Ranavalona I

Ranavalona I (1778-1861) was Queen of Madagascar from 1828 until her death in 1861. She pursued a deliberate policy of isolation and self-sufficiency, working to limit European political and commercial influence over her kingdom and to preserve Malagasy sovereignty and traditional institutions. In 1835 she banned the practice of Christianity, which had been spreading through British missionary activity, and took sustained action to suppress the growing Malagasy Christian community, including through the use of the tangena ordeal, a trial by poison in which the accused was forced to swallow a toxic nut, which historians estimate killed thousands of people a year during parts of her reign. Her long reign was also marked by heavy losses among soldiers and forced laborers conscripted for military campaigns and state building projects, and modern demographic estimates suggest Madagascar's population may have declined by as much as half over her 33 years in power.