Whether it was through the armies that they controlled or their sheer personal cruelty, history’s most dangerous women sure had some deadly tales to tell.
Queen Ranavalona I
Ranavalona I wasn’t the kind of ruler who would do things subtly. No, she ruled Madagascar, and from 1828 to 1861, she used every kind of brutal method to keep people under her control. Executions, forced labor, military campaigns, you name it, she did it.
She banned her subjects from participating in Christian worship and threatened anyone who disobeyed with torture or death. That’s not all, though, because her government also demanded fanompoana, a system of compulsory labor. She truly was a bloodthirsty woman.
Pauline Nyiramasuhuko
Pauline Nyiramasuhuko was involved in one of the worst incidents of all time, and that was the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Nyiramasuhuko served as minister of family and women’s development at the time. It was an ironic title, given the role she played in the genocide.
Nyiramasuhuko ordered attacks on Tutsi civilians who were gathered at the prefecture office. She was responsible for their persecution and extermination, along with rape. Her crimes were so horrific that she was actually convicted of genocide by an international court.
Maria Mandl
Maria Mandl was the senior women’s supervisor at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp from October 1942 to late 1944. She was brutal. Mandl took part in selections and controlled other female guards. She had the ultimate power over who was punished or sent to die.Â
Mandl was happy to use this power as she saw fit, and she also helped create the prisoners’ orchestra. They were forced to play during marches and camp events. Poland eventually convicted her of war crimes and crimes against humanity. It executed her in 1948.Â
Boudica
It’s incredible how much power one person can have. Just take Boudica, for example, she was a woman who managed to almost make Roman Britain completely collapse. She was the queen of the Iceni, and she led a major revolt in AD 60 or 61 against the Romans.
Her forces destroyed the cities of Camulodunum and Londinium. Verulamium was ruined, too. The Romans did manage to defeat her at long last, but that was only after she’d destroyed major settlements. She was a force to be reckoned with, that’s for sure.
Griselda Blanco
There were plenty of violent people involved in Miami’s cocaine trade in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Griselda Blanco was one of the major ones. Blanco moved enormous quantities of cocaine from Colombia into cities like New York and Miami, as well as areas in Southern California.Â
She was eventually caught and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Drug smuggling was only the tip of the iceberg, however, as she was also charged with killing three people. She was also allegedly involved in three counts of second-degree murder. There were no lines Blanco wouldn’t cross, apparently.
Belle Gunness
Marriage advertisements were more like bait to Belle Gunness. She invited wealthy men to her farm near La Porte, Indiana, telling them to bring cash and keep the visit private. They soon disappeared. It took until the farmhouse burned down in April 1908 for the truth to come out.
Investigators found dismembered bodies across the farmland, buried in pits and shallow graves. They linked at least 14 deaths to Gunness. She might’ve died in the fire, or she might’ve escaped. We just don’t know.Â
Darya Saltykova
It was Darya Saltykova’s wealth and family connections that kept her safe from punishment. She was a Russian noblewoman who controlled large estates and was later accused of horrific crimes. She had allegedly beaten, tortured, and killed many poor people, especially young women.Â
People had complained about her for many years. The complaints went nowhere. That is, until two survivors managed to send a petition to Catherine II of Russia. Investigators then found that dozens of suspicious deaths over several years were linked to her. Saltykova was locked away in 1768 for the rest of her life.
Fu Hao
Fu Hao was a leader who refused to simply sit around, waiting for court news. No, she was in charge of King Wu Ding’s military campaigns during China’s Shang dynasty. She took that job seriously. She actually commanded 13,000 troops at one point, a huge force for the period.Â
Archeologists later found her tomb at Yinxu completely intact. It included more than 130 weapons, including heavy bronze axes that only people in military authority owned. She was also a royal wife and religious figure. One major job wasn’t enough, apparently.
Nanny of the Maroons
Nanny of the Maroons proved to be a tricky woman for British troops. She was the woman who led the Windward Maroons, a group made of escaped African slaves, during the First Maroon War. Nanny taught them to fight, but not like a European army.
No, they hid and set traps. They struck so suddenly and disappeared into steep forest paths that the British had no idea what to do, even though they had more equipment. Nanny was a woman you really didn’t want to mess with.
Empress Wu Zetian
Wu Zetian started her imperial life as a teenage concubine. She somehow ended up ruling China as emperor. It wasn’t an easy route to the throne, though, because she gained power beside Emperor Gaozong. She sidelined rivals and controlled her sons.
Wu Zetian went as far as launching investigations against suspected enemies, although they weren’t exactly proper investigations. They often ended in exile and prison or forced suicide. Sometimes, it was execution.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
11 women from history who lived under false names
Some of history’s most extraordinary women became famous under names that weren’t the ones they were born with.
