The Martyrdom of the First Protestant in : A Political Act?

Jean Ravalitera

Reverend Paul Minault and Reverend Benjamin Escande were found dead on May 21, 1897, in a locality called Ambatondradama, about 170 km to the west of , the capital city of Madagascar. Their corpses were found 400m from each other. It was clear that their deaths were not natural. According to the colonial authorities, the two missionaries had been killed by a rebel Nationalist movement, the 'Menalamba' (Red clothes). 1 On June 20, 1895, after a short battle when the Royal Army of Madagascar was beaten by the French army, the big Indian Ocean island officially became a French colony. The last queen was sent to exile in Algeria. But a large part of the population of Madagascar did not agree with the Law of Annexation voted by the French Parliament. All over the island, a movement of rebellion appeared. The French government sent General Gallieni to command a large army to pacify the country. The first act of this military chief was to condemn into death and execute two figures of the Kingdom of Madagascar: Prince Ratsirnamanga, an uncle of the queen, a new convert to the catholic religion, and Reverend Rainandriamampandry, the Minister of the Interior (Local Affairs) in the last royal government, who was for­ merly Governor of Tamatave, an harbor on the eastern coast of Mada­ gascar where the French army were beaten back and unable to land. The colonial army at last succeeded in subduing the rebellion. In 1896, at the beginning of the colonization, a British family, Reverend Johnson with his wife and their little daughter, were killed by one of their former students during a popular riot which turned into rebellion. The same year as the murder of Escande and Minault, a French Catholic priest, Father Jacques Berthieu, was also killed. It was easy to conclude that the murder of the missionaries was the result of the rebels' act, because of a hate of all 'European invaders.'

I. Red was the color of the monarchy. The rebels wore red sashes to be identified among themselves. 220 J.A. RAVALITERA

Curiously, almost at the same time (obviously in the same year), a local Christian movement of 'Revival' started. It was led by a former witch doctor, Rainisoalambo, converted to Christianity after a disease was healed miraculously. Down to today this movement remains very active, and members were involved in the last uprising in the country. We can assert that this movement is the main local society of mission, and most of the Protestant congregations in rural areas were founded by missionaries who were called 'apostles.' The members used to practice an exorcism led by leaders called 'Shepherds.' This revival movement called 'Awakening branches' (Fifohazana, from the root mifoha, to wake up) seemed to be a reaction to the killing of the mis­ sionaries imputed to the conservative pagans. Obviously 'The wind blows where it lists and you hear the sound thereof but cannot tell when it comes ... ' (John 3:8). In 1971, Jacques Escande, a nephew of one of the Protestant mis­ sionaries killed, himself former missionary in Madagascar, announced that it was General Gallieni himself who gave the order to kill the two missionaries. He found this assertion in a secret document. On April 9, 1975, Jean Escande, who was Prefect of Strasbourg, another relative of the late missionary, wrote to a pastor who was writing the biogra­ phy of the two late missionaries. He notified him that he had obtained a written testimony of a former officer of the French army in Mada­ gascar. This officer asserted that the two French Protestant missionar­ ies were not killed by rebels but by French soldiers. There was no follow-up to this assertion. In view of this lack of reaction from the French authorities, a question arises: What might be the deeper reasons for the murder of these first French Protestant missionaries in Madagascar? I will begin to try to find an answer to this question by giving a short background of Christianity in Madagascar. British missionaries from the London Missionary Society (founded in 1795) were the first who succeeded in introducing Christianity in Madagascar, in 1818. After persecution at the beginning, one sovereign of Madagascar was converted, and after 1869 Protestantism became the official religion of the Kingdom. Roman Catholics were only able to establish themselves after 1861. 2

2. An unsuccessful attempt to evangelize the southern part of the island had already been made by Vincentians in the seventeenth century. They came with a French company that tried to establish a colony, and founded the city of Fort Dauphin named for the elder son of the French king Louis XIII.