by the establishment of a royal tradition maintaining that all reigning descendants of Andrianjaka would henceforth be required to marry a princess directly descended from Andriantompokoindrindra, thereby preserving the royal status of descendants in both brothers' bloodlines. Reign Andrianjaka moved his capital from Ambohidrabiby to Ambohimanga upon ascending to the throne around 1610 or 1612. He was reportedly the first Merina leader to receive Europeans around 1620 and traded slaves in exchange for guns and other firearms to aid in the pacification of rival principalities, obtaining 50 guns and three barrels of gunpowder to equip his army. He unified the principalities on what he later designated as the twelve sacred hills of Imerina at Ambohitratrimo, Ambohimanga, Ilafy, Alasora, Antsahadita, Ambohimanambony, Analamanga, Ambohitrabiby, Namehana, Ambohidrapeto, Ambohijafy and Ambohimandranjaka. These hills became and remain the spiritual heart of Imerina, which was further expanded over a century later when Andrianampoinimerina redesignated the twelve sacred hills to include several different sites. His policies and tactics highlighted and increased the separation between the king and his subjects. Andrianjaka transformed social divisions into spatial divisions by assigning each clan to a specific geographical region within his kingdom. He made a demonstration of royal power by appropriating the local tradition of sampy (talismans), previously created by village chiefs and others for personal or local spiritual ends, restricting their number to twelve and declaring their creation a strictly royal prerogative. The king also imposed an intimidating change to the traditional form of justice, the trial by ordeal: Andrianjaka ordered that rather than administering tangena poison to an accused person's rooster to determine their innocence by the creature's survival, the poison would instead be ingested by the accused himself. Founding of Antananarivo Around 1610 or 1625 according to various estimations, Andrianjaka commanded a garrison of 1,000 soldiers to seize the hill of Analamanga ("Blue Forest")—at above sea level, then the highest and most strategically important in the region—from its Vazimba inhabitants. He constructed a royal fortified compound (rova) on the hilltop as the capitol of a new town at the site which he named Antananarivo ("the city of the thousand") in honor of the thousand soldiers who aided in capturing and protecting the hill. He reportedly succeeded with minimal bloodshed: according to oral history, the encampment of his army at the foot of Analamanga was sufficient to secure the submission of the Vazimba. Andrianjaka made Antananarivo the capital of