Njinga of Ndongo and Matamba - The queen who held the Portuguese at bay
Njinga (1582-1663) was a warrior queen who ruled over the kingdoms of Ndongo and Matamba (in modern-day Angola). She fought against the Portuguese and managed to preserve her people’s independence.
Njinga was the daughter of the king of Ndongo. When she was born, her country was already at war with the Portuguese who had established a coastal trading colony in 1575. The relations between the two countries were friendly at first, but ultimately degenerated into armed conflict due to the Portuguese ambitions of gaining economic and military control of the region.
Though Njinga would become the first woman to rule over her people, women nonetheless played an important role at court. As a child, Njinga sat at her father’s council and displayed physical and intellectual prowess. She was particularly skilled with weapons, especially the battle axe that was the royal symbol of Ndongo. Her ability with the battle axe and performing military dances remained impressive even when she was in her seventies. She was already a military leader in her own right before accessing to the throne.
Her bother Ngola Mbande took power in 1617. Since Njinga’s only son was a potential rival, he had him killed. He then ordered to have Njinga and her sisters sterilized. Ngola fought against the Portuguese without success. When a new governor arrived in 1621, he sent his sister Njinga to negotiate with him.
When Njinga entered the Portuguese governor’s tent, there was no chair for her. Njinga wanted to deal with him as an equal and thus refused to sit on the floor. She ordered a female slave to kneel on her hands and knees and sat on her back during the whole process. Njinga then successfully negotiated a peace treaty on her brother’s behalf.
Ngola Mbande died in 1624. The Portuguese said that Njinga had poisoned him while Angolan oral history states that he committed suicide in a moment of despair. Njinga then poisoned Ngola’s son and became Ndongo’s first female ruler. She then took a number of symbolic measures to strengthen her authority. She married a man and asked him to dress as a woman. She referred to him as a female and he had to call her “king” instead of “queen”. She also took several male concubines and ordered them to dress like women.
Njinga spent the next thirty years warring against the Portuguese. At some point, she had to relocate her court to a new state, Matamba, that she used as a base. To increase her military power, she welcomed runaway slaves and Portuguese-trained African soldiers. Njinga’s troops also included female units who were integrated to the general army. She also boasted a retinue of female bodyguards.
In 1641, Njinga found a new ally in the Dutch East India Company who attacked and conquered the Portuguese colonial city of Luanda. She sent ambassadors and the two made an alliance. A Dutch captain who served under her would describe her as a “cunning and prudent virago, so much addicted to arms that she hardly uses other exercises and so generously valiant that she never hurt a Portuguese after quarter was given and commanded all her servants and soldiers to do the same”.
In 1648, they had almost driven the Portuguese out of Angola, but reinforcement came and the Dutch were defeated. Njinga fled to Matamba, but continued to use guerrilla tactics to fight the Portuguese and their African allies. According to one Portuguese observer, she launched 29 attacks between 1648 and 1650 alone. She also focused on developing trade, capitalizing on Matamba’s position as a gateway to the Central African interior.
Njinga led her troops into battle for the last time in 1657. At that time, she was nearly seventy-five. Before the battle, she prepared herself by leading her soldiers, many of them young enough to be her grandchildren, through rigorous military exercises with spears and arrows.
When she died in 1663, Njinga left a prosper kingdom, able to survive as an independent state. The Portuguese only succeeded in conquering it in 1909, making it part of their colony of Angola.
Castenell Louis A., Pinar William F., Understanding Curriculum as Racial Text: Representations of Identity and Difference in Education
Heywood Linda M., Njinga of Angola
Toler Pamela D., Women warriors, an unexpected history
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