Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Myelt from Aaron Manky.

Listener discretion is advised.

In 1837, just a few months before Queen Victoria would become the monarch of an empire, at age

18, a group of six ambassadors arrived to England from the island of Madagascar.

The six ambassadors had made the perilous journey from the eastern coast of Africa to London

on behalf of their Queen, the Queen of Inmarna, Queen Ranavala.

In Marna or the Marna Kingdom was the largest and most powerful kingdom on the Madagascar

island.

It was dense with natural resources and had achieved military supremacy and near full

island dominance during the reign of Radama, who allied with the British Empire.

But that allegiance ended the moment Radama died and his wife Ranavala became Queen.

Ranavala tore up all the arrangements with European powers, ejected their ambassadors

and declared that the Marna Kingdom would exist under a policy of complete isolation, with

an emphasis on returning back to native traditions and cultures.

There would be no more Christian missionaries in Marna.

The Marna people who had already converted would be accepted for the time being, but by

the end of her reign, they would suffer bloody persecution.

Queen Ranavala had one priority.

To return in Marna to the way it had been before European settlers, and she would kill

as many people as necessary in order to achieve her vision.

I suppose that single-mindedness does reveal a second priority.

Preserve her own power.

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