through high school for the subjects of history and Malagasy language. Religion King Radama I welcomed Christian missionaries to establish missions on Madagascar in the 1810s. The Merina nobles were among the first to convert to Christianity. The London Missionary Society established numerous missions along the coast of Madagascar in the 1820s. Those who converted were offered scholarships in London and apprenticeship in Manchester. Due to the influence of British missionaries, the Merina upper classes converted to Protestantism entirely in the mid-19th century, following the example of their queen, Ranavalona II. The early spread of Protestantism among the Merina elite resulted in a degree of class and ethnic differentiation among practitioners of Christianity. The French preferred Catholic interpreters and the former slaves of the Merina people converted to Catholicism. The ruling and noble class, however was Protestant. The nobility attempted to intervene, by expelling certain Christian missions. This dynamic ultimately created religious sect divisions in contemporary demographics. Society and culture Social stratification Among all the Malagasy ethnicities, the Merina historically have had a highly stratified caste system. The overall society, like many ethnic groups in Africa, had two categories of people, the free locally called the fotsy who had ancestors with Asian Malagasy physiognomy, and the serfs or mainty who had ancestors with African physiognomy mostly captured in other parts of Madagascar. However, the fotsy-mainty dichotomy among Merina is not based on physiognomy, states Karen Middleton, but whether they have a family tomb: fotsy have family tomb, mainty are those without one or those who have established a recent tomb. The Merine people were divided into three strata: the Andriana (nobles), the Hova (freemen), and the lowest strata called Andevo (slaves). Each strata had been then hierarchically subdivided. The Andriana are divided into six sub-strata, each had an inherited occupation, and were endogamous. The nineteenth century records show that Andevo or slaves were imported blacks, and they constituted about a third of the Merina society. The Merina society sold highland slaves to both Muslim and European slave traders on Madagascar coast, as well as bought East African and southeast African slaves from them for their own plantations between 1795 and 1895. Marriage and any sexual relations between the fotsy and mainty were a taboo. According to a 2012 report by Gulnara Shahinian – the United Nation's Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, the descendants of former slave castes continue