The Mad Queen of Madagascar: Chaos and Terror | Time Travels

Tyrant rulers like Caligula and Genghis Khan are well known all across the world

People that laid waste to their own nations and others for the sake of their vanity or their cruelty

Their names have lived on centuries after their death and aren't going to be forgotten any time soon

There are some figures though who deserve to stand alongside them but haven't achieved the same level of notoriety

be it thanks to their time period or simply where they were from. History is full of nasty leaders

Insane, murderous despots whose cruelty could be legendary One of these figures is Renavalona I

Who ruled the island of Madagascar with an iron fist for decades

Earning the moniker of the Mad Queen Her rule would see the island's people oppressed and brutalised

To the point that Madagascar's population halved during her nearly 33 year reign

Hello time travellers, I'm your friend Mike Brady and this is the story of Ranavalona 1, the Mad Queen of Madagascar

Our story begins in the late 1700s when Queen Ranavelona was born into a minor branch of the

royal family of the Marina Kingdom, one of the numerous small kingdoms that governed Madagascar

at the time. When she was young, her father alerted the king to a plot intending to murder him

As a reward for his loyal service, Ranavallona was adopted by the king himself

She was raised as a royal princess betrothed to the king's favourite son, Prince Radama

But unfortunately for the young Ranavallona, her new father maintained a large harem

The result was a lot of competition. She would be vying with the king's other children for survival

It was a hostile environment, to say the least, more reminiscent of modern-day historical fiction

Each of the children was trying in their own way to seize the throne upon the king's death

and they got creative and brutal. Some of the children lost the political game

and they were executed to ensure the safety of the new monarch. As you can imagine, this wasn't the best environment

for the young Renavolona to be entering into, and she quickly developed her ruthlessness

to ensure her own survival. When the king died in 1810, her husband accepted the throne as King Radama

and she became one of 12 queens all married to the king

But when King Radama died in 1828, Ranavelona moved quickly to secure her own power

She knew that the new king would likely kill her to ensure there would be no threats from the other branches of the family

So to make sure this didn't happen, Ranavelona formed a small group of allies in the military

and occupied the royal palace while news of the king's death was still spreading

On the 1st of August she was proclaimed Queen of Madagascar and moved to cement her power quickly Her first act was to eliminate any rivals

and she wasted no time in doing it. Rakitobe, the prince that should have ascended the throne

was quickly speared to death, along with his entire family. There was, however, a cultural taboo

against shedding the blood of female members of the royal family. So, to get around this

Ranavelona decided to simply starve the women of Rakitobé's family to death

proving once and for all that legal loopholes can be found in almost any situation

Now, it set an appropriately grisly beginning to Ranavelona's reign. With the death of her rival, she cemented herself and her power for decades to come

In a speech to the crowd at her coronation, she declared defiantly that

I will rule to the good fortune of my people and the glory of my name

I will worship no gods but those of my ancestors. The ocean will be the boundary of my realm

and I will not see the thickness of one hair of my realm

Bold words and she certainly meant them. She encouraged the adoption of new technologies

as a means of securing her own rule and maintaining the island's independence

However, this didn't mean she was open to foreigners. Now, apart from a select few European experts

that were allowed to advise the government in matters of development, Madagascar, under the rule of Renavolona

became a country not unlike Japan was at the time, closed off to the outside world

and strictly maintaining their own traditional order. She was particularly hostile to Christianity

which she saw as a means of European influence on the population

She made several gestures towards suppressing the religion, the first merely banning Christian wedding ceremonies and baptisms

However, European missionaries continued to arrive, much to her annoyance. Finally, in 1835, she banned the religion entirely among her subjects

and most of the missionaries departed the island in fear. Those few Malagasy, or natives to the island of Madagascar

who continued to practice the religion, were unsurprisingly subjected to extreme persecution

thousands were forced into hard labour nor had their property seized by the state

but the repercussions soon got bloody on one violent occasion Christians were publicly executed

just outside the royal palace they were dangled over a cliff and left to drop

when the support ropes were cut and some others were even burnt alive

at the stake Meanwhile, one of the few Europeans allowed in the country was Jean Laborde

a Frenchman who washed ashore in 1831 after a shipwreck. With European armies seeking to expand their control

Renavallona quickly saw the utility of this foreign expert and enlisted his aid

Laborde helped build the factory town of Mantaseo which provided the Madagascans with firearms and gunpowder as well as other industrial products like soap and ceramics

This made Madagascar not just independent, but also fairly wealthy, because these goods

could be traded. On top of this, these new technologies helped Ranavelona in fending off European invasion

attempts, as well as securing her own power. There were few in Madagascar that could resist an army as large and modern as hers

This left her with time on her hands and she put it to good use. In 1845, Renavallona wished to enjoy one of the traditional pastimes of the royal family

and embarked on a great buffalo hunt. This wasn't to be an ordinary hunt, however

As a show of power and a way of cementing her glory, the Queen commanded that all the noble houses of the island accompany her

and each noble was required to bring his entire household and slaves with them

The total number of people joining this expedition ended up being over 50,000

Needless to say, this walking city was not an easy thing to manage

To make matters worse, she had previously forbidden the construction of roads in her realm

for fear it would make a European invasion easier. As such, she commanded a road be built for her as she and the party progressed

12,000 peasants and slaves were forced to desperately dig ditches, cut down forests, and build roads so that they would just be always one day ahead of the Queen's party

For each of her nightly stops, she demanded a fortified town be built from scratch

Renavolona didn't seem to care much, though. She made no preparations for supporting such a large number of servants and followers, and even expected her followers to supply their own food

This turned the hunting party into what effectively was a large bandit group

forced to raid whatever villages were nearby simply to survive and follow the whims of their queen

When the workers building the road died, she would simply press into service whatever villages were nearby at the time

All in all, the hunt lasted for 16 weeks, and around 10,000 people died of starvation or overworked because of it

Adding insult to injury, the hunting party was too slow to even hunt. In 16 weeks, not a single buffalo was killed

After this pathetic display, Rinavelona went back to governing her empire in an equally callous fashion

She replaced trial by jury with an arbitrary, ridiculous process called trial by Tangena

Tangena was a poisonous nut. This trial was performed by forcing a person to eat three chicken skins followed by the Tangena

If a person vomited up all three skins, they were considered innocent. If they failed to vomit them up, though, then they were found guilty

Such was the justice of her kingdom. Some suggest as many as 3 died from this kind of trial every year To fund her infrastructure and support her army Renavalona made extensive use of the Madagascar forced labour system Every year subjects would be compelled to perform labour

in the name of the crown in lieu of paying taxes. Now these forced labourers not only gave her a

valuable workforce for projects like her own royal palace and factory town, but also allowed her to

form a large army. At its peak, her forces numbered between 20,000 and 30,000 men, which

used to suppress opposition to her rule. She declared that whoever breaks the laws of my

kingdom will be put to death, whoever he may be. Now this, combined with her paranoia and the

archaic methods of the trial, resulted in massacres the likes of which had rarely been seen

Some estimates put Madagascar's population as halving between 1828 when she took the throne

in 1861 when she finally died. After her death, her son would take the throne as King Radama II

ruling for only two years before he was assassinated. In that time, he had undone many of his mother's policies

once again allowing European influence into the country. But ironically, this would eventually result in Madagascar

becoming a French protectorate and losing its independence. Renavallona's achievement of having kept Madagascar secure from the outside influence

was undone immediately upon her death. The lasting legacy of the Queen is little more than that of a tyrannical and oppressive ruler

that brought misery to the island in the name of her glory. One of the few Europeans that were allowed on Madagascar

recalled two of history's greatest tyrants when he described Renavallona as having had the appetites of a Messalina and the temperament of a Caligula

There is no doubt that Renavalona's reign saw massive oppression all over Madagascar

and that she ruled with a paranoid iron fist. Her policies resulted in huge numbers of deaths

Interestingly though, much of what is known about her comes from accounts recorded by her enemies

the Christian missionaries. Stories of her atrocities were potentially exaggerated by European scholars

who needed to discredit her rule in order to cement their own power on the island

All of this leaves the Mad Queen with a complicated legacy. She was a cunning ruler that kept her kingdom strong and independent through her rule

but she also acted as a ruthless tyrant that cemented her power through brutality and massacres

For this Mad Queen's ambitions, tens of thousands died, a body count which certainly has cemented her as one of history's great forgotten despots

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Until next time, remember, history doesn't repeat, but certainly echoes