Andrianampoinimerina

Reign and expansion of territory

Reunification of historic Imerina

Continuing his conquests in the 1790s, Andrianampoinimerina began establishing control over a comparatively large part of the highlands of Madagascar including the twelve sacred hills of Imerina. Andrianampoinimerina conquered Antananarivo in 1793 and concluded treaties with the kings of Antananarivo and Ambohidratrimo. He shifted the kingdom's political capital back to Antananarivo in 1794. By 1795 he had gained the allegiance and submission of all the territories that had formed Imerina at its largest extent under Andriamasinavalona, effectively achieving the reunification of Imerina. The former kings of Antananarivo and Ambohidratrimo periodically engaged in resistance against his authority in disregard of the treaties they had concluded, prompting Andrianampoinimerina to launch renewed campaigns to eliminate both kings; the re-pacification of Antananarivo began in 1794 and achieved definitive success in 1797, with Ambohidratrimo reconquered shortly afterward. By 1800, he had absorbed several other previously independent sections of Imerina into his kingdom. He reinforced alliances with powerful nobles in conquered regions of Imerina through marriage to local princesses, and is said to have wed 12 women in total. He placed each wife at a house built at each of the twelve sacred hills. After the political capital of Imerina was shifted back to Antananarivo, Andrianampoinimerina declared Ambohimanga to be the spiritual capital of Imerina.

Conquest of greater Madagascar

The latter half of Andrianampoinimerina's reign from around 1800 was marked by an effort to unite the island's 18 ethnic groups under his rule. This effort began with the sending of royal messengers bearing invitations to become vassal states under Andrianampoinimerina's sovereignty, or face a military conquest. The first focus of this expansion was territory that had historically been inhabited by the Merina people but had come under the rule of other groups, particularly including the eastern lands held by the Sihanaka and Bezanozano peoples. Andrianampoinimerina then consolidated Merina power in neighboring southern central Betsileo territories, establishing military outposts to protect Merina settlers as far south as the Ankaratra mountains and Faratsiho. Kingdoms that united with Imerina as a result of diplomatic efforts included the Betsileo around Manandriana; the Betsileo, Merina and Antandrano Andrandtsay of Betafo; and the western region of Imamo. The Sakalava of Menabe and Manangina rejected these offers and actively resisted Merina domination; the Bezanozano territories likewise resisted, although the Merina managed to preserve a tenuous hold over the area.

The gradual conquest of surrounding lands by Andrianampoinimerina and his Merina army was vigorously opposed by the Sakalava, who remained a major threat to Andrianampoinimerina and his people. Throughout his reign, bands of Sakalava mounted slave raids in Imerina and brought captured Merina to the coast for sale to European slave traders. Sakalava armies mounted repeated incursions into Imerina and nearly breached the capital city on more than one occasion. Andrianampoinimerina launched several campaigns to pacify the Sakalava but none were successful. He also sought to establish peace through marriages intended to form political alliances, but without achieving lasting peace or an end to the slave raids.

Certain Merina nobles and several members of the royal family also posed a threat to Andrianampoinimerina's rule. After deposing Andrianjafy, the fallen king made an attempt on Andrianampoinimerina's life. This assassination attempt was foiled by an informant who had learned about the conspiracy by chance. Andrianampoinimerina rewarded the informant by marrying his daughter to his son, future King Radama I. Andrianampoinimerina furthermore declared that any child from this union would be first in the line of succession after Radama. The marriage did not produce children, however, and following Radama's death in 1828, this royal wife would rule Madagascar for 33 years as Queen Ranavalona I. Andrianaimpoinimerina's authority was also threatened by his adopted son, Rabodolahy, who plotted to kill Radama; when these efforts failed, he attempted to assassinate Andrianampoinimerina, but was discovered and executed.

Governance of the Kingdom of Imerina

Beginning in 1797, Andrianampoinimerina ruled his expanding kingdom from Antananarivo, the traditional capital of the Kingdom of Imerina. He is credited with major development and reorganization of the city. His vision for the capital was to serve as a microcosm of his kingdom and a model of urban planning that would be replicated in each new territory. In keeping with sacred Merina symbolism associated with height, space and cardinal orientation, he retained the royal compound - the Rova of Antananarivo - at the crest of the highest hill in the city, and in the center of the urban space that expanded around it. He also undertook significant expansion of the sacred rova compound and improved its venerable buildings. This included the reconstruction in 1800 of Besakana, the "throne of the kingdom" built by king Andrianjaka in the early 1600s as the first royal residence at Antananarivo - one of several houses used as residences by Andrianampoinimerina at the palace, the other principal residence being Mahitsielafanjaka after he moved his capital from Ambohimanga to Antananarivo. He implanted representatives of ethnic groups he had recently conquered in specified neighborhoods of the city. Each Merina social class had its designated districts: slaves lived south of the rova (a disfavored direction in Merina cosmology), the mainty (royal servant class) lived to the southeast in Amparihy, important hova clans were allotted the district to the west of the royal compound, and each of the seven sub-classes of andriana nobles were assigned to a district to the sacred north and northeast of the palace. Within this broad district structure, each clan (foko) was assigned a specific neighborhood in an orientation roughly corresponding to the orientation of their home village vis-a-vis the capital city. In the popular imagination of the residents of modern-day Antananarivo, the city in the time of Andrianampoinimerina is envisioned as a perfect and harmonious urban space embodying the best of Merina ingenuity and spiritual significance.

The legitimacy of Andrianampoinimerina's reign was bolstered by his characterization of other Merina rulers' claims to power as fanjakana hova - rule by hova (commoners), whose lineages were only weakly tied to the line of succession relative to his own. In addition, like Merina kings before him, he consolidated the power of the sampy (royal idols) and attributed the success and legitimacy of his reign to the proper respect shown toward these conduits of supernatural power. He balanced this strengthening of the supernatural and ancestral legitimacy of his kingship against inclusiveness of the commoner class by making several hova from the Tsimiamboholahy and Tsimahafotsy clans into powerful and trusted advisers. He also consulted a group of ombiasy (royal advisers of the Antaimoro clan), who were literate in the sorabe script historically used on the east coast to inscribe a series of ancient texts considered to contain powerful magic and specialized scientific and ritual knowledge.

The population of Imerina was governed through a mixture of traditional practices and innovative measures. While all land technically belonged to the sovereign, its administration was carried out by andriana who were assigned a menakely (subdivision of land) to govern. These administrators were themselves overseen by roving royal advisers. The land was cultivated by commoners, who were given a parcel to farm based on the size of the family it was meant to feed, and each family paid taxes to the king in return. Andrianampoinimerina passed laws giving children the right to claim meat from the butcher that had not been sold by the day's end, and allowing the poor to eat cassava from others' fields, provided they took only what they could cook and consume on the spot. In this way, the basic nutritional needs of most citizens were met.

Social organization

The hierarchy of Merina andriana sub-classes established in the 16th century under Andriamanelo was revised by Andrianampoinimerina, as it had been done by Andriamasinavalona. He decreed new rights and responsibilities for the andriana, including the privilege of placing sculptures or images of the voromahery (black kite) on their homes to indicate their noble status.

In order to strengthen relationships within clans and communities, and to promote moderation and equitable distribution of resources, Andrianampoinimerina decreed that families should build larger, monolithic stone tombs to hold the remains of all family members, and that the construction of these tombs was to be undertaken as a shared responsibility among members of the family to be entombed there.

Modifications and expansions on several traditional royal rituals under Andrianampoinimerina enabled him to develop a state religion in which he was the central figure. The tradition of the fandroana festival established by the 17th century Merina king Ralambo was made a much larger event intended to symbolically renew the nation and the cosmic power that legitimized and strengthened Andrianampoinimerina's reign as well as the power of the state. This served to further unify his citizens while legitimizing and strengthening his rule.

Public works

The long-established royal Merina tradition of fanompoana (labor as a form of tax) was continued and expanded under Andrianampoinimerina. Major public works were carried out under his reign, including the further expansion of irrigated paddy fields in the Betsimitatatra plains surrounding Antananarivo. He devised systems for organizing work teams, motivated their efforts by setting up competitions between teams, and punished those who failed to contribute their due share of effort. He mobilized groups of hiragasy village musicians to entertain work teams and later employed them to travel among towns and villages across the kingdom, broadcasting news, announcing new laws and promoting proper social behavior.

Laws

Andrianampoinimerina developed a legal system that applied throughout the territories he ruled. He was the first Merina king to establish formal civil and penal codes, the latter ameliorated and transcribed by his son Radama. He declared twelve crimes to be capital offenses, while many others entailed collective punishment for the guilty party and his or her family members including forced labor in chains and being reduced to slave status. These harsh penalties were intended to act as a strong disincentive to engage in antisocial acts; the consumption of alcohol, marijuana and tobacco were also outlawed, although they remained prevalent. To judge infractions of his laws, the king often relied on the tradition of tangena, whereby surviving the ingestion of poison indicated an accused person's innocence.

Economy

Under Andrianampoinimerina, regulations were established to manage trading in slaves and other commodities. Estimates put the number of slaves traded by the king at around 1,800 per year, mainly in exchange for firearms and principally to French merchants who sold them on to Mauritius and Reunion. This brought order to the kingdom's economy, enriched the crown, and enabled the king to monopolize trade in certain particularly lucrative goods, thereby weakening opportunities for political rivals to amass enough wealth and influence to unseat him. While this soured his relationship with certain andriana, it increased his popularity among the commoner and slave classes. His practice of commonly deciding in favor of commoners in disputes with nobles further strengthened his image as a fair ruler.

Andrianampoinimerina regulated commerce and the economy by creating official markets (tsena) and standardizing market scales (fandanjana) and other units of measurement, including length and volume. King Andrianampoinimerina established the first marketplace in Antananarivo on the grounds today occupied by the Analakely market's tile-roofed pavilions, constructed in the 1930s. Andrianampoinimerina decreed Friday (Zoma) as market day, when merchants would come to Analakely to erect stalls shaded with traditional white parasols. This sea of parasols extended throughout the valley, forming what has been called the largest open air marketplace in the world. Traffic congestion and safety hazards caused by the ever-growing Zoma market prompted government officials to split up and relocate the Friday merchants to several other districts in 1997. Prosperity for the masses in Imerina increased throughout Andrianampoinimerina's reign, leading to growth in population density.

Military organization

Finally, he established a citizen army called the foloalindahy (the "100,000 soldiers"). Men fit for military service were recruited to engage in Andrianampoinimerina's campaigns of conquest between periods designated for public works projects. These campaigns served to enrich Imerina by capturing slaves for labor and service to the Merina andriana and hova classes, or for sale or trade to coastal communities in exchange for firearms. His military was equipped with the sizeable stock of arms he procured from coastal traders in western Madagascar.

Death and succession

Andrianampoinimerina died in the Mahitsielafanjaka house on the compound of the Rova of Antananarivo on 6 July 1810 at the age of 65, having fathered eleven sons and thirteen daughters by his many wives. In the Vazimba tradition of Merina kings before him, the body of Andrianampoinimerina was placed in a canoe made of silver (rather than the customary hollowed out log) and interred in one of the royal tranomasina tombs at Ambohimanga. Shortly after the French established a colonial presence on the island in 1896, they destroyed Andrianampoinimerina's original tomb in March 1897, removed his remains, and relocated them to the rova of Antananarivo where they were interred in the tomb of his son. This was done in an effort to desanctify the city of Ambohimanga, break the spirit of the Menalamba resistance fighters who had been rebelling against French colonization for the past year, weaken popular belief in the power of the royal ancestors, and relegate Malagasy sovereignty under the Merina rulers to a relic of an unenlightened past. Andrianampoinimerina was succeeded by his 18-year-old son, Radama I. In order to fulfill his oath that the child of his son Radama would follow in the line of succession, Andrianampoinimerina had his oldest son, Ramavolahy, killed to prevent any contest for the throne.

Legacy

Historian Bethwell Ogot states Andrianampoinimerina is "regarded as the most important of Imerina's kings". Historian Catherine Fournet-Guérin notes he is an "object of great admiration in the popular imagination." A French trader who had conducted business with him declared in 1808, "He is without doubt the richest, the most feared, the most enlightened, and has the largest kingdom, of all the kings of Madagascar." Malagasy textbooks characterize him as a hero and the originator of the notion of a unified Malagasy national identity.

The primary source of information about the reign of Andrianampoinimerina is Tantara ny Andriana eto Madagasikara, a Malagasy language book relating the oral history of the Merina kings as collected by a Jesuit missionary, Francois Callet, in the late 19th century. Prior to the eventual release of a French language translation in the 1950s, references to the king in academic and popular writing during the colonial period de-emphasized his role as a conduit of traditional religious power and authority, instead glorifying his administrative practices in an attempt to bring greater credibility to the colonial government as a vehicle for building upon and strengthening the principles of good governance that he introduced. Beginning in the 1970s, historians began to focus more on the spiritual aspects of his role as king, and researchers questioned and compared sources in an effort to arrive at a more factual and balanced history of Andrianampoinimerina and his reign.

Innovations during the reign of Andrianampoinimerina were to have long-standing consequences for the structure of Malagasy society in the 19th century. Madagascar specialist Francoise Raison-Jourde attributes the widespread conversions of the masses following the conversion to Christianity of Ranavalona II in 1869 to the precedent established by Andrianampoinimerina of a state religion in which the sovereign is the head and the people are expected to follow. Similarly, Andrianampoinimerina's decision to empower the hova and the two families of advisers in particular led over the next fifty years to the strengthening of the hova middle class that formed the backbone of the merchant, craftsman, farming and administrative cadres. By the reign of Radama II, hova power rivaled and ultimately exceeded the power of the nobles, leading to the aristocratic coup d'etat that ended Radama's reign and the absolute power of the monarch, and established a joint system of government in which the hova Prime Minister and his cabinet governed while the sovereign was reduced to a symbolic figurehead of ancestral power and authority. Ambohimanga, which Andrianampoinimerina declared the spiritual capital of Madagascar, remains among the country's most important spiritual and cultural sites, and was recognized as Madagascar's only cultural UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001. A major street in Antananarivo, running parallel to the Avenue de l'Independence and one block east, is named after him.