Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba
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Nzinga Mbande also known as Ana de Sousa Nzinga Mbande (c. 1583 - December 17, 1663) was a 17th century queen (muchino a muhatu) of the Ndongo and Matamba Kingdoms of the Mbundu people in southwestern Africa.
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[edit] Early life
Nzinga was born to Ngola Kiluanji and Kangela around 1582. According to tradition, she was named Nzinga because her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck (the Kimbundu verb kujinga means to twist or turn). It was said to be an indication that the person who had this characteristic would be proud and haughty. According to her recollections later in life, she was greatly favored by her father, who allowed her to witness as he governed his kingdom, and who carried her with him to war. She also had a brother, Ngola Mbandi and two sisters Kifunji and Mukambu. She lived during a period when the Atlantic slave trade and the consolidation of power by the Portuguese in the region were growing rapidly. Nzinga first appears in the historical record as the envoy of her brother, the Ngola Ngola Mbande, at a peace conference with the Portuguese governor João Correia de Sousa in Luanda in 1622.
[edit] Succession to power
The immediate cause of her embassy was her brother's attempt to get the Portuguese to withdraw the fortress of Ambaca that had been built on his land in 1617 by the Governor Luis Mendes de Vasconcelos, to have some of his subjects (semi-servile groups called kijiko in Kimbundu and sometimes called slaves in Portuguese) who had been taken captive by Governor Mendes de Vasconcelos' campaigns (1617-21) returned and to persuade the governor to stop the marauding of Imbangala mercenaries in Portuguese service. Nzinga's efforts were successful, in that the governor João Correia de Sousa, agreed to her terms. One point of disagreement was the question of whether Ndongo surrendered to Portugal and accepted vassalage status. A famous story says that the Correia de Sousa had offered her no chair to sit on during the negotiations, and had placed a mat on the floor for her to sit, which in Mbundu custom was appropriate to subordinates. Not willing to accept this she ordered one of her servants to get down on the ground and sat on her back. By doing this, she wanted to assert that she was equal to the governor.
Nzinga converted to Christianity to strengthen the peace treaty with the Portuguese and adopted the name Dona Anna de Sousa when she was baptized in honor of the governor's wife, who was also her godmother. She sometimes used this name in her correspondence (or just Anna). The Portuguese never honored the treaty however, neither withdrawing Ambaca, nor returning the subjects, who they held were slaves captured in war, and they were unable to restrain the Imbangala.
Nzinga's brother committed suicide following this diplomatic impasse, convinced that he would never have been able to recover what he had lost in the war. Rumors were also afoot that Nzinga had actually poisoned him, and these rumours were repeated by the Portuguese as grounds for not honoring her right to succeed her brother.
Nzinga assumed control as regent of his young son, who was then residing with the Imbangala band commanded by Kaza. Nzinga sent to Kaza to have the boy in her charge, and, again according to later reports, won Kaza's heart when he saw her. He returned the son, who she is alleged to have killed, and then she refused marriage to him. She then assumed the powers of ruling in Ndongo. In her correspondence in 1624 she styled herself "Lady of Ndongo" (senhora de Dongo), but in a letter of 1626 she now called herself "Queen of Ndongo" (rainha de Dongo), a title which she bore from then on.
[edit] Defeat and withdrawal
The new Portuguese governor, Fernão de Sousa, arrived in 1624 and entered into negotiations with Nzinga, but from the beginning claimed possession of the kijikos and refused to evacuate Ambaca. This impasse led to war, and de Sousa was able to oust Nzinga from her island capital of Kidonga that year. She fled to the east and reoccupied the island in 1627, but was driven out again in 1629, during which time they captured Nzingha's sister. Portuguese forces pursued Nzinga and the remnants of her army to the Baixa de Cassange district, when Nzinga was only able to escape by climbing down the steep cliffs that surrounded this depression on ropes.[vague]
Unable to hold on to Ndongo and deeming the island of Kidonga too vulnerable, she sought to raise a new army by allying with the Imbangala band of Kasanje. He refused her equal status with him, however, and she soon raised sufficient forces to take over the neighboring Kingdom of Matamba, which she accomplished in 1631. During this time she declared herself an Imbangala, and allied with a smaller Imbangala band led by Njinga Mona (Nzinga's child).
The Portuguese and Capuchin priests often asserted that Nzinga's army practiced the rites and rituals of the Imbangala, which included infanticide and cannibalism, but acceptance of such reports must be tempered with knowledge that Europeans often created stories of barbarism to justify the dehumanization and enslavement of African peoples. However, the stories of Imbangala cannibalism are also reported by African witnesses, such as the kings of Kongo who complained about it. It is unclear whether Nzinga or her armies ever engaged in these rites. Nzinga's own attitude toward Christianity is difficult to discern. After she adopted Imbangala practices during her stay with Kasanje's band, and following the integration of the Imbangala band of Njinga Mona into her army, she may well have engaged in some of their practices, and put herself as an enemy of Christianity. On the other hand, in her speech to her army in 1657, Nzinga presented the Imbangala alliance as a necessary evil in her war with the Portuguese. Nzinga was respectiful of priests when they were captured by her, and she permitted Portuguese prisoners and Christian Africans to have sacraments. Following the peace treaty of 1657, she became very pious, according to the Capuchin witnesses Gaeta and Cavazzi, and Gaeta at least regarded her as a model Christian.
She gained notoriety during the war for personally leading her troops into battle and forbade her subjects to call her “Queen,” preferring to be addressed as “King.” These statments in Portuguese, do not make it clear that the only word in Kimbundu for ruler is muchino, and to represent the word "queen" one has to add a feminine designator, "muchino a muhaitu". In this respect, Nzinga may not have wished to her title to be qualified.
In 1639, in order to regularize their internal borders, the Portuguese governor sent a mission to Nzinga and Kasanje. This mission which included a priest and a soldier, went on for several months, but did not produce any final settlement. Jesuit priests, who reported on this mission were skeptical of making a treaty with a person they considered unstable. According to this report and the later report of Cavazzi, the mission was cordial and some progress was made.
[edit] The Dutch Alliance
In 1641, the Dutch, working in alliance with the Kingdom of Kongo, seized Luanda. Nzinga soon sent them an embassy and concluded an alliance with them against the Portuguese who continued to occupy the inland parts of their colony of males with their main headquarters at the town of Masangano. Hoping to recover lost lands with Dutch help, she moved her capital to Kavanga in the northern part of Ndongo's former domains. In 1644 she defeated the Portuguese army at Ngoleme, but was unable to follow up. Then in 1646 she was defeated by the Portuguese at Kavanga and in the process her other sister was captured, along with her archives revealing her alliance with Kongo. These archives also showed that her captive sister had been in secret correspondence with Nzinga and had revealed Portuguese plans to her. As a result of the woman's spying, the Portuguese drowned the sister in the Kwanza River.
The Dutch in Luanda now sent Nizinga reinforcements, and with their help, Nzinga routed a Portuguese army in 1647. Nzinga then laid siege to the Portuguese capital of Masangano. The Portuguese recaptured Luanda with a Brazilian based assault led by Salvador de Sá e Benavides, and in 1648 Nzinga retreated to Matamba and continued to resist Portugal. She resisted the Portuguese well into her sixties, personally leading troops into battle.
[edit] Final years
In 1657, weary from the long struggle, Nzinga signed a peace treaty with Portugal. After the wars with Portugal ended, she attempted to reconstruct her nation that had been seriously damaged by years of conflict. She was anxious that Njinga Mona's Imbangala not succeed her as ruler of the combined kingdom of Ndongo and Matamba, and inserted language in the treaty that bound Portugal to assist her kin retain power. Lacking a son to succeed, she tried to vest power in the Ngola Kanini family and arranged for her sister to marry João Guterres Ngola Kanini and to succeed her. This marriage, however was not allowed as priests maintained that João had a wife in Ambaca. She returned to the Christian church so as to distance herself ideologically from the Imbangala, and took a Kongo priest Calisto Zelotes dos Reis Magros as her personal confessor. She permitted Capuchin missionaries, first Antonio da Gaeta and the Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Montecuccolo to preach to her people. Both wrote book length accounts of her life and kingdom.
She devoted her efforts to resettling former slaves and allowing women to bear children. Despite numerous efforts to dethrone her, especially by Kasanje, whose Imbangala band settled to her south, Nzinga would die a peaceful death at age eighty on December 17, 1663 in Matamba. Matamba went though a civil war after her death, but eventually Francisco Guterres Ngola Kanini carried on the royal line in the kingdom. Portugal would not have control of the interior until the 20th century. Today she is remembered in Angola for her political and diplomatic acumen, great wit and intelligence, as well as her brilliant military tactics. In time Portugal, and most of Europe, would come to respect her. A major street in Luanda is named after her, and a statue of her was placed in Kinaxixi on an impressive square. Angolan women are often married near the statue, especially on Thursdays and Fridays.
[edit] Name variations
Nzinga has many variations on her name and in some cases is even known by completely different names. These names include (but are not limited to): Queen Nzinga, Nzinga I, Queen Nzinga Mdongo, Nzinga Mbandi, Nzinga Mbande, Jinga, Singa, Zhinga, Ginga, Njinga, Njingha, Ana Nzinga, Ngola Nzinga, Nzinga of Matamba, Queen Nzinga of Ndongo, Zinga, Zingua, Ann Nzinga, Nxingha, Mbande Ana Nzinga, Ann Nzinga, Dona Anna de Sousa, and Dona Ana de Sousa.
In the Kimbundu language, as it is currently spelled, her name should be spelled Njinga, with the second letter being a soft "j" as the letter is pronounced in French and Portuguese. She wrote her name in several letters as "Ginga". The statue of Njinga now standing in the square of Kinaxixi in Luanda calls her "Mwene Njinga Mbande".
[edit] In Literature and Legend
According to the Marquis de Sade’s The Bedroom Philosophers, Nzinga was a woman who "immolated her lovers." De Sade's reference for this comes from History of Zangua, Queen of Angola. It claims that after becoming queen, she obtained a large, all male harem at her disposal. Her men fought to the death in order to spend the night with her and after a single night of lovemaking were put to death. It is also said that Nzinga made her male servants dress as women. Some accounts of Nzinga's life claim that she adopted cannibalism to impress a neighboring tribe.
[edit] Sources
Njinga is one of Africa's best documented early rulers. About a dozen of her own letters are known (all but one published in António Brásio, Monumenta Missionaria Africana (1st series, 15 volumes, Lisbon, 1952-88), volumes 6-11 and 15 passim). In addition, her early years are well described in the correspondence of Portuguese governor Fernão de Sousa, who was in the colony from 1624 to 1631. Her later activities are documented by the Portuguese chronicler António de Oliveira de Cadornega, and by two Italian Capuchin priests, Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Montecuccolo and Antonio Gaeta da Napoli, who resided in her court from 1658 until her death (Cavazzi presided at her funeral). Cavazzi included a number of watercolors in his manuscript which include Njinga as a central figure.
[edit] Further reading
- Patricia McKissack, Nzingha: Warrior Queen of Matamba, Angola, Africa, 1595 (2000)
- David Birmingham, Trade and Conquest in Angola (Oxford, 1966).
- Heywood, Linda and John K. Thornton, Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Making of the Americas, 1580-1660 (Cambridge University Press, 2007). This contains the most detailed account of her reign and times, based on a careful examination of all the relevant documentation.
- Saccardo, Grazziano, Congo e Angola con la storia dell'antica missione dei cappuccini 3 Volumes, (Venice, 1982-83)
- Williams, Chancellor, Destruction of Black Civilization (WCP)
- Van Sertima, Ivan, Black Women in Antiquity
