Female Caligula: Ranavalona, The Mad Queen of Madagascar [Hardcover]

Keith Laidler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 21, 2005 | ISBN-10: 047002223X | ISBN-13: 978-0470022238 | Edition: 1

'The seven christians stood together in the bright sunlight, bound with ropes singing a hyme to their foreign saviour as the spearmen advanced. Around them a croud of jostling men, women and children, more than sixty thousand strong...cheered enthusiastically as the spears were driven home and, one by one, the men and women fell and writhed on the sandy ground, their hymn fading slowly into silence...above the still writhing bodies, on a ridge, a score of crosses stood in mute witness, carrying their ghastly burdens, some of whom still lived despite the day and a half they had hung upon the wood.

As European colonists scrambled for control of Africa, a leader arose in the red island of Madagascar who, through ruthless determination thwarted the combined ambitions of all the major world powers. That leader and the author of this holocaust was no warrior but a diminutive woman of middle years, Ranavalona-Manjaka Queen of Madagascar, know to her subjects more simply as Ma Dieu. Under Ranavalona's despotic rule, hundreds of thousands of her people, possibly one-half of Madagascar's entire population, were murdered, starved or simply worked to death by her express command, while she enjoyed an eccentric and debauched lifestyle. For these characteristics, European history has remembered her reign as that of the Female Caligula.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Laidler, an anthropologist, filmmaker and author (The Last Empress), uncovers the fascinating story of the early 19th-century queen of Madagascar, Ranavalona, who seized power after her husband's death and ruled ruthlessly but effectively for 33 years. Unfortunately, much of it reads like a European's shocked appraisal of native culture rather than the analysis of an anthropologist. The author seems trapped by his title—derived from a European commentator—and, obliged to prove his subject unusually bloodthirsty, he emphasizes the queen's oppression of Christians and trials by ordeal rather than fleshing out the tantalizing glimpses of native religions, social structures and matrilineal royal descent that kept her in power. His most sympathetic characters are a few extraordinary Europeans who lived in or visited Madagascar during her reign. Laidler briefly asserts that Ranavalona actually descended into insanity, but nowhere does he seriously address the issue or give evidence beyond the violence of her tenure. In fact, the narrative suggests that her plans were effective rather than mad: after her death, a series of somewhat less violent and more open-minded rulers gave way under foreign imperial pressures and Madagascar became a French colony. B&w illus., map. (Dec.)
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Review

"...jaw-dropping..." (Conde Nast Traveller, November 2005)

"...a new book reveals the extraordinary excesses of the woman whose enemies met the most unspeakable fates..." (Daily Express, 7th November 2005)

Laidler, an anthropologist, filmmaker and author (The Last Empress), uncovers the fascinating story of the early 19th-century queen of Madagascar, Ranavalona, who seized power after her husband's death and ruled ruthlessly but effectively for 33 years. Unfortunately, much of it reads like a European's shocked appraisal of native culture rather than the analysis of an anthropologist. The author seems trapped by his title—derived from a European commentator—and, obliged to prove his subject unusually bloodthirsty, he emphasizes the queen's oppression of Christians and trials by ordeal rather than fleshing out the tantalizing glimpses of native religions, social structures and matrilineal royal descent that kept her in power. His most sympathetic characters are a few extraordinary Europeans who lived in or visited Madagascar during her reign. Laidler briefly asserts that Ranavalona actually descended into insanity, but nowhere does he seriously address the issue or give evidence beyond the violence of her tenure. In fact, the narrative suggests that her plans were effective rather than mad: after her death, a series of somewhat less violent and more open-minded rulers gave way under foreign imperial pressures and Madagascar became a French colony. B&w illus., map. (Dec.) (Publishers Weekly, October 24, 2005)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 232 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (November 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047002223X
• ISBN-13: 978-0470022238
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.8 x 8.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,878,312 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #45 in Books > History > Africa > Madagascar

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A bloodthirsty Queen, January 23, 2006

By 

L O'connor (richmond, surrey United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Female Caligula: Ranavalona, The Mad Queen of Madagascar (Hardcover)

Admirers of George Macdonald Fraser's 'Flashman' saga will already be acquainted with the terrifying Queen Ranavalona of Madgascar, who appears in 'Flashman's lady' If you do not already know of her be warned, her story is not for the squeamish.

Ranavalona was one of the wives of King Radama, 'the Malagasay Napoleon'. On his death in 1828 she seized the throne and held onto it for the next 33 years. During her bloody reign at least a third of the population of Madagascar is estimated to have died on her orders, either executed or worked to death as forced labour. Criminals, traitors (real or imaginary) and anyone she happened to take a dislike to, were put to death by gruesome means. She had a particular loathing for Christians, who were persecuted with great savagery.

Despite her hatred of foreign influence, she formed a surprising alliance with a young French merchant, Jean Laborde, who was shipwrecked on the west coast of Madagascar in 1831. She found she could make use of him to manufacture cannon, muskets and gunpowder, and he appears to have been useful to her in other ways too, since he was rumoured to be the father of her only son.

Despite her hatred of foreigners, she was fascinated by all things Euroepan, and she and her courtiers dressed in a bizarre mixture of French fashions of various periods. She discovered a passion for fale flowers, which Laborde manufactured for her, and which she and her ladies wore in such quantities that one account described them as 'floral porcupines'.

Despite all her cruelties and excesses, she seems to have been able to inspire great awe and reverence in her subjects, one of the lavish ceremonies she performed was the Queen's Bath, which she took in public, afterwards sprinking the adoring crowds with her used bath water, a great honour.

A coup engineered against her in 1857 involved Laborde and other foreigners, including the indomitable lady traveller Ida Pfeiffer, who was visiting the island at the time and was drawn into the conspiracy. The coup was a failure, but the foreigners escaped with their lives, being banished from the island.

It is evident that, in spite of her great cruelty and brutality, Keith Laidler does not altogether disapprove of Queen Ranavalona. He writes of her: Unlike many other African and Asian kingdoms, while Ranavalona held power Madgascar had successfully defied all attempts at colonisation. The island had remained an independent state despite the best efforts of both Britain, and, especially, France, to bring it under European sway. For all her manifold faults, the Female Caligula had fulfilled the sacred promise she had made more than three decades before, standing proudly on the sacred coronation stone as the young and beautiful Queen of Imerina:
"Never say 'she is only a feeble and ignorant woman, how can she rule such a vast empire.' I will rule here, 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 shall be the boundary of my realm and I will not cede the thickness of one hair of my realm!"

Whether it was really to the 'good fortune' of her people is doubtful, presumably the third or more of the population who perished on her orders might think not, but nevertheless it is true that she held onto her kingdom, and as Mr Laidler says "she had extended her domains and, against the colonial current of the times, had kept the island free from foreign influence". This all came to an end with her death, within anothe thirty years Madgascar was a French colony.

This is a fascinating story about an appalling but intriguing woman.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wild story - reality beats fantasy, June 6, 2007

By 

Reluctant Badger "Badger" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Female Caligula: Ranavalona, The Mad Queen of Madagascar (Hardcover)

Ranavalona is a character that needs to be understood and appreciated in our modern world. She is an example of what the friction between a world of aboriginal tribal life and our "civilized" society can produce. And the story is just wild. She is a character that is so out of this world that nobody would come up with her in a fictional novel.

One hell of a read.

4 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Eurocentric and Misleadingly Exaggerated Sensationalism, July 28, 2007

By 

C. Antal (Seattle, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Female Caligula: Ranavalona, The Mad Queen of Madagascar (Hardcover)

This might make for an entertaining read but please don't allow yourself to believe the author's claim that the tale he tells is entirely true. By selective inclusion of information, mainly stemming from 19th century Europeans (or locals favorable to them), Laidler has cobbled together an incredibly skewed and sensationalistic book that does an excellent job of reviving the hackneyed "Western civilization" vs "Savage" stereotype. Bravo.
Ranavalona's methods were extreme but she reigned in a time of unprecedentedly threatening change, in a land where the preservation of traditions is central to the spirituality and identity of the entire nation. There are plenty of scholars of Madagascar who have interpreted her actions as those of a leader doing what she felt was her duty to protect the nation from spiritual, mental and political domination, and given that the nation was subsequently colonized by France after her reign had ended, she obviously wasn't imagining the danger. In this light, her relationship with Laborde makes a lot more sense.
Disappointing.