Editing Radama II (section)

== Upbringing and early years ==
Radama II was born Prince Rakoto (Rakotosehenondradama) on September 23, 1829, in the Imasoandro building on the compound of the [[Rova of Antananarivo]].{{cn|date=August 2020}}  He was officially recognized as the son of King [[Radama I]] and his widow Queen [[Ranavalona I]], although the king had died more than nine months before the prince's birth. He was likely fathered by a lover of his mother, [[Andriamihaja]], a progressive young officer of the [[Merina]] army who the queen may have been tricked into putting to death by conservative ministers at court.{{sfn|Oliver|1886|p=}}

After his mother succeeded Radama I on the throne, she instituted an increasingly regressive regime that attempted to restore traditional values and contain or eliminate westernization.{{sfn|Ade Ajayi |1989|p=}} The prince, however, who had been highly influenced by the French adviser to the queen, [[Joseph-François Lambert]], was favorably impressed by European culture, knowledge and its state of economic, political and technological development, and was troubled by some of the socially repressive policies pursued by Ranavalona I.{{sfn|Oliver|1886|p=}}  According to a British account, the French played on this sympathy in 1855 by pressuring Prince Rakoto into signing a request for French aid that would have enabled France to establish control over Madagascar had the true nature of the letter and its signing not been uncovered by Rakoto and his British contacts.{{sfn|Oliver|1886|p=}} An alternate explanation was offered by Lambert, who maintained that the prince had knowingly supported the attempt to put an end to his mother's harsh policies, and was a willing collaborator in a [[Ranavalona I#Foreign plots|failed 1857 plot]] to remove her from the throne.{{sfn|Pfeiffer|1861|p=}}

Prior to Queen Ranavalona's death, the conservative and progressive factions within the Merina court waged a [[Ranavalona I#Internal divisions at court|tactical power struggle]] to secure a successor favorable to their own political agenda.{{sfn|Ade Ajayi |1989|p=}} The conservative faction favored Ramboasalama, the son of the Queen's sister, while the Queen's prime minister, [[Rainivoninahitriniony]] and head of the army, [[Rainilaiarivony]], brothers and progressives, supported Radama II.  The latter successfully obtained key strategic allies within the court that enabled Radama to seize the throne without violence following his mother's death. Ramboasalama was obliged to swear a public oath of allegiance to Radama, and was later sent into exile in the highland village of Ambohimirimo where he died in April 1862.{{sfn|Oliver|1886|p=}}