Some Heads That Once Wore Crowns: Exiled African Ex-Monarchs Around the Turn of the Century (English Edition) [Kindle-editie] beoordelingen het boek quotes

“Some Heads That Once Wore Crowns: Exiled African Ex-Monarchs Around the Turn of the Century” describes the lives of three African rulers in exile. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, European imperial powers seized control over the entire African continent, with the exception of Ethiopia and Liberia. Some local rulers resisted European rule and had to be defeated in military campaigns. The monarchs who resisted were often exiled from their homelands by victorious European powers. This text gives a brief description of the lives of three of these deposed and exiled African rulers. Dinizulu, the king of the Zulu kingdom of South Africa, was deposed and exiled after he was defeated by the British. Dinizulu was the son of the Zulu king Cetewayo (or Ceteshwayo). Cetewayo’s armies had famously annihilated a British army at the Battle of Isandlwana in 1879. But British reinforcements had defeated the Zulus at the Battle of Ulundi, and Cetewayo was exiled. Cetewayo had been the son of former Zulu king Mpande. Mpande had been the half-brother of Shaka, the celebrated founder of the powerful Zulu kingdom in the early nineteenth century. Shaka would have been Dinizulu’s great-uncle. After being defeated by the British, Dinizulu was exiled to the remote Atlantic island of St. Helena, where Napoleon Bonaparte had been imprisoned after his defeat by the British. Behanzin, the former king of Dahomey, was exiled after his defeat by the French. Dahomey had been a powerful West African slave trading kingdom, known for its all-female “Amazon” regiments (see “The Amazons of Dahomey: An Account of the Female Warriors of an African Kingdom”). In the late nineteenth century, however, Dahomey’s army was defeated by the French. The kingdom subsequently became a French colony, and its king, Behanzin, was exiled to the French Caribbean island of Martinique. On the other side of Africa, a French army invaded the Malagasy kingdom of Hova on the island of Madagascar. Madagascar is an island off the southeast coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. The island is culturally unique because it was originally settled by immigrants from Indonesia. These immigrants seem to have sailed all the way across the Indian Ocean to colonize the island, bringing their language with them. Some migrants from the African mainland also settled on the island. Today the people of Madagascar still speak an Austronesian language (Malagasy) related to those spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Polynesia. The highland-based Merina kingdom of Madagascar eventually expanded to control most of Madagascar. But, as the nineteenth century progressed, the kingdom came under increased pressure from European powers. The last Madagascan monarch, Queen Ranavalona III, was deposed and exiled by the French, first to Reunion Island, and then French Algeria. In the cover photo the former queen is posing in a Parisian suburb in 1905, with her great-niece, and adopted daughter, Marie-Louise. Marie-Louise was the child of the ex-queen’s niece, Razafinandriamanitra. Razafinandriamanitra was the daughter Ranavalona’s older sister, Rasendranoro. Razafinandriamanitra gave birth to Marie-Louise at the age of 14, soon after the royal family was exiled. She died soon afterward. The illegitimate child’s father was a French soldier. While in exile the ex-queen lived the comfortable life of a wealthy and popular socialite in Algeria, and made several visits to Paris.