blast furnaces to produced cast iron, pudding mills for wrought iron, a steel plant, cement plant, a textile mill.

He produced not only cannons and swords, but bricks, tiles, pottery, glass, porcelain, silk, soap, and candles. The city he built, according to a Malagas novelist, had risen from the ground by the will of a single individual and the industry of a multitude. After all, la Board didn't work alone. He had the assistance of as many slaves as he needed, thanks to the system in place in which the poor could pay their taxes

not with money but through forced labor. Some claim, with no evidence, that la Board and Queen Navlna became lovers. It maybe a nice story, but there's no way to know one way or the other. She did have a son born before Laborde arrived, by one of her early prime ministers, but she tactfully pretended that the father was her deceased husband, the king, even though mathematically that was impossible. But labor became a circuit father to her son through

mentoring him and teaching him. He would give him tours of his factories, teach him the science behind the technology. The two confided in each other became each other's closest confidants. As rone Volna's reign began to become deadlier, and it was about to become far deadlier. In thirty five, rone Volna became sick with a mysterious illness. She lay in bed for days, a fever, wedding her brow with sweat

and stored in her vision. No one was allowed in or out of the palace, but words still traveled fast. The queen was going to die, but then a miracle one morning, when the sun shone through the windows of the new palace that Laboord had helped construct for her, Ronavolino had returned to health. It was a miracle she knew, sent to her by the gods of her ancestors, and it was a sign that Christian missionaries needed to leave

the island. She had tolerated Christianity for a while, tolerated it among the lower class of Malagas people, but Christianity had started to infiltrate the nobility, and Ronevalina knew that if it continued to spread, it would erode every cultural tradition that her kingdom maintained. Christianity would become a parasite, sucking at Mariner culture, blotting it out like ink on a page. Christianity was an invading force, and so Rona

Volna became a queen at war. After her recovery, Ranavalina outlawed the baptizing of Malagas subjects, and she banished all of the non native missionaries. The next year, she would begin executing not just the European Christians, but her own converted subjects. Christians who refused to renounce their new religion were subject to enslavement at best, or trial by ordeal

and execution at worst. Missionaries were turned home to Europe salivating at the mouth with stories of Rona Volna's brutality and the martyrs of their sacrificed Christian brothers and sisters. There was a thirty seven year old woman, they said, named ross Lama, who was speared to death and hurled over a cliff. Other Christian converts were burned at the stake, or boiled alive or brutally dismembered the There are estimates that by eighteen forty one, five of the native population

of Imrina had been killed through the Tanginna ordeal. There are some estimates that any given servant who had worked under Runevalina for twenty years would have survived seven ordeals, seven times, taking the poison vomiting up all three chicken skins to prove their innocence. European powers would see Ranavalina's ruthlessness in person one more time before her reign was over. In eighteen forty the Queen declared that all European trade

would be cut off entirely. The British and French stirred uncomfortably. Madagascar was a prime and important location. Those resources were incredibly valuable, and it would make an incredibly lucrative colony, and so in a rare moment, of cooperation from historic enemies, the British and French joined forces to jointly attack the coast of Madagascar. Renevlina annihilated the advance almost immediately. The British and French were fooled by primitive, cheap facade on

the island coast behind it was the real fortress. The European vessels were forced to flee, and the soldiers that had attacked on the shore were quickly dispatched with Navalina had their skulls, the skulls of twenty European casualties affixed to pikes and placed on the shore to ward off any future attacks. There were no polite diplomatic apologies. I find it very odd Renevalina said that the British and

French would interfere in my affairs. How would Queen Victoria and Louis Filippe take it if I were to meddle with their countries. I have as much right to nail my enemy's head at the end of a pole as Queen Victoria has to send her prisoners into exile. The humiliating defeat for the European powers was better retold than as a story of Ranevolna's evil and brutality her quote

unparalleled reign of terror and fear. Ranavolina's final challenge would come another decade later, when she put down a coup from a wealthy French European slave trader who had managed to entice to his side the two men Ranevolna held closest to her her son and la Board. The French slave trader, a man named Limbert, wrote a charter giving himself the right to exploit all of the minerals and forests of Madagascar, with a provision to give ten percent

to the monarchy. He went around to the courts of Europe attempting to gather support and raise an army. It would be a lucrative proper position if they succeeded and overthrew Ronavolina. They were sure that they could convince her son to sign the agreement, but the sting of past defeat put off England and France from another attempt to challenge Ronavolina, and so without a European army, Lambert came directly to Madagascar himself and managed to win the support

of the Crown Prince and the engineer Lombard. They had seen the queen's ruthlessness firsthand and her viciousness, and Marina was isolated and traditional, yes, but at what cost? Maybe the future was European, and so the prince agreed to join in on the rebellion. It failed almost instantly. For all of the depictions of Ronavolina as a hedonistic madwoman, she was an efficient and effective leader with a network of spy and the loyalty of her military. After the

small coup was dispatched of her son was forgiven. He was just a young man led astray. But after that she banished all Europeans from Imerna, including La Board. He had been a close friend and confidante for over twenty five years, but he had betrayed her. He left Madagascar on her orders and returned to France for a queen they said was insane and bloodthirsty. It struck me as odd that he would be allowed just to leave and return home. After all, that's a strategic decision to protect

her kingdom from French retaliation. To me, sending Lombard home reads as a woman who was less emotional in her violence, less well insane than the writings of angry Europeans and vengeful missionaries would have led you to believe. There are only a few Malagas women who wrote account of Ranovolina, but one is a woman named ran I Raka, who wrote in a letter after Ranavalina's death, the late Queen

is not so cruel as she's been represented. Many of her subjects have really been killed by her orders, but it was not wanton cruelty. It was through the laws of her late predecessors. You have seen her. She is intelligent. It's estimated that during Ranovolina's reign as many as fifty percent of the Marina population was killed, and thanks to both her torture and executions, but also from the famine caused by the scorched earth policies her armies took when

it came to enemy kingdoms. From Ranovolna's perspective, violence wasn't capriciousness. She was a woman who believed fiercely in the religious right of the Tanginna ordeal, which allowed the gods to decide who lived and who didn't. She was steadfast in that, not making decisions based on anger or emotions. If people needed to die, so be it, but the Marina people as a whole wouldn't die. That was the important thing

preserving the kingdom itself. That's the story of the quote bloody Queen Renovalina, But stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear about her death and what happened next. After the Queen's death, her son and then her son's wife took over the throne and in Marina almost immediately reverted back to European influence. The francohovah Wars, which began in three led to the end of the Marina Kingdom and the creation of the French Protectorate, which then became

the Colony of Matta Gascar. French claims to the property that Laboard had left in Madagascar gifts from the queen became the pretext for their armed invasion. There's one detail about Queen Roneval in his funeral that seems worth mentioning. The queen died in her sleep at age three after a thirty three year long reign, but during the funeral and arrant, spark flashed and caused a nearby barrel of gunpowder to explode. Several bystanders were killed. Even in death,

Ronavolana maintained her reputation. Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. The show was written and hosted by Danis Schwartz and produced by Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the show over at Noble blood tails dot com. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M hmm.