Ranavalona 1 was a Merina Queen of Madagascar. She succeeded her husband and became the queen. She was also called as Ranavalo-Manjaka I. Many Western scholars also called her as the Modern Messalina, the Bloody Mary of Madagasca, Wicked Queen Ranavalona, Most Mad Queen of History ,the Mad Queen of Madagascar, and Female Caligula, during and after the course of her reign . Half the population (largely by torture) died during her rule and this is seen as a unique cultural quirk.
EARLY LIFE :-
Her Background is in dispute. Some say she was born into the Menabe tribe somewhere between 1782 and 1790 Still little is known of her life, but it was during her 1rst years that the King Andrianampoinimerina attempted to unite Madagascar's various factions under the single crown. The king of the Menabe actually ruled the western portion of the island. He wished and desired to unify because of which, Andrianampoinimerina's successor, the Radama I, did the next best thing by marrying the eldest daughter of Andrian-Tsala-Manjaka and his wife Rabodo Andrian-Tampo. As a reward to Rananvalona's father who had uncovered the plot, Laidler, however, indicates that Ranavalona 1 was adopted by King Andrianampoinimerina and was later married to him approximately at the age of 22 but was cheated on him with his favorite son. Radama became the next king and when he died in 1828, he had no descendents , so according to the local matrilineal custom's, Rakotobe was the rightful heir, who was the eldest son of Radama's eldest sister. Ranavalona1 came to know of her husband's death before Rakotobe and his followers, tried to secure the loyalty of the military leaders by capturing all her potential opponents. On 1 August 1828, after eliminating any potential rival, she took the throne.
RESTORATION & REPRESSION:-
Ranavalona1 swore to uphold all the customary rites and old beliefs, and to defend her area , according to the throne. Radama started to westernize his country, but under the rule of Ranavalona1 all the old power brokers such as priests, judges and slave merchants regained control, which was supported by the Merina military. Ranavalona1 had most of her late husband(RADAMA 1) side's relatives executed and repudiated all the treaties he had negotiated with the British empire and also legalized the trade of slaves. Warned about European colonial expansion and a Xenophobic, in 1835, she expelled foreigners , including island's 6 British missionaries, who established a Malagasy-English dictionary there. Merina economy was, however , driven by the annual predatory military expeditions against all the other Madagascar tribes during the Dry season. It was regarded as the unifier of Madagascar city through Merina supremacy. Historians doesn't regard her Realm building up as colonialism. Plundering and Robbing, Merina forces descended from the highlands and left a destructive and dangerous path in the countryside. People converted to European religion but she nevertheless maintained control and the supremacy of her loyalists.
PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS:-
Ranavalona1, after expelling the alien missionaries, was a violent persecutor of the native Christians but still she failed to eradicate Christianity from her island. All those who possessed a Bible or claimed to be Christian, were executed. Many were however trussed up like a chickens and thrown from hilltops repeatedly until they were dead. The remaining were dressed in the blood animals skin and had hunting dogs chasing upon them. Some were beated and treated like cattle and were placed in the thick tangled jungles of Madagascar, where they would maybe break their necks when trying to get free, or maybe got caught in the undergrowth and either they starved to death, or eaten up by beasts. Yet Ranavalona's one of the favorite method of the execution was to have a prisoner placed in a pit at the bottom of a hill and all her soldiers were at the top of the hill and would tip over pots of boiling water and when that water reached the pit, it would have slowly risen up and would just boil the prisoner alive!
She generally objected to Christianity as this was based on her antagonism to the Christians behavior. They refused to pray to her idols, even though they prayed frequently. They, however, shunned fornication. They would assemble for worship. For every one of sixteen hundred Christian whom she executed in dungeons beneath her palace, 20 more rose up to take their place and this is when she became exasperated. She responded by dangling 15 Christian leaders on ropes which was 150 feet above a rock-filled ravine and was adjacent to the palace and pended denial of Christ and her idols perched as saviors atop the cliff. The rope was cut as and when each Christian leader refused. Some even sang hymns before they died on the rocks. Now, this place is also an impromptu shrine.
CONSPIRACY :-
In 1829 her son Prince Rakoto was born after expelling the alien missionaries and his Official father was King Radama I who had actually died more than 9 months prior to his birth. However, still he was considered Radama's son. Laborde educated him as he was close to him. Both on Madagascar and in Europe, Joseph-Francois Lambert however sought the help of the French to end her rule as they mounted hatred of the queen's reign. He travelled to her court in may 1857 and conspired with Laborde and all the other local leaders to remove her and place her son on the throne. Ida Pfeiffer, the world traveler, was unwillingly drawn into this big plot. But The conspiracy was discovered and the locals were executed and the Europeans were banned. Ranavalona1 didn't dare to execute any of the Europeans for the fear of reprisals, but still however, she made sure that there week-long trip to the coast became protracted to 53 days so that the Europeans, at the embarkation port, arrived emaciated. Ida Pfeiffer also never fully recovered and died from malaria, the following year.
DEATH:-
Worried from the news about European colonial expansion over Africa and Asia, during her final years of rule and weakened by the decline of the global trading of slave's, she still managed to maintained her brutal and repressive control and tried to keep the trading of slaves intact. On 16 August 1861, she died peacefully in her sleep after the rule of 33 years. Much of her population died due to the atrocities of her rule and she still managed to resist the attempts of the colonial powers to gain control of the island. In 1869, with the opening of the Suez canal, the British interest in keeping Madagascar, out of the reach of French, slowly subsided. After her death, in the early 1890's, Britain and France came to an agreement on Madagascar. The island, however, became a French dominion and the trading of slaves was at last ended.
Prince Rakoto, her son, succeeded her as King Radama II .
WHY WAS SHE NOT GIVEN IMPORTANCE AS A RULER? :-
Queen Ranavalona 1 ascended the throne of Madagascar in 1835. Popularly, known as the Bloody Mary of Madagascar, Queen's favourite methods of execution included half-boiling and tossing off of cliffs and over a third of her population died under her reign. She banned Christianity and drove Europeans off the island.
She never treated her people properly and imposed her hatred for Christianity on them. Tortured them and did slave trade. She was never a Good queen. Moreover, was referred as the most wicked queen in history.
She died a peaceful death. But I think someone who has killed so many innocent people and tortured them should have been given hard punishment. She deserved to be punished the same way she punished the people in her rule.
N hence was not a good ruler.
