Nzinga queen of Ndongo and Matamba | One of the great women rulers of Africa | fought against the slave trade and European influence in the seventeenth century.

 Nzinga queen of Ndongo and Matamba 

fought against the slave trade and European influence in the seventeenth century.

The Roman Catholic Church split the world in half in the 15th century, giving Portugal a trade monopoly in West Africa and Spain the right to conquer the New World in search of land and wealth. The Romanus Pontifex of 1455, issued by Pope Nicholas V, bolstered Portuguese efforts and affirmed Portugal's exclusive rights to the regions it claimed along the West African coast, as well as the trade from those areas. It gave the authority to invade, plunder, and "enslave their persons indefinitely." To boost her wealth, Queen Isabella financed in Christopher Columbus' voyage and eventually opposed the enslavement of Native Americans, stating that they were Spanish subjects.

Spain developed an asiento, or contract, that allowed captured Africans to be shipped directly to Spanish colonies in the Americas for trade as human commodities. Other European nation-states seeking similar economic and geopolitical power, such as the Netherlands, France, Denmark, and England, eventually joined the trade, exchanging goods and people with leaders along the West African coast who ran self-sustaining societies known for their mineral-rich land and wealth in gold and other trade goods. They vied for the asiento and the right to settle the New World. A new type of slavery was created as a result of these attempts. Ultimately was founded on race and sponsored by European nation-states, and it led in the world's largest forced migration: 12.5 million men, women, and children of African descent were enslaved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Queen nzinga 

Ana Njinga took possession of the kingdom of Ndongo, in modern-day Angola, after her brother died in 1624. The Portuguese were attempting to annex Ndongo and adjacent land at the time, in order to obtain more people for their slave trade, and Njinga was forced to escape in the face of Portuguese onslaught after only two years as monarch. She did, however, eventually capture a nearby country known as Matamba. For many years, Njinga fought ferociously against Portuguese forces in the region, and she later became a haven for runaway slaves. Njinga had made peace with Portugal by the time she died in 1663, and Matamba dealt with it on an equal footing. Njinga was honoured with a statue in Luanda, Angola's capital, in 2002. She is seen as a symbol of resistance and bravery.

Struggle Against Portuguese

In response to a Portuguese attack, Nzhingha collected her troops and retreated to a set of islands in the Kwanza river. She was defeated and forced to withdraw into eastern Ndongo after a series of conflicts; during the retreat, she was forced to abandon most of her followers, a strategy that benefitted her enormously because the Portuguese were more concerned in recapturing slaves than chasing her army. The Portuguese were soon dealt a blow when Hari a Ndongo died of smallpox, prompting them to choose Nogla Hari, another Ndongan aristocrat, as king.

Nogla Hari was a divisive figure among the Ndongans, who saw him as a Portuguese puppet, while certain nobles welcomed his authority. Within the kingdom of Ndongo, a schism developed, with the common people and lower nobles supporting Nzingha and the Portuguese, while many powerful nobles supported Nogla Hari and the Portuguese. [31] Nzingha attempted to negotiate with the Portuguese once more in November 1627, sending a peace party and a gift of 400 slaves. She expressed willingness to become a vassal of Portugal and pay tribute if they supported her claim to the throne, but she was adamant that she was the real queen of Ndongo.

The Portuguese, on the other hand, turned down the offer, beheading her top diplomat and demanding that she retire from public life, renounce her claim to the kingdom of Ndongo, and submit to Nogla Hari as rightful king—demands that were within European diplomatic norms but were completely unacceptable to Nzingha. [32] Faced with the Portuguese scolding and the understanding that many Ndogan nobles were opposed to her, Nzingha (together with her father and brother) became depressed and locked herself in a room for several weeks. She reappeared, though, and within a month had launched a new effort in Ndongo to restore her alliances.

Nzingha took advantage of Nogla Hari's political weakness while rebuilding her strength, stressing his lack of political expertise. Nogla Hari was loathed by both his nobles and his Portuguese allies because, unlike previous Ndongo rulers, Nogla Hari lacked his own army and was forced to rely on Portuguese troops. Nogla Hari and the Portuguese began a counter-propaganda effort against Nzingha, seeking to delegitimize her power by exploiting her femininity, but it backfired as she outmanoeuvred Nogla Hari in Ndongan politics. In one prominent event, Nzingha sent Nogla Hari threatening letters and a collection of fetishes, challenging him to battle with her warriors; the messages terrified Hari, who was forced to enlist the help of his Portuguese allies, drastically decreasing his own status while enhancing Nzingha's.

She was unable to immediately confront the Portuguese in battle, however, and was forced to flee the invading Portuguese army. She endured a series of military losses, the most notable of which was a Portuguese ambush in which half of her army, most of her officials, and two sisters were taken, though she managed to escape. Nzingha's army had been drastically reduced (to roughly 200 warriors, according to one account) by late 1628, and she had been effectively banished from her realm.

Nzingha and her followers continued to oppose the Portuguese after her departure. The queen sought partners in the region to reinforce her forces while keeping her shattered forces out of reach of the Portuguese army. Kasanje, a prominent Imbangala warlord who had formed his own kingdom on the Kwanza river, contacted her during this time. Kasanje and the Imbangala had long been Ndongo's enemies,[14], and Kasanje had personally slain numerous of Nzingha's envoys. Kasanje offered Nzingha an alliance and military help in exchange for her marriage and the surrender of her lunga (a large bell used by Ndongan war captains as a symbol of their power).

Nzingha agreed to these conditions, married Kasanje, and became a member of Imbangala society. The banished queen swiftly acclimated to her new surroundings, adopting numerous Imbangala religious practises. The intricacies and scope of Imbangala rites and laws (ijila) differ according to sources (African, Western, modern, contemporary), but the general consensus is that Nzingha was forced to participate in the customary cannibalistic (drinking human blood in the cuia, or blood oath ceremony) and infanticidal (using an oil made from a slain infant, the maji a samba) one was required to slaughter their own child by being smashed with a mortar during the infanticide section of the rite. This was partly to avoid a future succession issue among the Imbangala.

Njinga would have kidnapped a newborn from a female concubine because she did not have a child of her own. Njinga would have applied the oil to her entire body after it had been prepared. This was recognised by the Portuguese Father Gaeta, who was able to form a close relationship with Njinga despite seeing these brutal ceremonies.  She didn't totally renounce her Mbundan cultural roots, though; instead, she blended her people's beliefs with those of her new Imbangalan comrades. Nzingha's brilliance, according to historian Linda Heywood, was to mix her Mbundu ancestry with the Imbangalan's Central African military tradition and command structure, resulting in the formation of a new, extremely capable army. She gave freedom to fugitive slaves and land, new slaves, and titles to other exiled Ndongans in order to grow her population. 

Nzinga redesigned her soldiers after the extremely effective Imbangala warriors, using her new power base. By 1631, she had rebuilt her army and was fighting the Portuguese in a guerilla battle, with one Jesuit priest (who was living in the Kongo at the time) comparing her to an Amazon queen and applauding her leadership.  Nzingha invaded the neighbouring Kingdom of Matamba between 1631 and 1635, capturing and deposing Queen Mwongo Matamba in 1631. Nzingha branded the defeated queen but spared her life (Imbangala custom demanded that she be executed) and enlisted Mwongo's daughter as one of her warriors.

After defeating the Matambans, Nzingha ascended to the throne of Matamba and began colonising the territory with exiled Ndongos in the hopes of using the kingdom as a base for her campaign to recapture her country. [14] [4][41] Unlike her native Ndongo, Matamba had a long history of female leadership, which provided Nzingha with a more stable power basis after she deposed the previous queen. [4] With Matamba under her authority, Nzingha set about expanding the slave trade in her new kingdom, using the earnings to fund her wars and syphon trade revenue away from the Portuguese. Nzingha continued to fight the Portuguese and their allies for the next decade, with both sides aiming to limit each other's power and obtain control of the slave trade.

Nzingha took on increasingly masculine characteristics during this decade, embracing male titles and clothes. Her male concubines were required to wear women's clothes and call her as king, and she organised an all-female bodyguard for herself. Her male councillors and female bodyguards were likewise subjected to rigorous chastity laws, and she established shared sleeping quarters at her court.