Noble Blood - The Bloody Queen of Madagascar

Episode Date: June 23, 2020

Stories from history are not kind to Queen Ranavalona of the Kingdom of Imerina. They call her bloodthirsty, mad, a "female Caligula." People were killed under her rule—lots of them, and cruelly. But "madness" doesn't tell the whole story. Ranavalona was a canny political leader, protecting her kingdom from the insurrection of imperialism for her entire 33-year reign... at any cost.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grimmin Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised. In 1837, just a few months before Queen Victoria would become the monarch of an empire at age 18, a group of six ambassadors arrived to England from the island of Madagascar. The six ambassadors had made

the perilous journey from the eastern coast of Africa to London on behalf of their queen, the queen of Imrnaa, Queen Ranavonavala. Imrna, 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 Radima, who allied with the British Empire. But that allegiance ended the moment Radhima died and his wife, Ranavalina, became queen. Ranavala tore up all the arrangements with European powers, ejected their ambassadors, and declared that the Merna 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 Myrna. The Myrna 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 Ranavalina had one priority to return Imrna 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 IV 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, Renovallina was an object of fascination.

Depictions of her in Victorian sources range from bewilderment to outright racism. In contrast to tiny Queen Victoria, standing only five feet tall, a paradigm of domesticity and Christian femininity, Queen Renovallana was terrifying. A bloodthirsty despot who would slaughter her own people. or enslaved them, who refused trade alliances with Europe, and who obey traditional rituals that to 19th 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. Renovallina, they wrote, was what would

happen if a woman allowed her basest, most heathenistic impulses, to run unchecked. It's no wonder, then, that the few depictions we have of Queen Ranavalina in the English language are sparse and heavily woven with racism. She tops lists of the most bloodthirsty queens in history, often casually referenced as Queen Rana the Bloody or Queen Ranavallana the Cruel. Recently, there's been a small school of thought that's 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. Rana Valano 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 Marna 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 Ranavalina'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 Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. There are a few details about Queen Ranavalena's early life, but most historical accounts put her birth in 1788. Sometime during her childhood, her father saved the life of the Myrna King from an assassination attempt. In thanks, the king betrothed his son, Radima, to Ranavalina, and promised that she would be his senior wife, and that their children would be prioritized in the line of succession.

The two were married, and in 1810, Radima's father died, and Radima became king of in Marna. Radima was 17 and Ranavalina was 22. As a leader, Radima the first focused on expansion. His priority was building up the Marna 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, Radima 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 Merna 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 Radhama I, nobles began to adopt a new Latin alphabet of the Malagos language. A brief side note, the native language on Madagascar is spelled Malagasy phonetically, but pronounced,

to the best of my ability in understanding Malagas. The Malagas written language had previously been closer to Arabic, and along with westernized militarization and language, Radhama also welcomed Christianity. Missionaries thrived on the island, setting up schools and converting mostly lower-class Malagos 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 worshipping a new God, foregoing the spiritual traditions of the Malagos people, the traditions that had given the monarchy its very power. The king was only the king because the blood of holy ancestors flowed through his veins. Rodama died at age 35.

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 Rana Valano 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 Ranavalina ordered that every single one of them be killed. Because there was a superstition that forbade spilling of royal blood, Ranavalina had every death done by strangulation. Hers would be a bloodless coup, technically.

According to the writings of a missionary who was expelled by Ranavalina 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 27, 1829, is that she wore a dress in the French style, constructed from embroidered red velvet and silk, embroidered with her initials and rice stalks, a symbol of the indigenous plant life. on the island. Her dress had a row of gold buttons. Ranavalina had specific tastes in her clothing, high-quality European fabrics and silhouettes, with specifically Malagas 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. Ranavalina 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 Malagos 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 Ranavalino never remarried, she did take a number of lovers 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 Andrea Mihaja,

was chastised for his pro-European ideology, and so he was sentenced to undergo one of the ultimate horrors of Ranavalimus court, the Tangina 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 tangasca. and 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 outright, 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 Ranavalina'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 Malagos

traditions that Ranavalina revitalized. Her spirituality revolved around the sum or golden idols that were heavily guarded. And she made policies based on a process called Sakid, which you threw dried beans on a board and used mathematical formulations to come to a decision. But Ranavalina 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 LeBorde. In 1831, Jean LeBorde was sailing off the coast of Madagascar, attempting to rescue treasure from other ships that had sunk in the Indian Ocean. Surprise, surprise, LeBord himself was shipwrecked, and thanks to a royal decree, everything and every

one that washed up on shore became property of the Marna government. LeBord was summoned to Ranavalon's court. LeBorde wasn't just an adventurer. He was also a brilliant engineer, and he and Ranavalina 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 Marna, so that Ranavalina would have no more need for trading at all. LeBord 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 produce 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, Laborde 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 Labord and Queen Ranavalena became lovers. It may be 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 Laborde became a surrogate 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 Ranavalina's reign began to become deadlier. And it was about to become far deadlier. In 1835, Ranavalina became sick with a mysterious illness. She lay in bed for days, a fever wetting her brow with sweat and distorting 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 Laborde had helped construct for her, Ranavalino 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

Malagos people. But Christianity had started to infiltrate the nobility, and Ranavalina knew that if it continued to spread, it would erode every cultural tradition that her kingdom maintained. Christianity would become a parasite, sucking at Marna culture, blotting it out like ink on a page. Christianity was an invading force, and so Ranavalina 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 returned home to Europe salivating at the mouth with stories of Ranavales.

Volana's brutality and the martyrs of their sacrificed Christian brothers and sisters. There was a 37-year-old woman, they said, named Rosalama, who was speared to death and hurled over a cliff. Other Christian converts were burned at the stake or boiled alive or brutally dismembered. There are estimates that by 1848, one-fifth of the native population of Immerna had been killed through the Tangina ordeal. There are some estimates that any given servant who had worked under Ranavalena for 20 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 1845, 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. Renovallina annihilated the advance almost immediately. The British and French were fooled by a primitive cheap facade on the island's 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. Renevalina had their skulls, the skulls of 20 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, Renovallana said, that the British and French would interfere in my affairs. How would Queen Victoria and Louis Felipe 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 then as a story of Ranavalina's evil and brutality, her, quote, unparalleled reign of terror and fear. Ranavalina'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 Ranavalina held closest to her. her son, Anne LeBorde. The French slave trader, a man named Lembert, wrote a charter, giving himself the right to exploit all of the minerals and forests of Madagascar with a provision to give 10% to the monarchy. He went around to the courts of Europe, attempting to gather support and raise an army. It would be a lucrative proposition if they succeeded and overthrew Ranavalina. 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 Ranavalino.

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. Immyrna 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 Rana as a hedonistic madwoman, she was an efficient and effective leader

with a network of spies and the loyalty of her military. After the small coup was distilled, dispatched of. Her son was forgiven. He was just a young man led astray. But after that, she banished all Europeans from Immyrna, including Laborde. He had been a close friend and confidant for over 25 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 a woman. It struck me as a 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 a count of Ranavalina. But one is the same. a woman named Rani 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 Ranavalina's reign, as many as 50% of the Marna 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 Ranavalna's perspective, violence wasn't capriciousness. She was a woman who believed fiercely in the religious right of the Tangina ordeal, which allowed the gods to decide who lived and who didn't. She was steadfast in not making decisions based on anger or emotions. If people needed to die, so be it.

But the Marin of 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 Renovallina. But stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear about her death and what happened next. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Vodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers, Anchorman. Saturday Night Live and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell.

Woo. Woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with him one day. And I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through. And I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent.

He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you. Which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.

It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Iris Palmer and my new podcast is called Against All Odds and that's exactly what the show is about doing whatever it takes to be thoughts. Get ready to hear from some of your

favorite entrepreneurs and entertainers as they share stories about defying expectations, overcoming barriers and breaking generational patterns. I'm talking to people like award-winning actress, producer and director, Eva Longoria. I think I had like $200 in my savings account and my mom goes, what are you going to do? And I was like, I'll figure it out. We got a one-bedroom apartment for like $400 a month, and we all could not afford. Like, I was like, how am I going to make $100 a month? I'm opening up like I've never before.

For those of you who think you know me from what you've seen on social media, get ready to see a whole new side of me. Listen to Against All Odds with Iris Palmer as part of the MyCultura podcast network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. After the Queen's death, her son and then her son's wife, took over the throne and in Marna almost immediately reverted back to European influence. The Francohova Wars, which began in 1883, led to the end of the Merna Kingdom and the creation of the French protectorate, which then became the colony of Madagascar. French claims to the property that Laborde had left in Madagascar, gifts from the Queen, became the pretext for their armed

invasion. There's one detail about Queen Ranavalena's funeral that seems worth mentioning. The queen died in her sleep at age 83 after a 33-year-long reign. But during the funeral, an errant spark flashed and caused a nearby barrel of gunpowder to explode. Several bystanders were killed. Even in death, Ranavalina maintained her reputation. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grimmin Mild from Aaron Manky. The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, 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 Bloodtales.com. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Everyone, I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat.

Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right. It wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Yeah. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.

Guaranteed human.