22. When Madagascar Was a Hermit Kingdom
To ensure that her realm had no potentially dangerous foreign contacts, Queen Ranavalona nullified all treaties with Britain and France, and banned Christianity. She effectively isolated Madagascar from the outside world and turned it into a hermit kingdom. On the domestic front, in lieu of a legal system, she introduced trial by ordeal. The accused were fed poison and three pieces of chicken skin. If they vomited all three pieces of skin, they were innocent. If they did not, they were not, and were accordingly executed.
Ranavalona introduced widespread forced labor, whereby Madagascar’s poor – the majority of the population – were made to work on her projects in lieu of high taxes they could not afford to pay. De facto slaves, they were used to build houses and palaces, clear lands and maintain roads, carry nobles and royal dependents in litters, serve in Ranavalona’s army, and carry out any other tasks set them by the queen. They were unpaid, poorly fed, if at all, and they died in droves.