Pre-Colonial North America
Queen Nazinga (1581/83-1663 c.)
Leleua Loupe
(750)
Nzinga Mbande was a Seventeenth Century African ruler of the Ndongo and Matamba
Kingdoms of modern-day Angola. She came of age and ruled Ndongo at a time when merchants
of the Netherlands, France and Britain had begun to challenge the monopoly Portuguese
merchants and capitalists had in the traffic in humans across the Atlantic. Clark found that she
belonged to the Jaga ethnic group, known for their militarism and who “formed a human shield
against Portuguese traders.” (Clarke 1990, 129).
In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the economic power and territorial control
of African states on the Central African coast became threatened by Portuguese attempts to
establish a colony at Luanda. Many of these states had become regional powers through their
early participation in human trafficking (Bortolot n.d.). Portuguese encroachment, and the
attempt for some rulers to end their participation in the trade, created conflict between African
states and European business interests.
Between 1621 and 1622 the Portuguese Governor Joao Corria de Sousa invited Ngola, or King
Mbande to attend a peace conference to end the hostilities with the Mbundu. Mbande sent his
sister, Nzinga, to negotiate and she attempted to reposition Ndongo as an intermediary rather
than a supply zone in the slave trade. She achieved an alliance between Ndongo and Portugal and
in doing so she acquired a partner in its fight against its African enemies and ended Portuguese
slave raiding in the kingdom (Bortolot n.d.). In the peace treaty Portuguese leadership agreed to
recognize Mbande as ruler of an independent Ndongo kingdom and would withdraw the army in
exchange for Portuguese prisoners. Sweetman argued that in addition, Mbandi had to assist in
trade efforts and in resistance to Jaga’s regional power (Sweetman 1984).
Around the age of forty-one, between 1623 and 1624, Nzinga became the Queen of Ndongo.
She assumed the throne from her half-brother Mbandi who had been ineffective in resisting
Portuguese colonization. As Queen her objectives were to end human trafficking in her region, to
end war with the Portuguese, to achieve diplomatic recognition, and establish profitable trading
relationship with Luanda (Tvedten 1997, 20) (McCollum 2005, 17) (van Sertima 1990, 10, 130).
Clark found that she insisted on being called king and that when leading her army in battle, she
dressed in men’s clothing. Given the leadership roles that women assumed historically, and their
general value in West African societies, it is likely she did so do to the patriarchal nature of
European authority or that the additions were made the narrative post colonialism.
She converted to Christianity in an effort to strengthen her ties with Portugal and was baptized
Dona Anna de Sousa in honor of Governor Souza’s Wife (McCollum 2005, 17). By 1626,
Sousa, representative of the Portuguese trade industry, had betrayed the alliance as the demand
for labor in the Americas increased and therefore potential profit. She strengthened her military
power through marriage with a Jaga chief in 1630. Some historians record her as Mbundu,
others as Jaga. It is unclear which heritage is ethnic through birth, and which through
intermarriage. When she would not hand over escaped slaves, the Portuguese occupied Ndongo
1
and made it a vassal state and appointed Ari Kiluanji as a puppet or proxy Ngola (Sweetman
1984). Militarily overwhelmed, she led her people west and founded a new state at Matamba. To
further bolster Matamba's military strength, Nzinga offered sanctuary to runaway slaves and
Portuguese-trained African soldiers, or “slave-soldiers”. She adopted a form of military
organization known as kilombo, in which youths renounced family ties and were raised
communally in militias. She reorganized militarily in a continuing effort to become free of
Portuguese colonialism. In 1627 she led forces from Matamba against the Portuguese initiating
a thirty year guerilla war following their attack on settlements of Ngola Ari (McCollum 2005,
17) (Bortolot n.d.) (Sweetman 1984).
The Netherlands seized Luanda for its own mercantile purposes in 1641 and threatened the
power and wealth of the Portuguese. Nzinga created an alliance with the Dutch just as she broke
with the Jaga Chief following his plunder of the Mbundu capital of Matamba. The Jaga then
joined the Portuguese (Bortolot n.d.) (Sweetman 1984). Nzinga planned to use the Dutch to
assist in expelling the Portuguese and then planned to expel the Dutch, thereby retaining control
of Ndonga and expanding Matamba in the east to the Atlantic Ocean. She requested a
detachment of Dutch soldiers to fight with her. In 1646 the commanding officer of the
detachment said that she was a cunning and prudent virago, so much addicted to arms that she
had hardly uses other exercises and withal so generously valiant that she never hurt the
Portuguese after quarter was given and commanded all her servants and soldiers alike (Clarke
1990, 129). Clark described her as “a visionary political leader, competent, self-sacrificing, and
devoted to the resistance movement, Nzinga attempted to attract to her cause as many kings and
heads of families as possible so that with the allegiance of their people, she could gain new
recruits for the defense of her country against the occupation of the Portuguese” (Clarke 1990,
130).
Their combined forces were insufficient to drive the Portuguese out of Angola and within a year
of initially defeating Portuguese forces, they reclaimed Luanda and Nzinga was again forced to
retreat to Matamba. Nzinga then focused on developing Matamba as a trading power by
capitalizing on its position as the gateway to the Central African interior.
Clarke found that after a series of setbacks in 1645 and 1646 her sister Fungi, was taken prisoner
of war, beheaded and thrown in the river. By 1659 she had signed a treaty with the Portuguese,
and at the age of seventy-five had resisted their occupation her entire adult life (Clarke 1990,
130). According to Sweetman, she eventually negotiated with the Portuguese in exchange for the
freedom of her sister, Don Barbara, a captive for eleven years and who succeeded her as ruler of
the new settlement of Matamba. Don Barabara married Don Antonio the general of the
military(Sweetman 1984).
By the time of Nzingas death in 1661, Matamba was “a formidable commercial state that dealt
with the Portuguese colony on an equal footing.” Nzinga reconverted to Christianity before her
death at the age of eighty-one and became “a sensation in Europe following the 1769 publication
of Jean-Louis Castilhon's colorful "biography," Zingha, Reine d'Angola, in Paris.” (Bortolot n.d.)
2
She died in the “rocky highlands of her home” at the age of eighty-two, on December, 17, 1663.
Her death accelerated Portuguese occupation and expansion of the slave trade as they moved
quickly to occupy the interior of South West Africa. In spite of continuing resistance by the
women and men of Africa, Angola remained under Portuguese control until independence in
1975 and continues to suffer under European Imperialism, or modern capitalism to present day.
(McCollum 2005, 17) (Clarke 1990, 130). She is remembered as being devoted to the welfare of
her people and she “is seen as an important root of African Nationalism both because of her
resistance and because of her success in breaking regional power of the old ethnic provinces”
(Tvedten 1997, 20) (van Sertima 1990, 10).
(See photo of queen meeting with portuguese governor Joao Corria de Sousa in 1622)
For Further Reading:
Bortolot, Alexander Ives. metmuseum.org. n.d.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pwmn_2/hd_pwmn_2.htm (accessed May 2014).
Clark, John Henrik. "African Warrior Queens." In Black Women in Antiquity, by Ivan Van Sertima.
Transaction Books, 1990.
McCollum, Sean. "African Queens: The true stories of three of the most extraordinary women of the
ancient world." Junior Scholastic, March 8, 2005: 15-17.
Sweetman, David. "Women Leaders in African History." In Women Leaders in African History, by David
Sweetman, 39-47. Oxford: Heinemann, 1984.
Tvedten, Inge. Angola: Struggle for Peace and Reconstruction. Westview press, 1997.
Van Sertima, Ivan. Black Women in Antiquity. Transaction Books, 1990.
3