800 



MADAGASCAR. 



present century, when Audrian Amponiene, a 

 chief of one of the Hova tribes, united all the 

 Hovas under his sway and commenced the con- 

 quest of the tribes bordering on Ank-Hova or 

 ' the country of the Hovas." He had succeed- 

 ed in bringing two of the more prominent of 

 these tribes into subjection, when he died in 

 1810, and was succeeded by his son Radama I, 

 who inherited his father's talents and ambition, 

 and proceeded to carry out his measures for 

 reducing the adjacent tribes to subjection. 



In 1814, Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Farquhar 

 was governor-general of the Mauritius, an ablp 

 and far-seeing officer. The movements of Ra- 

 dama I. had come to his knowledge, and be- 

 lieving the time a favorable one to advance 

 the condition of Madagascar, to improve its 

 Government, open its ports to commerce, and 

 break up its connection with the slave trade, 

 he put himself in communication with the 

 Hova chief, concluded a commercial treaty 

 with him, undertook the education of his two 

 younger brothers, and arranged subsequently a 

 further treaty, by which Radama I. agreed to 

 abolish the slave trade, and received in return 

 a recognition of his claims as King of Madagas- 

 car, a small pension, and the aid of English 

 officers to discipline his troops. Sir Robert 

 Farquhar was absent from the Mauritius for 

 two years, but on his return in 1820 he carried 

 out with due diligence the measures agreed 

 upon with Radama I. Schools were establish- 

 ed throughout the kingdom; missionaries of 

 the London Missionary Society established 

 schools and printing presses and churches 

 there, and the king having decreed complete 

 religious toleration, affairs moved on pros- 

 perously. In 1828 Radama died, poisoned it 

 was said by his chief queen, Ranavalana, who, 

 with her paramour, Audrian Mihaza, was ex- 

 asperated at the decadence of idolatry, and 

 the custom of the ordeal of poison, by which 

 the Hovas had for many generations been in 

 the habit of disposing of those who had incurred 

 their displeasure. The queen succeeded to 

 Radama I., and immediately nullified as many 

 of his acts as she could, and put an end to the 

 schools and the labors of the missionaries, as 

 well as to the commercial intercourse which 

 had hitherto existed between the country and 

 Great Britain. Cruel and despotic in her char- 

 acter, sensual and superstitious in her disposi- 

 tion, Ranavalana hesitated at no barbarity 

 which should consolidate her power, terrify 

 her enemies, or gratify her revenge. In her 

 reign of thirty-three years more than 250,- 

 000 persons were said to have perished by 

 tlio hands of the executioner or by the ta-n- 

 guin or ordeal of poison. Her persecution of 

 the Christian converts was relentless, and she 

 had evidently fully determined to drive Christi- 

 anity from the island. This savage queen had 

 one son, named Rakoto, not by Radama I., but 

 by her paramour, Audrian Mihaza, to whom, 

 notwithstanding the ferocity of her disposition, 

 she was tenderly attached. He was amiablo 



and gentle in temper, but lacked resolution and 

 vigor of character. He had received what lit- 

 tle education he had from foreign missionaries, 

 Catholic and Protestant, and was kindly dis- 

 posed toward them, protecting them and their 

 converts so far as possible, but unfortunately he 

 had early imbibed habits of intoxication, which 

 were encouraged by the young men who had 

 been brought up with him. Emissaries of 

 France, meantime, and especially Jesuit emis- 

 saries, were seeking, in the feigned character 

 of physicians, an introduction into the island, 

 and endeavoring to gain a controlling influence 

 over the weak and amiable young prince, who, 

 it was understood, was to succeed to the throne 

 on his mother's demise. A M. Laborde was 

 the first of these, himself an adventurer, who 

 in his turn introduces another adventurer 

 shrewder and sharper than himself, though 

 not with an entirely stainless reputation. This 

 last, a M. Lambert, who, though of French or- 

 igin, and professing to be a representative of 

 France, had been for some years a merchant at 

 the Mauritius, succeeded in ingratiating him- 

 self into the favor of the prince, and procured 

 from him his signature to a proposition to the 

 French Government to establish a protectorate 

 over Madagascar, and a promise to acknowl- 

 edge the French emperor as his suzerain ; ask- 

 ing only aid to dethone his mother and rule in 

 her stead. Armed with this document, Lam- 

 hert left Madagascar in 1854, first placing the 

 two Jesuits, professedly physicians, in charge 

 of his royal proteg6, and hastened to France. 

 The French Government, before entertaining 

 the proposition, sent Lambert to the British 

 Government with it, and Lord Clarendon, then 

 foreign secretary, promptly refused to coope- 

 rate in any such measure. Lambert returned 

 to Madagascar in 1855, and having obtained 

 from the prince, in an unconscious moment, a 

 grant of privileges of mining, timber, lands, 

 and agricultural products, which in reality 

 made him almost the sole proprietor of the isl- 

 and, he once more returned to Europe to make 

 provision for the organization of a company to 

 avail themselves of these privileges in an event, 

 which he proposed bringing about. He then, 

 repaired again to Madagascar with ample 

 presents for the queen, as well as for the 

 prince and princess, and in concert with tho 

 Jesuits, and some other Frenchmen on tho 

 island, the adventurous traveller, Madame 

 Ida Pfeiffer, and the friends of the young 

 prince, though probably not the prince him- 

 self, concerted a scheme for the assassination 

 of Ranavalana. The conspiracy was revealed 

 before the time for its consummation, and tho 

 queen, sending back the presents, banished tho 

 Frenchmen from the island; first detaining 

 them for nearly nine weeks in the marsh and 

 jungle, whose miasma is almost certain deatlt 

 to Europeans, and put the native conspirators 

 to death. 



At length, in 1861, the queen died, not by 

 violence, but in her bed, and though Ramboas- 



