Continued from previous series
Join us as we delve into the life of one of Africa’s Greatest Female Warriors and Rulers. Let’s share the beauty of Africa’s great history.
Nzinga Ana de Sousa Mbande, Nzinga was a southwest African Queen who ruled the Ambundu Kingdoms of Ndongo (1624–1663) and Matamba (1631–1663), located in present-day northern Angola. She was born into the ruling family of Ndongo. Her grandfather Ngola Kilombo Kia Kasenda was the king of Ndongo at the time.
As a monarch of Ndongo and Matamba, her native name was Ngola Njinga. Ngola was the Ndongo name for the ruler and the etymological root of “Angola”. In Portuguese, she was known as Rainha Nzinga/Zinga/Ginga (Queen Nzingha). According to the current Kimbundu orthography, her name is spelled Njinga Mbandi (the “j” is a voiced postalveolar fricative or “soft j” as in Portuguese and French, while the adjacent “n” is silent). The statue of Njinga now standing in the square of Kinaxixi in Luanda calls her “Mwene Njinga Mbande”.
The Battles of the Ndongos
During this period, the kingdom of Ndongo was managing multiple crises, largely due to conflicts with the Portuguese Empire. The Portuguese had first come to Ndongo in 1575 when they established a trading post in Luanda with the help of the Kingdom of Kongo, Ndongo’s northern rival. Despite several years of initial peace between Ndongo and Portugal, relations soured between the two kingdoms and devolved into decades of war between them. Ndongo faced intense military pressure from Portugal and Kongo, both of which seized Ndongan territory. By the 1580s, large parts of Ndongo had fallen under Portuguese control. The Portuguese waged war in a brutal style, burning villages and taking hostages. In addition to territorial conquests, the Portuguese seized around 50,000 slaves during the conflict and built forts inside Ndongan territory to control the slave trade.
Ndongo rallied against the Portuguese, defeating Portugal at the Battle of Lucala in 1590, but not before the kingdom had lost much of its territory. The conflict eroded the power of the king, with many Ndongan noblemen, sobas, refusing to pay tribute to the crown and some siding with the Portuguese. By the time that Nzingha’s father became king in 1593, the region had been devastated by war and the power of the king greatly diminished. The king tried a variety of methods to handle the crisis, including diplomacy, negotiations, and open warfare, but he was unable to improve the situation.
The situation grew worse for Ndongo when in 1607 the kingdom was invaded by the Imbangala, tribal bands of warriors known for their ferocity in battle and religious fervor. The Imbangala divided themselves into warbands, occupying Ndongan territory and capturing slaves. The Portuguese hired some of the Imbangalans as mercenaries, and the new threat forced the Ndongan king to give up any attempts to reconquer his lost territory.
Nzinga’s Embassy, Peace and A Queen’s defiance
In 1617, Ngola Mbandi Kiluanji died and Ngola Mbandi, his son and Nzinga’s brother, came to power. Upon assuming the throne, he engaged in months of political bloodletting, killing many rival claimants to the throne, including his older half-brother and their family. Thirty-five at the time, Nzingha was spared, but the new king ordered her young son killed while she and her two sisters were forcibly sterilized, ensuring that she would never have a child again. According to some sources, Nzingha was singled out for harsh treatment as she had a longstanding rivalry with her brother. Perhaps fearing for her life, Nzinga fled to the Kingdom of Matamba.
Having consolidated his power, Mbandi vowed to continue the war against the Portuguese. However, he lacked military skill, and while he was able to form an alliance with the Imbangala, the Portuguese made significant military gains. Faced with the Portuguese threat, in 1621 he contacted Nzingha, asking her to be his emissary to the Portuguese in Luanda. She was the best fit for the job, as she was both of royal lineage and spoke fluent Portuguese. She agreed to lead the diplomatic mission with the stipulation that she be granted the authority to negotiate in the king’s name and permission to be baptized – an important diplomatic tool she hoped to use against the Portuguese. Nzingha departed the Ndongan capital with a large retinue and was received with considerable interest in Luanda, compelling the Portuguese governor to pay for all of her party’s expenses. While Ndongo leaders typically met the Portuguese in European clothing, she chose to wear opulent traditional clothing (including feathers and jewels) of the Ndongan people, to display that their culture was not inferior. According to a popular story, when Nzingha arrived to meet with the Portuguese, there were chairs for the Portuguese officials but only a mat provided for her. This type of behavior from the Portuguese was common; it was their way of displaying a “subordinate status, a status reserved for conquered Africans.” In response to this, Nzingha’s attendant formed himself to be her chair while she spoke to the governor face to face. She employed flattery as a diplomatic tool, and according to some sources deliberately chose to contrast her brother’s belligerent style with her own diplomatic decorum.
As ambassador, Nzingha’s main goal was to secure peace between her people and the Portuguese. She promised the Portuguese an end to hostilities (describing her brother’s previous actions as the mistakes of a young king), and allowed Portuguese slave traders inside Ndongo. She also offered to return escaped Portuguese slaves fighting in her brother’s army. In return, she demanded that Portugal remove the forts built inside Ndongan territory and was adamant that Ndongo would not pay tribute to Portugal, noting that only conquered peoples paid tribute and her people had not been defeated. She also expressed a desire for cooperation between the two kingdoms, noting that they could support each-other against their common enemies in the region. When the Portuguese questioned her commitment to peace, Nzingha offered to be publicly baptized, which she was with great aplomb in Luanda. She adopted the name Dona Anna de Sousa in honor of her godparents, Ana da Silva (the governor’s wife and her ordained godmother) and Governor Joao Correia de Sousa. A peace treaty was subsequently agreed upon, and Nzingha returned to Kabasa in triumph in late 1622.
Despite her success in the negotiations with the Portuguese, the peace between Ndongo and the Imbangala collapsed over time. After a series of defeats, the Ndongan royal family was driven out of their court in Kabasa, putting the king in exile and allowing for some of the Imbangala to establish the Kingdom of Kasanje. The Portuguese governor wanted to proceed with the treaty, but refused to aid Ndongo against the Imbangala until the king had recaptured Kabasa and been baptized. King Mbandi retook Kabasa in 1623 and took tentative steps towards Christianity, but remained deeply distrustful of the Portuguese. An increasingly powerful figure in the royal court, Nzingha (in a possible political ploy) warned her brother that a baptism would offend his traditionalist supporters, convincing him to reject any idea of being baptized. In addition, the Portuguese began reneging on the treaty, refusing to withdraw from their fortresses inside Ndongo and conducting raids for loot and slaves into Ndongo’s territory. By 1624, King Mbandi had fallen into a deep depression and was forced to cede many of his duties to Nzingha.
In 1624, her brother died of mysterious causes (some say suicide, others say poisoning). Before his death, he had made it clear that Nzinga should be his successor. Nzinga quickly moved to consolidate her rule, having her supporters seize the ritual objects associated with the monarchy and eliminating her opponents at court. She also assumed the title of Ngola, conferring a position of great influence among her people. An opulent funeral for her brother was arranged, and some of his remains were preserved in a misete (a reliquary), so they could later be consulted by Nzinga. One major obstacle to her rule, her 7-year-old nephew, was under the guardianship of Kasa, an Imbangala war chief. To remove this potential pretender to her throne, Nzinga approached Kasa with a marriage proposal; the couple were married, and after the wedding she had her nephew killed—in Nzinga’s view, final revenge for her own murdered son.
A Battle for the throne
However, her ascension to the throne faced severe opposition from male claimants from other noble families. According to Mbande tradition, neither Nzinga nor her predecessor brother had a direct right to the throne because they were children of slave wives, not the first wife. Nzinga countered this argument, strategically using the claim that she was properly descended from the main royal line through her father, as opposed to her rivals had no bloodline connection. Her opponents, on the other hand, used other precedents to discredit her, such as that she was a female and thus ineligible. In addition, Nzinga’s willingness to negotiate with the Portuguese (as opposed to previous rulers, who had fought against them) was seen as a sign of weakness by some of the Ndongan nobility; specifically, the treaty’s allowing of Portuguese missionaries inside Ndongo was seen with distaste.
While the succession crisis deepened, relations between Ndongo and Portugal became more complex. Nzinga hoped to fulfill the treaty she had signed with the Portuguese in 1621, and thereby regain Ndongan lands lost during her brother’s disastrous wars. Governor de Sousa was also keen to avoid conflict, and both he and Nzinga were eager to re-open the slave trade that was so vital to the region’s economy. However, tensions rose between Nzinga and de Sousa. When Nzinga asked for the return of kijikos (a servile caste of slaves traditionally owned by the Ndongan royalty) living in Portuguese controlled territory, as had been agreed in the treaty, De Sousa refused and demanded that Nzinga return escaped Portuguese slaves serving in her army first. De Sousa also demanded that Nzinga become a vassal of the king of Portugal and pay tribute, demands she refused outright. Further straining relations, in late 1624 de Sousa began an aggressive campaign to force Mbande nobles, sobas, to become Portuguese vassals. Sobas were traditionally vassals of the ruler of Ndongo, and provided as tribute the valuable provisions, soldiers, and slaves needed to control Angola – thus, by making the sobas vassals of Portugal, the Portuguese were able to undermine Nzinga’s position as queen of Ndongo.
To weaken the Portuguese colonial administration, Nzinga dispatched makunzes (messengers) to encourage Mbande slaves to flee Portuguese plantations and join her kingdom, thereby depriving the colony of its income and manpower. When the Portuguese complained about the escapes, Nzinga replied that she would abide by her earlier treaty and return escaped slaves, but that her kingdom had none. Her actions were a success and many sobas joined forces with her, strengthening her position and causing the Portuguese to fear a Mbande uprising was imminent.
Despite these successes, Nzinga’s policies threatened the income of the Portuguese and Mbande nobles, and soon the Portuguese began to foment rebellion in her kingdom. In late 1625, the Portuguese sent soldiers to protect Hari a Kiluanje, a soba who had broken ties with Nzinga. Kiluanje opposed having a woman rule Ndongo, and was himself descended from the royal family; upon learning of his actions, Nzinga sent warriors to crush his revolt but was defeated, thereby weakening her position and convincing more nobles to revolt. Nzinga petitioned the Portuguese to stop supporting Kiluanje, and attempted to negotiate as long as possible while she gathered more forces, but the Portuguese guessed this was a delaying tactic and soon recognized Kiluanje as king of Ndongo. The Portuguese subsequently declared war on Nzinga on 15 March 1626.
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