S4E11: The Crisis of the 18th Century part 1 - Andriamasinvalona’s Blunder

 

The old royal residence at Ambohidratrimo, where Andiramasinavalona was held prisoner.

The 18th century will be a painful time for the people of Imerina. The once proud kingdom will devolve into a deadly multilateral civil war, splitting into dozens of smaller kingdoms, each suffering from intermittent famine and domination by foreign enemies. How could the kingdom of Andriamasinavalona, rapidly rising to become a major player in Madagascar, fall so far. The inciting incident lays at the feet of the otherwise great king Andriamasinavalona.

The mpanjaka Imerina had spread his kingdom several times beyond what his predecessors would have even considered possible. Could such a large kingdom survive in highland Madagascar? Andriamasinavalona believed that the answer was "no." Instead, he favored transforming the Merina kingdom into a confederation of four smaller states called Imerina Efa Toko, or "Imerina like the Legs of a Cooking Pot." The king's advisor Andriamampandry repeated warned him against the plan, cautioning that the newly empowered princes would immediately seek to make war with each other. But Andriamasinavalona persisted. 

The public square at the Rova of Antananarivo, where Andriamasinavalona announced the new policy of Imerina Efa Toko

This policy backfired immensely. Almost immediately upon granting his sons sovereign power, they began quarreling. These early disagreements culminated in the prince of Ambohidratrimo luring the father into his fief by intentionally provoking the ire of his subjects, asking his father for assistance against a rebellion, and then locking his father in a basement when he came to assist the prince. The plan worked for several years, with the prince providing commands supposedly based on his father's wishes. However, the other sons soon grew suspicious, and launched a rescue operation for Andrimasinvalona. While the prince of Ambohidratrimo was defeated and the other sons pledged an oath of peace after their father's death not long after his liberation, the kingdom still fell apart into warring duchies soon after. Join us next episode to see how that goes.