It's the early 19th century, and you are a member of the Madagascar military.
Your job is to fend off the attempts at colonization by the British and the French, both of whom
are aggressively seeking to establish colonies in your home country and subjugate your people.
You're a proud patriot, and have fought in numerous battles against European armies,
emerging victorious each time.
But right now, none of that matters, because Queen Ranavalona, the Mad Queen of Madagascar,
has questioned your loyalty and threatens death- along with that of dozens of other
members of the military.
But Queen Ranavalona is a fair and just queen, she has arranged for a way that you can prove
your loyalty, you simply have to eat three raw chicken skins.
That's right, no trial, no evidence, no jury- just eat three raw chicken skins and you'll
have proven you are a loyal subject and free to go.
You immediately wolf down the first skin, followed by the second, and finally after
a few nauseous gulps, the last.
The raw skins slid down your throat covered in slime, and you're getting the urge to vomit.
Try as you might, you can't help yourself, and you puke up two of the three chicken skins
on the spot.
“GUILTY!”
The mad queen shouts from her seat, you've failed her test and have been pronounced a
traitorous enemy of the state.
The punishment?
Death.
And all because you failed the queen's loyalty test- see, the Queen knows that a truly loyal
subject would have vomited all three skins immediately!
Welcome to the court of the Mad Queen of Madagascar, a woman so evil she killed off most of her
own subjects.
Ranavalona I began life as Ramavo, the daughter of lesser royalty.
Her life however took a very Cinderella-like turn when her father became aware of a plot
to murder the current king, and promptly warned his master of it.
The conspirators were discovered and the plot foiled, and in his generosity the king took
Ramavo as his adopted daughter, and married her to his son and heir to the throne, Radama.
In 1810, Radama took the throne and began the age-old Madagascarian tradition of killing
potential rivals and dissenters.
For Ramavo though this included members of her own family, something which no doubt cooled
things off quite a bit in the royal bedroom between the king and queen.
Ramavo decided that Radama would not be king for long, and that she would instead rule
as queen.
While some accounts state that Radama died of syphilis, many believe that Ramavo slowly
poisoned her own husband to death.
18 years after taking the throne, Radama died, leaving his oldest sister's son as next in
line for the throne- because the rules of succession are a little weird in monarchies
sometimes.
Ramavo however wouldn't abide anyone on that throne but herself, and quickly put a plot
into action that she'd been carefully cultivating for years.
With the support of many wealthy and influential supporters, Ramavo took the throne and immediately
began her own purge of rivals and dissenters.
The first to go were the members of her own adopted family, who had a more legitimate
claim to the throne thanks to their royal blood.
Ramavo, now Queen Ranavalona I, initiated a hunt for every living member of the royal
family.
This would be the start of three decades of brutal bloodshed, which would end with Queen
Ranavalona I named “The most murderous woman in history”.
A strict traditionalist, Queen Ranavalona believed in the old ways of her people, and
for her accession ceremony had her naked body anointed with the blood of a freshly slain
bull.
This would make for a fitting introduction to a woman who would spill the blood of millions.
After officially taking the crown, she put the royal family to death in a variety of
ways.
Rakatobe, the son of the late Radama's eldest sister, was speared to death, and in order
to not break taboo by shedding royal female blood, his mother was simply locked up and
starved to death.
The rest of the royal family quickly followed suit, with the women arguably suffering worse
fates thanks to the tradition of not shedding royal blood.
Rather than a quick execution, they faced weeks of slow starvation in dank prison cells.
A staunch anti-European, Ranavalona quickly undid many of the reforms that her husband
had initiated in a bid to modernize the nation.
European teachers, merchants, and diplomats were expelled from the nation, and trade deals
with Britain and France were immediately canceled.
The French took particular offense and dispatched a fleet to remove Ranavalona from power, but
the invaders suffered severe bouts of malaria and were left weakened and barely able to
fight.
Not one to miss a lucky opportunity, Ranavalona dispatched her forces and the French were
soundly defeated, their heads placed on stakes along the beach to serve as a warning to future
European invaders.
With the Europeans militarily suppressed, the Queen turned her attention to the Christian
missionaries present on her island.
At first she had tolerated them, as they educated the people and established cottage industries
which fed her coffers.
However, in time Ranavalona grew more and more hostile towards Christianity, and banned
the conversion of her people to Christianity.
She knew that taking direct action against Christian missionaries would incur the wrath
of the European powers, and thus she tolerated their presence for a while.
Then, Ranavalona became enamored with a French sailor who washed up ashore on Madagascar,
and happened to be a brilliant politician and engineer.
With his knowledge of metallurgy and munitions, he was given the task of constructing a factory
which would manufacture modern rifles and ammunition for the mad queen's army.
Under his guidance, Madagascar prospered as a military and economic power.
Now, with a well equipped army capable of fending off a large invasion force, the queen
only needed a distraction to take away the attention of French forces so she could act
on the Christian missionaries on her land.
She got that in the 1830s, as political upheaval called away much of the French fleet.
Christian missionaries were banned from teaching Christianity in schools, and eventually even
the practice of the religion was outlawed.
Many missionaries fled Madagascar, but others remained, spurred on by their convictions.
By the mid 1830s, many remaining Christians would be martyred, starting with the murder
of 14 Christians who were hung over a ravine with ropes, and then had their ropes cut.
This however was an execution method popular with the queen, and used not just for Christian
missionaries.
Others subjected to this execution method would be hung over a cliff's edge with ropes,
and left there without food and water.
Their relatives would be forced to watch until at last the ropes frayed and sent the condemned
to their death on the rocks below.
Ranavalona was heavily inspired by the medival period's penchant for torture and execution
though, and practiced many medieval techniques with gusto.
During her reign, dissidents and criminals alike would be dumped into pots of boiling
water and oil, or simply tied down with ropes and burned alive- often while family members
watched.
Others would be buried in coffins or simply thrown into holes and have dirt shoveled over
them.
The queen also embraced the practice of fanompoana, or the use of poor Malagasy who were unable
to pay taxes for forced labor.
In essence any poor citizens unable to pay their taxes became slave labor, used to build
everything from houses to roads and whatever crazy whim the queen had that particular day.
Those slaves were typically forced to work far from home, and as the labor was unpaid
they faced slow starvation if they ever tried to return home.
As a result, many starved to death or died from the brutal labor conditions.
Largely unable to pay her military troops, the queen instead once more turned to tradition.
Military units were given the right to pillage other tribes on the island, and would kill,
murder, and rape with abandon, often stealing everything that they could carry away with
them- including, naturally, many slaves.
This proved popular with the military, and understandably was far less so with her subjects.
Yet it wasn't just her poor subjects that were at risk from the queen's madness.
As Ranavalona grew older, she grew ever more erratic and unsettled, leading to the infamous
buffalo hunt of 1845.
On pure whim, the queen suddenly ordered that her entire royal court go on a buffalo hunt,
and insisted that each noble had to bring a full retinue of slaves and underlings.
The hunting party grew to around 50,000 people, and the queen ordered that a road be built
into the jungle ahead of the hunting party so as to ease its travel.
With no advanced planning, the expedition took off with thousands of slaves and laborers
struggling to build a road through the thick jungle.
As the workers hacked their way into the thick, malaria-laden jungle and swamps, disease ran
rampant, decimating the labor force.
Nonetheless, the queen demanded more labor be found and the work continue.
Because the hunting party of 50,000 had taken off with no advanced preparations, there was
little food available and even the nobles of her court were not spared death and disease.
The hunting party was forced to forage for food or take what they could find from villages
they passed, with even the highest nobles paying exuberant prices for simple rice.
As the corpses piled up, they were simply tossed into ditches along the road, and the
party progressed forward regardless of the human misery.
Astonishingly, the buffalo hunt lasted for 16 weeks, with a road leading nowhere built
deep into the jungle so that the queen could travel comfortably.
By the end of the expedition, ten thousand men, women, and children were killed, and
not a single buffalo was ever shot.
Queen Ranavalona's son eventually grew tired of her insanity and hatched a plot alongside
his european friends to remove her from power.
Her son, Rakoto, was popular with the people and the soldiers for sparing many from the
queen's insane tortures and punishment, or making sure that they were fed.
Sadly, the plot was discovered by the queen and though she spared her son and his european
friends, she forced the other conspirators to march through deep, malaria infested swamps
where most succumbed to disease or wildlife.
Rakoto would go on to plot against his mother several more times, though none of the plots
would succeed.
Still, she spared her son and ultimately after her death from natural causes, he was named
king, immediately turning around all of his late mother's insane and cruel practices.
Though it's impossible to know for sure, it's estimated that under Queen Ranavalona's rule,
anywhere from 50% to 75% of her subjects were executed, starved or worked to death, or died
in clashes with European powers.
Queen Ranavalona I is thus, officially the most murderous woman in history.
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