Nzinga or Njinga Ana de Sousa Mbande (; – 17 December 1663) was a southwest African paramount ruler who ruled as queen of the Ambundu Kingdoms of Ndongo (1624–1663) and Matamba (1631–1663), located in present-day northern Angola. Born into the ruling family of Ndongo, her grandfather Ngola Kilombo Kia Kasenda was the king of Ndongo, succeeded by her father.

Nzinga received military and political training as a child, and she demonstrated an aptitude for defusing political crises as an ambassador to the Portuguese Empire. In 1624, she assumed power over Ndongo after the death of her brother Mbandi. She ruled during a period of rapid growth of the African slave trade and encroachment by the Portuguese Empire in South West Africa.

The Portuguese declared war on Ndongo in 1626 and by 1628, Njinga's army had been severely depleted and they went into exile. In search of allies, she married Imbangala warlord Kasanje. Using this new alliance to rebuild her forces, she conquered the Kingdom of Matamba from 1631 to 1635. In 1641, she entered into an alliance with the Dutch West India Company who had captured Luanda from the Portuguese. Between 1641 and 1644, Njinga was able to reclaim large parts of Ndongo. Alongside the Dutch, she defeated the Portuguese in a number of battles but was unable to take the Fortress of Massangano. In 1648, the Portuguese recaptured Luanda, with the Dutch leaving Angola. Njinga continued to fight the Portuguese until a peace treaty was signed in 1656.

In the centuries since her death, Njinga has been increasingly recognized as a major historical figure in Angola and in the wider Atlantic Creole culture. She is remembered for her intelligence, her political and diplomatic wisdom, and her military tactics.

Early life

Njinga was born into the royal family of Ndongo, a Mbundu kingdom in central West Africa around 1583. She was the daughter of Ngola (a noble title translatable to King) Kilombo of Ndongo. Her mother, Kengela ka Nkombe, was one of her father's slave wivesMiller, Joseph C. "Nzinga of Matamba in a New Perspective." The Journal of African History 16, no. 2 (1975) pp. 201–206, 208, 209, 210–216. Accessed 30 March 2021. and his favorite concubine. According to legend, the birthing process was very difficult for Kengela, her mother; Njinga received her name because the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck (the Kimbundu verb kujinga means to twist or turn). Children of the royal household who survived difficult or unusual births were believed to possess spiritual gifts,Heywood (2017) p. 14 and some saw their births as an indicator the person would grow to become a powerful and proud person. Njinga had two sisters, Kambu, or Lady Barbara and Funji, or Lady Grace. She also had a brother, Mbandi, who was heir apparent to throne.

When she was 10 years old, her father became the king of the Ndongo. As a child, Njinga was greatly favored by her father. Since she was not considered an heir to the throne, she was not seen as direct competition to male members of the family, and so the king could freely lavish attention upon her without offending his more likely heirs. She received military training and was trained as a warrior to fight alongside her father, displaying considerable aptitude with a battle axe, the traditional weapon of Ndongan warriors.Heywood (2017) p. 58-60 She participated in many official and governance duties alongside her father, including legal councils, war councils, and important rituals. Furthermore, Njinga was taught by visiting Portuguese missionaries to read and write in Portuguese.Williams, Hettie V. (2010). "Queen Nzinga (Njinga Mbande)". In Alexander, Leslie M.; Rucker, Walter C. (eds.). Encyclopedia of African American History. 1. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. .

Name variations Called "queen" by the Portuguese, Njinga Mbande is known by many different names including both Kimbundu and Portuguese names, alternate spellings and various honorifics. Common spellings found in Portuguese and English sources include Nzinga, Nzingha, Njinga, and Njingha. In colonial documentation, including her own manuscripts, her name was also spelled Jinga, Ginga, Zinga, Zingua, Zhinga, and Singa. She was also known by her Christian name, Ana de Sousa. This name—Anna de Souza Nzingha—was given to her when she was baptized. She was named Anna after the Portuguese woman who acted as her Godmother at the ceremony. She helped influence who Nzingha was in the future. Her Christian surname, de Souza, came from the acting governor of Angola, João Correia de Souza.

As a monarch of Ndongo and Matamba, her native name was Ngola Njinga. Ngola was the Ndongo name for the ruler and the etymological root of "Angola". In Portuguese, she was known as Rainha Nzinga/Zinga/Ginga (Queen Nzinga). According to the current Kimbundu orthography, her name is spelled Njinga Mbandi (the "j" is a voiced postalveolar fricative or "soft j" as in Portuguese and French, while the adjacent "n" prenasalizes the consonant). The statue of Njinga now standing in the square of Kinaxixi in Luanda calls her "Mwene Njinga Mbande".

Political background During this period, the kingdom of Ndongo was managing multiple crises, largely due to conflicts with the Portuguese Empire. The Portuguese had first come to Ndongo in 1575 when they established a trading post in Luanda with the help of the Kingdom of Kongo, Ndongo's northern rival. Despite several years of initial peace between Ndongo and Portugal, relations soured between the two kingdoms and devolved into decades of war between them. Ndongo faced intense military pressure from Portugal and Kongo, both of which seized Ndongan territory. By the 1580s, large parts of Ndongo had fallen under Portuguese control. The Portuguese waged war in a brutal style, burning villages and taking hostages. In addition to territorial conquests, the Portuguese seized large numbers of slaves during the conflict (50,000 according to one sourceHeywood (2017) p. 27) and built forts inside Ndongan territory to control the slave trade.

Ndongo rallied against the Portuguese, defeating Portugal at the Battle of Lucala in 1590, but not before the kingdom had lost much of its territory. The conflict eroded the power of the king, with many Ndongan noblemen, sobas, refusing to pay tribute to the crown and some siding with the Portuguese. By the time that Nzinga's father became king in 1593, the region had been devastated by war and the power of the king greatly diminished. The king tried a variety of methods to handle the crisis, including diplomacy, negotiations, and open warfare, but he was unable to improve the situation.

The situation grew worse for Ndongo when in 1607 the kingdom was invaded by the Imbangala, tribal bands of warriors known for their ferocity in battle and religious fervor.Heywood (2017) p. 37, 38Miller, Joseph C. "The Imbangala and the Chronology of Early Central African History." The Journal of African History 13, no. 4 (1972): 549–74. . The Imbangala divided themselves into warbands, occupying Ndongan territory and capturing slaves. The Portuguese hired some of the Imbangalans as mercenaries, and the new threat forced the Ndongan king to give up any attempts to reconquer his lost territory.

Succession to power

Nzinga's Embassy In 1617, Ngola Mbandi Kiluanji died and Ngola Mbandi, his son and Nzinga's brother, came to power. Upon assuming the throne, he engaged in months of political bloodletting, killing many rival claimants to the throne, including his older half-brother and their family.Heywood (2017) p. 44, 45 Thirty-five at the time, Nzinga was spared, but the new king ordered her young son killed while she and her two sisters were forcibly sterilized, ensuring that she would never have a child again. According to some sources, Nzinga was singled out for harsh treatment as she had a longstanding rivalry with her brother. Perhaps fearing for her life, Nzinga fled to the Kingdom of Matamba.

Having consolidated his power, Mbandi vowed to continue the war against the Portuguese. However, he lacked military skill, and while he was able to form an alliance with the Imbangala, the Portuguese made significant military gains.Heywood (2017) p. 50 Faced with the Portuguese threat, in 1621 he contacted Nzinga, asking her to be his emissary to the Portuguese in Luanda. She was the best fit for the job, as she was both of royal lineage and spoke fluent Portuguese. She agreed to lead the diplomatic mission with the stipulation that she be granted the authority to negotiate in the king's name and permission to be baptized – an important diplomatic tool she hoped to use against the Portuguese. Nzinga departed the Ndongan capital with a large retinue and was received with considerable interest in Luanda, compelling the Portuguese governor to pay for all of her party's expenses.Heywood (2017) p. 51 While Ndongo leaders typically met the Portuguese in European clothing, she chose to wear opulent traditional clothing (including feathers and jewels) of the Ndongan people, to display that their culture was not inferior.Heywood (2017) p. 61, 62

According to a popular story, when Nzinga arrived to meet with the Portuguese, there were chairs for the Portuguese officials but only a mat provided for her. This type of behavior from the Portuguese was common; it was their way of displaying a "subordinate status, a status reserved for conquered Africans." In response to this, Nzinga's attendant formed herself to be her chair while she spoke to the governor face to face. She employed flattery as a diplomatic tool, and according to some sources deliberately chose to contrast her brother's belligerent style with her own diplomatic decorum.

As ambassador, Nzinga's main goal was to secure peace between her people and the Portuguese. To this end, she promised the Portuguese an end to hostilities (describing her brother's previous actions as the mistakes of a young king), allowed Portuguese slave traders inside Ndongo, and offered to return escaped Portuguese slaves fighting in her brother's army. In return, she demanded that Portugal remove the forts built inside Ndongan territory and was adamant that Ndongo would not pay tribute to Portugal, noting that only conquered peoples paid tribute and her people had not been defeated. She also expressed a desire for cooperation between the two kingdoms, noting that they could support each-other against their common enemies in the region. When the Portuguese questioned her commitment to peace, Nzinga offered to be publicly baptized, which she was with great aplomb in Luanda.Baur, John. "2000 Years of Christianity in Africa – An African Church History" (Nairobi, 2009), , pp. 74 She adopted the name Dona Anna de Sousa in honor of her godparents, Ana da Silva (the governor's wife and her ordained godmother) and Governor Joao Correia de Sousa. A peace treaty was subsequently agreed upon, and Nzinga returned to Kabasa in triumph in late 1622.Heywood (2017), p. 52, 53