Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba

Nzinga, also spelled Njinga, was born around 1583, the daughter of Ngola Kiluanji, ruler of Ndongo, a Mbundu kingdom east of present-day Luanda. According to later tradition she was born with the umbilical cord around her neck, which was seen as a sign of a proud and powerful personality. She was trained in warfare, justice and court ritual.

Since the founding of Luanda in 1576 the Portuguese had been extending their colony of Angola inland. They waged war on Ndongo, with the help of Imbangala warriors, and above all sought enslaved people for plantations in Brazil. The wars and slave raids disrupted Ndongo, and the succession after Kiluanji's death led to internal conflict.

In 1622 her brother, Ngola Mbandi, sent Nzinga to Luanda to make peace with Governor João Correia de Sousa. According to a well-known anecdote recorded only later, she sat on the back of a servant for lack of a chair so as to negotiate at eye level. She was baptised as Ana de Sousa. The Portuguese did not honour the agreement.

After her brother's death in 1624, possibly by poisoning, Nzinga took power; Portugal did not recognise her and backed rival candidates. She waged war for years, allied herself with Imbangala groups and around 1631 conquered Matamba, which became her new power base. She sometimes adopted male titles and dress to underline her authority as ruler.

When the Dutch West India Company took Luanda in 1641, Nzinga allied herself with the Dutch and won victories together with them, but in 1648 Portuguese forces from Brazil retook the city. In 1656 she made peace with Portugal; her captured sister Kambu was released and Matamba became a trading partner.

In the 17th century West Central Africa was one of the main regions of origin of the transatlantic slave trade. African states, Portuguese colonists, Brazilian traders and European powers competed for control over trade routes and people. African rulers too, Nzinga included, sold prisoners of war and others into slavery while resisting Portuguese domination.

Christianity had reached the region earlier through the neighbouring Kingdom of Kongo, and missionaries, especially Capuchins, played a role in diplomacy. European rivalry, such as the Dutch–Portuguese war over Brazil and Angola, gave African leaders room to play the parties off against each other.

For most of her life Nzinga held out against Portuguese expansion and made Matamba a strong state that controlled trade routes to the interior. At the same time her wars and those of her opponents cost many lives and displaced populations. After 1656 she returned to Christianity and had churches built.

The peace of 1656 brought relative stability, but the slave trade continued. After her death Matamba remained an independent kingdom, which was also ruled by women in later years. Portugal established effective authority over the interior of Angola only in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Nzinga died on 17 December 1663, about eighty years old, and was succeeded by her sister Kambu, known as Barbara after her baptism. Capuchin missionaries such as Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi wrote extensively about her life; their accounts are important but not impartial sources, describing her with both admiration and disapproval.

In the 20th century she became a symbol of resistance to colonialism in Angola, especially during and after the struggle for independence. Her image appears in monuments, books, films and comics. Historians such as Linda Heywood stress her political skill, but also her involvement in the slave trade and the harsh violence of her rule.