Nzinga Mbandi
Biography:
Nzinga Mbandi was born in the Umbundu kingdom of Ndongo, in present-day Angola, Africa, during the 1580s. The king of this region, where this woman of history was born, was the brother of Nizinga, and was the one who collaborated with the Portuguese in these cruel tasks in exchange for being allowed to maintain power, and helped capture slaves in neighboring kingdoms. But in these difficult times, Nzinga had been her brother’s advisor, and was even a diplomatic representative to Portugal, so many of the agreements and treaties with the Portuguese Empire were signed by her. She had true diplomatic skills and it is perhaps for this reason that, at some point, she decided to acquire the Portuguese name Dona Ana de Sousa.
It has been without a doubt, an extraordinary woman has been named queen in 1624, when her brother dies, but at this moment, she renounces her Christian name and is called Nzinga Mbandi again. Here comes the moment when the Portuguese break the treaty that she had signed as the representative of her brother the previous Ngola, her goal is to recover her absolute political and territorial independence and to expel the Portuguese from her people.
Later, she leaves the kingdom, settles in Matamba and creates her own kingdom in this place, and this is how she proceeds to form great alliances with all the friends of Portugal, in search of her revenge, and includes the Dutch. After a few years, he managed to form a great army with the kingdoms of Matamba, Kasanje, Congo, Dembo, Kissama and the Peoples of the Central Highlands in 1630. Then, in the year 1642, this army began to obtain great triumphs against the Portuguese which will remain until 1648, but a year before his sister Kifunji dies in suspicious circumstances. And while Mukumbu, his other sister, falls prisoner of the Portuguese in this same year. Over the years, reaching 1656, he achieved the freedom of Mukumbu in a prisoner exchange, where he delivered 130 slaves to the Portuguese. In addition, he accepts the presence of a Christian missionary in his kingdom and signs peace with Portugal, and by this time Ntzinga was apparently 74 years old.
His ally, the Dutch captain Fuller, who was his ally, says that Queen Nzinga, apart from being a liberator of her people and a true military strategist, enjoyed weapons practices a lot, she had between fifty and sixty young men as husbands, as she was a woman of impressive beauty and acute intelligence. Finally, in 1663, he died maintaining the independence of his kingdom and respect for Portugal; Being today it is remembered with admiration and is considered a symbol of the struggle for independence.