History’s Worst Female Ruler?
Ranavalona sent her army on numerous punitive expeditions into those parts of Madagascar that she deemed defiant. The queen’s men engaged in scorched earth policies, and devastated regions resistant to her rule. As object lessons, Ranavalona’s soldiers routinely massacred the inhabitants of towns and settlements viewed as disloyal. Those spared from mass executions were enslaved and brought back to the queen’s domain, to toil the rest of their lives away on her projects. Between 1820 to 1853, over a million slaves were seized, and the percentage of slaves rose to one third of the population of Madagascar’s central highlands, and two thirds of the population of Antananarivo, Ranavalona’s capital.
Between massacres, mistreatment, forced labor, and widespread famines caused by Ranavalona’s scorched earth policies and repression, Madagascar’s population crashed. In just a six year stretch from 1833 to 1839, the island’s population declined from 5 million to 2.5 million inhabitants. In Ranavalona’s own home district, the population plummeted from about 750,000 in 1829, to a mere 130,000 by 1842. Such genocide-level figures are comparable to those inflicted by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge on the people of Cambodia a century later. Unlike Pol Pot, however, Ranavalona was not chased out of power. After a 33 year reign, she died in her sleep of natural causes, at age 83.
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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading
Badass of the Week – Ranavalona the Cruel
Bobrick, Benson – Ivan the Terrible (1990)
Burkhardt, Jacob – The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1878)
Clements, Jonathan – The First Emperor of China (2006)
Cortauldian – Masculinity in Ancient Greece
Cracked – 5 Kings and Queens Who Were Major Jerks Even by Royal Standards
Dover, K. J. – Greek Homosexuality (1978)
DW – British Museum Confirms Talks Over Parthenon Marbles
Encyclopedia Britannica – Ivan the Terrible
Encyclopedia Britannica – Ranavalona I
Fang Xuanling – The Book of Jin
Gonick, Larry – The Cartoon History of the Universe, Part II (1994)
Hildinger, Erik – Warriors of the Steppe: Military History of Central Asia, 500 BC to 1700 AD (1997)
History Collection – 20 Times Royals Have Met Their Demise
Laidler, Keith – Female Caligula: Ranavalona, the Mad Queen of Madagascar (2005)
Lamb, Harold – Tamerlane: The Earth Shaker (1929)
Lewis, Mark – The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han (2009)
Manz, Beatrice Forbes – The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane (1999)
Marozzi, Justin – Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World (2006)
Military Heritage – Count Dracula’s War on Islam: A True Story of Power, Cruelty, and Betrayal
Museum of Unnatural Mystery – The Real Dracula: Vlad the Impaler
Ranker – The Most Brutal Medieval Monarchs
Royle, Trevor – Culloden: Scotland’s Last Battle and the Forging of the British Empire (2016)
Taylor, Benjamin – Naples Declared: A Walk Around the Bay (2012)
Treptow, Kurt W. – Vlad III Dracula: The Life and Times of the Historic Dracula (2000)
Washington Post, January 25th, 2022 – Miss Manners: Why Is It Taboo to Ask a Woman Her Age?
