Menalamba (Red Shawl) rebellion breaks out against French rule in Madagascar

Two months after the French capture of Antananarivo, popular resistance to French rule emerged. The resistance was largely by the peasants in the countryside. This guerrilla war against foreigners, Christianity, and political corruption, quickly spread throughout the island. The rebellion did not seek to restore the authority of the queen, who had been deposed by the French who had then set up Madagascar as a protectorate. One if its main motivations was the restoration of traditional ancestor veneration, and the rejection of corvee labour (fanompoana), which had become increasingly common in the Malagasy political order and which the church promoted and relied on. The rebellion destroyed hundreds of churches and killed an unknown number of Malagasy religious figures as well as five foreign missionaries. Although this was a leaderless popular rebellion, French colonial military officer Joseph Simon Gallieni concocted a conspiracy theory that the rebellion was led from high officials within the protectorate so he could dissolve the protectorate and create a military government with himself as head of state. The rebellion lasted until July 1897, involving over 300,000 people at its height. Smaller scale revolts against French rule continued until 1903.