Mad Kings & Queens: Raving Royals and How To Survive Them (Wednesday, 2nd Period)
When everyone arrived today, they'd find bingo cards and pencils for all. "You just spent the weekend babysitting," Ghanima said, an impish twinkle in her blue-on-blue eyes, "--so you already know madness is a game. I thought we might as well have some fun with it. Mark off the square as you hear it in the lecture today."
"The true story of Ranavalona's reign has been difficult to establish," Ghanima began immediately as class started. "Accounts of her activities have been told throughout history from people who either mistrusted her or were her outright enemies-Christian missionaries whom she persecuted and exiled, the few Europeans whom she allowed to remain on the island as she consolidated her power, and travelers and traders who viewed her as bloodthirsty and at various times plotted to destabilize her regime. Most of what is available is outright racist propaganda. Thankfully, recent academic research has recast Ranavalona's actions as those of a queen attempting to expand her empire while protecting Malagasy sovereignty against the encroachment of European cultural and political influence."
"Yet there is general agreement that she was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people whom she suspected of opposing her, and her level of paranoia increased as she grew older. She was undoubtedly a hardline ruler, if not an outright despot, and it’s indisputable that a great many died under her reign. But she saw herself, not unreasonably, as a sovereign at war, and in that context she was an arguably fantastic leader."
"Little is known of Ranavalona's origins; she is thought to have been born on Madagascar in 1788, and may have been named Ramavo. Her ancestry, like that of many other members of the island's dominant Merina ethnic group, was probably mostly Indonesian; Madagascar's language and culture, denoted by the adjective Malagasy, are more closely connected to Southeast Asia, from whence prehistoric colonizers had come, than to the African mainland. Most sources says she was the daughter of a commoner, who was adopted by the king as a reward when her father warned him of an assassination plot, others say she was the daughter of Prince Andriantsalamanjaka and Princess Rabodonandriantompo. Either way, when Ramavo was still a young girl, her father alerted King Andrianampoinimerina to an assassination plot planned by Andrianjafy, the king's uncle, whom Andrianampoinimerina had forced from the throne at the royal city of Ambohimanga. In return for saving his life, Andrianampoinimerina betrothed Ramavo to his son, Prince Radama, whom the king designated as his heir. He furthermore declared that any child from this union would be first in the line of succession after Radama."
"Matters came to a head when Radama, laid low by the effects of what may have been syphilis or cirrhosis of the liver, died in the summer of 1828; by some accounts he was suffering so horribly that he cut his own throat. Ranavalona's position was perilous. Prince Rakotobe, the son of the king's oldest sister, was the rightful heir to the throne, but in the Malagasy belief system, any child she might bear, even after Radama's death, would be considered his own offspring, and would thus become a threat to the ruling monarch. It thus would have made sense for Rakotobe to eliminate the threat by having Ranavalona killed."
"She acted swiftly. Radama had been open to Western influence, allowing Christian missionaries to set up schools on Madagascar and even sending two of his children to England for an education. Ranavalona, however, had allied herself with religious figures and lawgivers in the traditional Merina belief system. Over a few evenings, while news of the king's death was still making its way around Merina lands, she quickly mobilized a group of military men from her home village and occupied the palace. Defenders of the traditional succession who showed up at the gates were given a choice-accept Ranavalona as queen or suffer the consequences. As the ranks of men who depended on the coup's success increased, her grip on power tightened."
"Ramavo took the throne name Ranavalona - which translates as "folded" or "kept aside" - then followed royal custom by systematically capturing and putting to death her political rivals, including Rakotobe, his family and other members of Radama's family, much as Radama had done to the queen's own family upon his succession to the throne. Her coronation ceremony took place on June 12, 1829."
"By succeeding her husband, Ranavalona became the first female sovereign of the Kingdom of Imerina since its founding in 1540. Her rise to power occurred in a cultural milieu that favored men over women in the political sphere. In the traditional culture of Imerina, rulers were specially endowed with the power to innovate in circumvention of established norms and customs. Sovereigns often mobilized innovation through the creation of new forms of kinship, the traditional basis of the political order. Women, however, were associated with the household, a rigid kinship unit in opposition to the innovating role and power of the sovereign, and so were not viewed as suited to rule. Although female rulers had once been common among the Vazimba, described in oral histories as the original inhabitants of Madagascar, this tradition ended in the central highlands with the reign of Andriamanelo, founder of the Kingdom of Imerina and successor to his Vazimba mother, Queen Rafohy (1530-1540)."
"Supposedly, The first days of her reign brought bizarre proclamations to accompany the brutal violence. To express mourning for her departed husband, she declared that every single person must, for ten months, keep their heads shaved. Practically the only exceptions were the nation’s professional mourners, who were only spared so they would have hair to tear out amidst their hysterical sobbing. She kept his body on display for weeks, with round-the-clock legions of slaves tasked with keeping the flies off. During the mourning period, she made it illegal to dance, bathe, play music, sleep on a mattress, look in a mirror, or clap your hands. The punishment was she’d sell you into slavery."
Ghanima looked at her students. "This was not an idle threat: under Ranavalona, slavery, recently abolished to appease the British, returned to one of the cornerstones of the economy. Her favorite slave was undoubtedly Jean Laborde, a shipwrecked young Frenchman whose presence drastically transformed the country. Once Ranavalona found out he was an accomplished tradesman, she set him to work with making a massive industrial complex. Within a couple years of his arrival, Madagascar was self-reliant for weaponry, ammunition, and gunpowder - one of the first industrial revolutions, if not THE first, to occur outside of Europe."
"This enabled her to keep out the combined forces of the French and the British, which was no small feat. They repeatedly attempted invasions, which usually went something like this: they would try to bomb the island from their boats, and when the natives retreated, the invaders would head on to land to chase them. However, once they landed, they'd find another back-up fort hidden behind the fake one they'd just bombed. She’d later decorate her fortresses with the decapitated heads of invaders on pikes."
"At one memorable council meeting, Laborde was tasked with making: giant metal shields for each port that would bounce cannonballs back at European ships; a massive wall that would cover the entire 3,000 mile coastline; and four enormous pairs of scissors that she could hide on the tracks leading to the capital, then use to snip invaders in two." Ghanima sighed sadly. "He never quite got around to making those, more's the pity."
"Her strangest action, though, was the infamous buffalo hunt. At one point she decided to go hunting and brought along her 50,000 closest friends. Only problem was that there weren’t any roads going where she wanted to hunt, so she had people go ahead and make a road for her as she went. Moreover, they had to make a new town for her to sleep in every night. This went on for 16 weeks, and 10,000 workers died. No buffalo were shot."
"Ranavalona's 33-year reign was characterized by her effort to strengthen the domestic authority of the Kingdom of Imerina over subjugated provinces and preserve the political and cultural sovereignty of Madagascar. These policies were enacted in a context of increasing European influence within her kingdom and competing French and English bids for domination over the island. Early in her reign, the queen took incremental steps to distance Madagascar from the purview of European powers, first putting an end to a friendship treaty with Britain, then placing increasing restrictions on the activities of the missionaries of the London Missionary Society, who operated schools where basic education and trade skills were taught in addition to the Christian religion. In 1835 she forbade the practice of Christianity among the Malagasy population, and within a year nearly all foreigners had left her territory. Putting an end to most foreign trade relationships, the queen pursued a policy of self-reliance, made possible through frequent use of the long-standing tradition of fanompoana-forced labor in lieu of tax payments in money or goods. Ranavalona continued the wars of expansion conducted by her predecessor, Radama I, in an effort to extend her realm over the entire island, and imposed strict punishments on those who were judged as having acted in opposition to her will. Due in large part to loss of life throughout the years of military campaigns, high death rates among fanompoana workers, and harsh traditions of justice under her rule, the population of Madagascar is estimated to have declined from around 5 million to 2.5 million between 1833 and 1839, and from 750,000 to 130,000 between 1829 and 1842 in Imerina. These statistics have contributed to a strongly unfavorable view of Ranavalona's rule in historical accounts."
"What she was best known for in her time, though, was her distrust of foreign religion, particularly Christianity. While she’d initially been tolerant of missionaries, she quickly came to see them as an invading force when several openly advocated her overthrow. In a kabary speech on February 26, 1835, Queen Ranavalona formally forbade the practice of Christianity among her subjects. In her discourse, she was careful to differentiate between her own people, for whom the new religion was forbidden and its practice a capital offense, and foreigners, to whom she permitted freedom of religion and conscience. She furthermore acknowledged the valuable intellectual and technological contributions that European missionaries had made to the advancement of her country, and invited them to continue working to that end on the condition that their proselytizing would cease:
"To the English or French strangers: I thank you for the good that you have done in my land and my kingdom, where you have made known European wisdom and knowledge. Do not worry yourselves-I will not change the customs and rites of our ancestors. Nevertheless, whoever breaks the laws of my kingdom will be put to death-whoever he may be. I welcome all wisdom and all knowledge which are good for this country. It would be a waste of time and effort to grab the customs and rites of my ancestors. Concerning religious practice-baptism or assemblies-it is forbidden for my people who inhabit this land to take part whether on Sunday or during the week. Concerning you, foreigners, you can practice according to your own manners and customs. Nevertheless, if skilled handiwork and other practical skills exist, which can profit our people, exercise these skills that good will come. These are my instructions which I make known to you."
The majority of the London Missionary Society missionaries, whose primary activity was teaching Christian theology and literacy at their newly established schools using the Bible as the principal Malagasy-language text, departed the island. The last two remaining missionaries chose to continue teaching practical skills in the hope that the restrictions might loosen, but one year later, after receiving indirect information that the government desired their departure, they shuttered the LMS mission and left Madagascar
Pursuant to the February 26 decree, those who possessed a Bible, worshiped in congregation or continued to profess adherence to Christianity were fined, jailed, manacled, subjected to trial by ordeal, or executed. Lurid accounts of the execution and torture of Christians were reported by missionaries with informants on the island who placed emphasis on what they perceived as the savagery of the Queen's actions. For instance, they reported the public execution of fifteen Christian leaders near the Queen's palace who were dangled on ropes 150 feet above a rock-filled ravine before the ropes were cut upon their refusal to renounce Christianity. The Andohalo cathedral was constructed on this outcropping to commemorate early Malagasy Christians martyred at the site. The precise number of Malagasy citizens put to death for religious reasons during Ranavalona's reign is difficult to state with certainty. British missionary to Madagascar W.E. Cummins (1878) places the number executed at between sixty and eighty. Far more were required to undergo the tangena ordeal, condemned to hard labor or stripped of their land and property, and many of these died. Persecution of Christians intensified in 1840, 1849 and 1857; in 1849, deemed the worst of these years by Cummins, 1,900 people were fined, jailed or otherwise punished for their Christian faith, of whom 18 were executed."
"She held onto the throne for decades, foiling multiple coup d’etats with the grace of a veteran supervillain. As an example: when her son, the prince, partnered with Laborde and several Europeans - including a very unfortunate 60-year-old tourist - to try and oust her, she not only discovered their plot, but toyed with them for months. She would terrify them by spontaneously sending the military in… only to have them do random, benign tasks, like picking up presents. She would randomly summon the terrified Europeans to do impromptu piano performances and dance recitals, during which she would stand on a balcony overlooking them, completely silent throughout. She held a 6-hour-long meeting on how, exactly, she was to execute the treasonous Europeans, only to surprise them the next day by merely banishing them."
"Their banishment, however, was a death sentence in everything but name. When the poor conspirators finally left the capital, they did so with a military accompaniment. Said accompaniment repeatedly led them on long detours through malaria-infested jungles and prevented them from contacting any doctors, turning a 7-day journey into a 53-day-long ordeal. She knew she could not have gotten away with outright killing Europeans, so she just made it increasingly likely that they would die of malaria. It worked, killing all but two of them."
"On August 16, 1861, Ranavalona died in her sleep at the Manjakamiadana palace in the Rova of Antananarivo. Twelve thousand zebu were slaughtered and their meat distributed to the populace in her honor, and the official mourning period lasted nine months. Her body was laid in a coffin made of silver piastres in a tomb at the royal city of Ambohimanga. During her funeral, a spark accidentally ignited a nearby barrel of gunpowder destined for use in the ceremony, causing an explosion and fire that killed a number of bystanders and destroyed three historic royal residences in the Nanjakana section of the compound where the event was held. In 1897, French colonial authorities disinterred and moved the queen's body and the remains of other Merina sovereigns to the tombs at the Rova of Antananarivo in an attempt to desanctify Ambohimanga. Her bones were placed within the tomb of Queen Rasoherina. Her son, Prince Rakoto, succeeded her as King Radama II."
"Ranavalona's traditionalist policies were abruptly reversed under the reign of her son, King Radama II. A widespread epidemic of "spirit possession" throughout Imerina followed Radama's public conversion to Christianity and was popularly attributed to the outraged spirit of Ranavalona I. The island was simultaneously wracked with a deadly plague and a spasm-inducing cholera, which made it appear that people were uncontrollably dancing. Many considered this the ghost of Ranavalona coming back to haunt them."
"The queen's foreign contemporaries strongly condemned her policies and viewed them as the actions of a tyrant or even a madwoman, a characterization that persisted in Western historical literature until the 1970s.Although Ranavalona has traditionally been depicted as a cruel and xenophobic tyrant, in more recent historical analyses she is commonly viewed as an astute politician who effectively protected the political and cultural sovereignty of her nation from European encroachment. In Madagascar today, the Malagasy of the central highlands hold complex and diverse views ranging across this spectrum. Most condemn her reign, in line with negative depictions of Ranavalona in current Malagasy history textbooks; this view is most common among Malagasy Christians. Others admire her effort to preserve Malagasy traditions and independence. The majority, regardless of their feelings toward her domestic policies, consider her a remarkable figure in Malagasy history and commend her strength as a ruler in a period of tension with European powers."
"The true story of Ranavalona's reign has been difficult to establish," Ghanima began immediately as class started. "Accounts of her activities have been told throughout history from people who either mistrusted her or were her outright enemies-Christian missionaries whom she persecuted and exiled, the few Europeans whom she allowed to remain on the island as she consolidated her power, and travelers and traders who viewed her as bloodthirsty and at various times plotted to destabilize her regime. Most of what is available is outright racist propaganda. Thankfully, recent academic research has recast Ranavalona's actions as those of a queen attempting to expand her empire while protecting Malagasy sovereignty against the encroachment of European cultural and political influence."
"Yet there is general agreement that she was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people whom she suspected of opposing her, and her level of paranoia increased as she grew older. She was undoubtedly a hardline ruler, if not an outright despot, and it’s indisputable that a great many died under her reign. But she saw herself, not unreasonably, as a sovereign at war, and in that context she was an arguably fantastic leader."
"Little is known of Ranavalona's origins; she is thought to have been born on Madagascar in 1788, and may have been named Ramavo. Her ancestry, like that of many other members of the island's dominant Merina ethnic group, was probably mostly Indonesian; Madagascar's language and culture, denoted by the adjective Malagasy, are more closely connected to Southeast Asia, from whence prehistoric colonizers had come, than to the African mainland. Most sources says she was the daughter of a commoner, who was adopted by the king as a reward when her father warned him of an assassination plot, others say she was the daughter of Prince Andriantsalamanjaka and Princess Rabodonandriantompo. Either way, when Ramavo was still a young girl, her father alerted King Andrianampoinimerina to an assassination plot planned by Andrianjafy, the king's uncle, whom Andrianampoinimerina had forced from the throne at the royal city of Ambohimanga. In return for saving his life, Andrianampoinimerina betrothed Ramavo to his son, Prince Radama, whom the king designated as his heir. He furthermore declared that any child from this union would be first in the line of succession after Radama."
"Matters came to a head when Radama, laid low by the effects of what may have been syphilis or cirrhosis of the liver, died in the summer of 1828; by some accounts he was suffering so horribly that he cut his own throat. Ranavalona's position was perilous. Prince Rakotobe, the son of the king's oldest sister, was the rightful heir to the throne, but in the Malagasy belief system, any child she might bear, even after Radama's death, would be considered his own offspring, and would thus become a threat to the ruling monarch. It thus would have made sense for Rakotobe to eliminate the threat by having Ranavalona killed."
"She acted swiftly. Radama had been open to Western influence, allowing Christian missionaries to set up schools on Madagascar and even sending two of his children to England for an education. Ranavalona, however, had allied herself with religious figures and lawgivers in the traditional Merina belief system. Over a few evenings, while news of the king's death was still making its way around Merina lands, she quickly mobilized a group of military men from her home village and occupied the palace. Defenders of the traditional succession who showed up at the gates were given a choice-accept Ranavalona as queen or suffer the consequences. As the ranks of men who depended on the coup's success increased, her grip on power tightened."
"Ramavo took the throne name Ranavalona - which translates as "folded" or "kept aside" - then followed royal custom by systematically capturing and putting to death her political rivals, including Rakotobe, his family and other members of Radama's family, much as Radama had done to the queen's own family upon his succession to the throne. Her coronation ceremony took place on June 12, 1829."
"By succeeding her husband, Ranavalona became the first female sovereign of the Kingdom of Imerina since its founding in 1540. Her rise to power occurred in a cultural milieu that favored men over women in the political sphere. In the traditional culture of Imerina, rulers were specially endowed with the power to innovate in circumvention of established norms and customs. Sovereigns often mobilized innovation through the creation of new forms of kinship, the traditional basis of the political order. Women, however, were associated with the household, a rigid kinship unit in opposition to the innovating role and power of the sovereign, and so were not viewed as suited to rule. Although female rulers had once been common among the Vazimba, described in oral histories as the original inhabitants of Madagascar, this tradition ended in the central highlands with the reign of Andriamanelo, founder of the Kingdom of Imerina and successor to his Vazimba mother, Queen Rafohy (1530-1540)."
"Supposedly, The first days of her reign brought bizarre proclamations to accompany the brutal violence. To express mourning for her departed husband, she declared that every single person must, for ten months, keep their heads shaved. Practically the only exceptions were the nation’s professional mourners, who were only spared so they would have hair to tear out amidst their hysterical sobbing. She kept his body on display for weeks, with round-the-clock legions of slaves tasked with keeping the flies off. During the mourning period, she made it illegal to dance, bathe, play music, sleep on a mattress, look in a mirror, or clap your hands. The punishment was she’d sell you into slavery."
Ghanima looked at her students. "This was not an idle threat: under Ranavalona, slavery, recently abolished to appease the British, returned to one of the cornerstones of the economy. Her favorite slave was undoubtedly Jean Laborde, a shipwrecked young Frenchman whose presence drastically transformed the country. Once Ranavalona found out he was an accomplished tradesman, she set him to work with making a massive industrial complex. Within a couple years of his arrival, Madagascar was self-reliant for weaponry, ammunition, and gunpowder - one of the first industrial revolutions, if not THE first, to occur outside of Europe."
"This enabled her to keep out the combined forces of the French and the British, which was no small feat. They repeatedly attempted invasions, which usually went something like this: they would try to bomb the island from their boats, and when the natives retreated, the invaders would head on to land to chase them. However, once they landed, they'd find another back-up fort hidden behind the fake one they'd just bombed. She’d later decorate her fortresses with the decapitated heads of invaders on pikes."
"At one memorable council meeting, Laborde was tasked with making: giant metal shields for each port that would bounce cannonballs back at European ships; a massive wall that would cover the entire 3,000 mile coastline; and four enormous pairs of scissors that she could hide on the tracks leading to the capital, then use to snip invaders in two." Ghanima sighed sadly. "He never quite got around to making those, more's the pity."
"Her strangest action, though, was the infamous buffalo hunt. At one point she decided to go hunting and brought along her 50,000 closest friends. Only problem was that there weren’t any roads going where she wanted to hunt, so she had people go ahead and make a road for her as she went. Moreover, they had to make a new town for her to sleep in every night. This went on for 16 weeks, and 10,000 workers died. No buffalo were shot."
"Ranavalona's 33-year reign was characterized by her effort to strengthen the domestic authority of the Kingdom of Imerina over subjugated provinces and preserve the political and cultural sovereignty of Madagascar. These policies were enacted in a context of increasing European influence within her kingdom and competing French and English bids for domination over the island. Early in her reign, the queen took incremental steps to distance Madagascar from the purview of European powers, first putting an end to a friendship treaty with Britain, then placing increasing restrictions on the activities of the missionaries of the London Missionary Society, who operated schools where basic education and trade skills were taught in addition to the Christian religion. In 1835 she forbade the practice of Christianity among the Malagasy population, and within a year nearly all foreigners had left her territory. Putting an end to most foreign trade relationships, the queen pursued a policy of self-reliance, made possible through frequent use of the long-standing tradition of fanompoana-forced labor in lieu of tax payments in money or goods. Ranavalona continued the wars of expansion conducted by her predecessor, Radama I, in an effort to extend her realm over the entire island, and imposed strict punishments on those who were judged as having acted in opposition to her will. Due in large part to loss of life throughout the years of military campaigns, high death rates among fanompoana workers, and harsh traditions of justice under her rule, the population of Madagascar is estimated to have declined from around 5 million to 2.5 million between 1833 and 1839, and from 750,000 to 130,000 between 1829 and 1842 in Imerina. These statistics have contributed to a strongly unfavorable view of Ranavalona's rule in historical accounts."
"What she was best known for in her time, though, was her distrust of foreign religion, particularly Christianity. While she’d initially been tolerant of missionaries, she quickly came to see them as an invading force when several openly advocated her overthrow. In a kabary speech on February 26, 1835, Queen Ranavalona formally forbade the practice of Christianity among her subjects. In her discourse, she was careful to differentiate between her own people, for whom the new religion was forbidden and its practice a capital offense, and foreigners, to whom she permitted freedom of religion and conscience. She furthermore acknowledged the valuable intellectual and technological contributions that European missionaries had made to the advancement of her country, and invited them to continue working to that end on the condition that their proselytizing would cease:
"To the English or French strangers: I thank you for the good that you have done in my land and my kingdom, where you have made known European wisdom and knowledge. Do not worry yourselves-I will not change the customs and rites of our ancestors. Nevertheless, whoever breaks the laws of my kingdom will be put to death-whoever he may be. I welcome all wisdom and all knowledge which are good for this country. It would be a waste of time and effort to grab the customs and rites of my ancestors. Concerning religious practice-baptism or assemblies-it is forbidden for my people who inhabit this land to take part whether on Sunday or during the week. Concerning you, foreigners, you can practice according to your own manners and customs. Nevertheless, if skilled handiwork and other practical skills exist, which can profit our people, exercise these skills that good will come. These are my instructions which I make known to you."
The majority of the London Missionary Society missionaries, whose primary activity was teaching Christian theology and literacy at their newly established schools using the Bible as the principal Malagasy-language text, departed the island. The last two remaining missionaries chose to continue teaching practical skills in the hope that the restrictions might loosen, but one year later, after receiving indirect information that the government desired their departure, they shuttered the LMS mission and left Madagascar
Pursuant to the February 26 decree, those who possessed a Bible, worshiped in congregation or continued to profess adherence to Christianity were fined, jailed, manacled, subjected to trial by ordeal, or executed. Lurid accounts of the execution and torture of Christians were reported by missionaries with informants on the island who placed emphasis on what they perceived as the savagery of the Queen's actions. For instance, they reported the public execution of fifteen Christian leaders near the Queen's palace who were dangled on ropes 150 feet above a rock-filled ravine before the ropes were cut upon their refusal to renounce Christianity. The Andohalo cathedral was constructed on this outcropping to commemorate early Malagasy Christians martyred at the site. The precise number of Malagasy citizens put to death for religious reasons during Ranavalona's reign is difficult to state with certainty. British missionary to Madagascar W.E. Cummins (1878) places the number executed at between sixty and eighty. Far more were required to undergo the tangena ordeal, condemned to hard labor or stripped of their land and property, and many of these died. Persecution of Christians intensified in 1840, 1849 and 1857; in 1849, deemed the worst of these years by Cummins, 1,900 people were fined, jailed or otherwise punished for their Christian faith, of whom 18 were executed."
"She held onto the throne for decades, foiling multiple coup d’etats with the grace of a veteran supervillain. As an example: when her son, the prince, partnered with Laborde and several Europeans - including a very unfortunate 60-year-old tourist - to try and oust her, she not only discovered their plot, but toyed with them for months. She would terrify them by spontaneously sending the military in… only to have them do random, benign tasks, like picking up presents. She would randomly summon the terrified Europeans to do impromptu piano performances and dance recitals, during which she would stand on a balcony overlooking them, completely silent throughout. She held a 6-hour-long meeting on how, exactly, she was to execute the treasonous Europeans, only to surprise them the next day by merely banishing them."
"Their banishment, however, was a death sentence in everything but name. When the poor conspirators finally left the capital, they did so with a military accompaniment. Said accompaniment repeatedly led them on long detours through malaria-infested jungles and prevented them from contacting any doctors, turning a 7-day journey into a 53-day-long ordeal. She knew she could not have gotten away with outright killing Europeans, so she just made it increasingly likely that they would die of malaria. It worked, killing all but two of them."
"On August 16, 1861, Ranavalona died in her sleep at the Manjakamiadana palace in the Rova of Antananarivo. Twelve thousand zebu were slaughtered and their meat distributed to the populace in her honor, and the official mourning period lasted nine months. Her body was laid in a coffin made of silver piastres in a tomb at the royal city of Ambohimanga. During her funeral, a spark accidentally ignited a nearby barrel of gunpowder destined for use in the ceremony, causing an explosion and fire that killed a number of bystanders and destroyed three historic royal residences in the Nanjakana section of the compound where the event was held. In 1897, French colonial authorities disinterred and moved the queen's body and the remains of other Merina sovereigns to the tombs at the Rova of Antananarivo in an attempt to desanctify Ambohimanga. Her bones were placed within the tomb of Queen Rasoherina. Her son, Prince Rakoto, succeeded her as King Radama II."
"Ranavalona's traditionalist policies were abruptly reversed under the reign of her son, King Radama II. A widespread epidemic of "spirit possession" throughout Imerina followed Radama's public conversion to Christianity and was popularly attributed to the outraged spirit of Ranavalona I. The island was simultaneously wracked with a deadly plague and a spasm-inducing cholera, which made it appear that people were uncontrollably dancing. Many considered this the ghost of Ranavalona coming back to haunt them."
"The queen's foreign contemporaries strongly condemned her policies and viewed them as the actions of a tyrant or even a madwoman, a characterization that persisted in Western historical literature until the 1970s.Although Ranavalona has traditionally been depicted as a cruel and xenophobic tyrant, in more recent historical analyses she is commonly viewed as an astute politician who effectively protected the political and cultural sovereignty of her nation from European encroachment. In Madagascar today, the Malagasy of the central highlands hold complex and diverse views ranging across this spectrum. Most condemn her reign, in line with negative depictions of Ranavalona in current Malagasy history textbooks; this view is most common among Malagasy Christians. Others admire her effort to preserve Malagasy traditions and independence. The majority, regardless of their feelings toward her domestic policies, consider her a remarkable figure in Malagasy history and commend her strength as a ruler in a period of tension with European powers."