There was once a significant woman in Africa named Nzinga Ana de Sousa Mbande who was a prominent ruler in southwest Africa, reigning as queen over the Ambundu Kingdoms of Ndongo and Matamba, located in what is now northern Angola. Throughout the centuries, during her life and following her passing, Njinga has gained increasing recognition as a prominent historical figure in Angola and the broader Atlantic Creole culture. She is celebrated for her intellect, political acumen, diplomatic skills, and military strategies.
Nzinga was born around 1583 into the royal family of Ndongo, an Ambundu kingdom in central West Africa. Her father, Kilombo kia Kasenda, was the heir to the Ndongo throne, and her mother, Kengela ka Nkombe, was his favoured concubine, placing her in the family's royal line.
Nzinga's name, kujinga, is derived from the Kimbundu term for "twist" or "turn," according to legend. This comes from the fact that at birth, the umbilical cord was twisted around her neck. Her unusual birth was seen as a portent of her spiritual abilities and future impact.
Nzinga went by various names in Kimbundu and Portuguese, including Njinga, Nzingha, and Njingha. Colonial records, including her writings, also feature alternative spellings such as Jinga, Ginga, Zinga, Zingua, Zhinga, and Singa. At her baptism, she was given the Christian name Ana de Sousa, with "Anna" from her Portuguese godmother and "de Souza" from the governor of Angola at the time, João Correia de Souza.
When Kilombo became the ngola ten years later, Nzinga, not being a direct heir, received considerable attention from her father without causing familial conflict. She received training as a warrior, excelling in battle axe combat, and actively participated in legal and war councils, as well as significant rituals, alongside her father. She learned to read and write in Portuguese from visiting missionaries. Additionally, Njinga not only received training in the military but also in political affairs. She proved to be skilled in handling diplomatic matters as an ambassador to the Portuguese Empire.
Right from the time she was born, the kingdom faced serious challenges due to conflicts with the Portuguese Empire, with which she grew familiar. The Portuguese had established a trading post in Luanda in 1575, initially maintaining peaceful relations with Ndongo.
However, tensions rose, leading to years of warfare. Ndongo also faced pressure from the neighbouring kingdom of Kongo, resulting in significant losses of land. The Portuguese conducted ruthless warfare, burning villages, capturing slaves, and building forts within Ndongo's territory to control the slave trade.
Despite a notable victory at the Battle of Lucala in 1590, Ndongo had already suffered substantial territorial losses by the time Kilombo became king. Many noblemen refused to pay tribute, and some even sided with the Portuguese. Kilombo attempted various strategies to address the crisis, including diplomacy and warfare, but with limited success.
The situation deteriorated further in 1607 when Ndongo was invaded by the Imbangala, fierce tribal warriors. The Imbangala occupied Ndongo's territory, capturing slaves and even serving as mercenaries for the Portuguese. Kilombo was forced to abandon efforts to reclaim lost land due to this new threat.
Nzingha, a strong queen who ruled for more than thirty years, has been the focus of several literary works. Soon after Nzinga's passing, oral traditions honouring her life were established in her home, Angola. Despite the ultimate integration of her kingdoms into Portuguese Angola, Nzingha and her accomplishments continued to be honoured. During the Angolan War of Independence, Nzingha emerged as a potent emblem of the Angolan struggle against Portugal in the middle of the 20th century. Nzingha's influence would endure beyond the Angolan Civil War and continues to be a topic of discussion in the nation.
Several works on Nzingha's life were written by the Portuguese, who had been her longtime adversaries. Antonio da Gaeta, a Capuchin priest who had resided in Nzingha's court, wrote the first biography of her and published it in 1669. Gaeta's work compared Nzinga to well-known women in antiquity and extolled her diplomatic abilities, but it also pointed out that Nzinga had finally been converted to Christianity by divine providence. Another Capuchin who had lived in Nzinga's court, Antonio Cavazzi, produced a biography of her in 1689. He noted her political acumen once more, but also painted her as a despicable queen who had destroyed the country. The biographies of Gaeta and Cavazzi combined to provide the main sources of information on Nzingha's life.
Even into the 20th century, Portuguese writers would write about Nzingha; they would typically paint her as a cunning, "savage" opponent who was finally forced to succumb to Portugal and embrace Christianity.
About Nzingha, several Western writers have written. The French Jesuit Jean-Baptiste Labat wrote the first significant, non-Portuguese Western text discussing Nzinga in 1732. Many Western sources' depictions of Nzinga were based on Labat's work, which was a heavily edited translation of Cavazzi's earlier biography. While Portuguese sources emphasised Nzingha's leadership skills and Christian conversion, Western sources from the 18th and 19th centuries tended to emphasise her sexuality, alleged cannibalism, and brutality.
In his 1795 work Philosophy in the Bedroom, the Marquis de Sade wrote about Nzingha's alleged cruelty and promiscuity, citing her as an example of a woman driven to evil by passion. Jean-Louis Castilhon wrote a fictional account of her life in 1769, portraying her as cruel (but not a cannibal). Similarly, Nzingha was grouped among ladies like Lady Jane Grey, Marie Antoinette, and Catherine I by Laure Junot in her Memoirs of Celebrated Ladies of All Countries, where she was shown as a symbol of brutality and desire.
In addition, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel attacked Nzingha's "female state" (without naming her specifically), characterising her realm as an unproductive wasteland that finally fell apart as a result of her usurpation of the natural order.
Over the 20th century, Nzingha's standing in the West greatly improved. Because Nzingha was used as a symbol in the Angolan War of Independence, more people were interested in her life and her biography started to be written with greater detail. In a widely read essay on Nzingha that was published in 1975 in The Journal of African History, American historian Joseph C. Miller criticised Nzingha's dictatorial practices while also noting her inventions and challenges.
In 1978, Georgina Herrera, an Afro-Cuban poet, wrote a poem praising Nzinga's teachings and drawing cultural parallels between her and Afro-Caribbeans in the Americas. When writing on Nzinga, American feminist writer Aurora Levins Morales praised her anti-colonial and anti-patriarchal fights, but also criticised her role as a member of the ruling class and her support of the slave trade.
American historian John Thornton noted in his works on Nzingha that her legendary reputation and deeds contributed to the establishment of a larger Atlantic Creole culture. Thornton concentrated on Nzinga's lifelong fight to assert her control over the Mbundu culture. In 2017, Linda Heywood, an American historian, released a comprehensive biography of Nzinga that covered a large portion of her life and called her a remarkable historical figure.
Heywood advised against depicting Nzinga as a tyrant or a populist hero, saying that instead, people should see her as a complex person who utilised religion, culture, diplomacy, and battle to establish her empire. According to a storyteller, Nzinga killed her lovers. According to Dapper's Description of Africa, she maintained 50–60 men in women's clothing as her harem, and she had them battle to the death for the right and obligation to spend the night with her. The winner was executed in the morning.
The Capuchin priest Cavazzi recounts that Nzinga remained strong well into her old years. When Cavazzi saw her during a military review in 1662, the year before she passed away, he complimented her agility. The elder queen responded that, when she was younger, she could have wounded any Imbangala warrior and that, excluding muskets, she would have stood against 25 armed soldiers.
She is known in Angola today as the Mother of Angola, the negotiator's warrior, and the guardian of her people. She is still regarded as a great leader and lady in Africa because of her military prowess and political and diplomatic savvy. Her life story is frequently romanticised, and she is seen as a symbol of the struggle against oppression.
In the end, Nzingha succeeded in transforming her state into one that recognised her authority. At the same time, the fact that she withstood all challenges and amassed a devoted following undoubtedly contributed just as much as the significance of the examples she referenced. During her lifetime, Njinga had evidently not been able to get over the belief that women could not reign in Ndongo and that they needed to "become a male" to hold onto power, but her female successors had little trouble gaining acceptance as rulers. Her astute use of her gender and political acumen laid the groundwork for today's Ndongo leaders of the future.
Queens ruled for at least eighty of the 104 years that followed Njinga's death in 1663. For Angolan women of all generations, Nzingha is a model of leadership. Women now exhibit extraordinary levels of social independence in Angola, where they are employed in the public and private sectors of the economy, the army, the police, and the government. During the civil war, Nzingha was accepted as a symbol of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola.
In honour of her 27th year of independence, President Santos unveiled a statue of her in Kinaxixi on a grand square in 2002, and a significant thoroughfare in Luanda bears her name. Near the monument, especially on Thursdays and Fridays, Angolan women are frequently married. A 20 Kwanza coin honouring Nzingha was released by the National Reserve Bank of Angola (BNA) on December 23, 2014, "in recognition of her role to defend self-determination and the cultural identity of her people.
2013 saw the release of the Angolan movie Njinga: Queen of Angola (also known as Njinga, Rainha de Angola in Portuguese). Queen Nzinga, a Starz series with Yetide Badaki as the lead character, is another movie in honour of the fierce Queen. Producers Mo Abundu, Steven S. DeKnight, and 50 Cent are involved.
After Great Negotiators was released on November 21, 2022, as part of the "Leader Pass" DLC, Nzinga (also known as Nzinga Mbande) has become the leader of the Kongolese civilisation in the 2016 4X computer game Civilization VI.
African Queens: Njinga, a 2023 Netflix docudrama, dramatises her life via historical reenactments.
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