Queen Anna Nzinga, also known as Ana de Sousa Nzinga Mbande, was a queen of the Ndongo and Matamba Kingdoms (occupying what is today the country of Angola in the southern part of Africa) who lived during the 16th and 17th centuries AD. Queen Nzinga is best remembered for her resistance against the Portuguese, and setting her people free from slavery.

Anna’s Early Life
Queen Nzinga was born during the first half of the 1580s. Nzinga’s father, Ngola Kiluanji Kia Samba, was a ruler of the Ndongo people. In the same year that Nzinga was born, the king began to lead his people against the Portuguese colonialists .

These Europeans are said to have been raiding the territory of the Ndongo for slaves, as they tried to fill the increasing demands for slave labor in their New World colonies such as Brazil . Additionally, the Portuguese were attempting to conquer areas which they believed contained silver mines .

Nzinga Forms a Peace Treaty
In any event, 1621/2 was an important period in Nzinga’s life. It was during this year that the Portuguese invited Mbandi to a peace conference in the hopes of ending hostilities between the two peoples (the Portuguese had forced the king to flee from his court in 1617). Nzinga was sent to represent the king during the meeting with Joao Corria de Sousa, the Portuguese governor, in Luanda.

One of the best-known stories about Nzinga took place during this meeting. Prior to the meeting, the Portuguese are said to have prepared the room with only one chair. This meant that Nzinga would be obliged to stand during the negotiations, thus making her seem inferior. Instead of doing so, Nzinga had one of her male servants get down on his hands and knees to serve as her chair.

The negotiations were a success, as peace was achieved, and the Portuguese restored Mbandi to his throne, as well as agreeing to limit slave raiding activities. Nzinga also converted to Christianity and was baptized, taking the name of Dona Ana de Sousa. Her godparents were the Portuguese governor, Joao Corria de Sousa and his wife.

However, this period of peace did not last for long, and the Portuguese renewed their aggression towards the Ndongo several years later.

Queen Nzinga at War
In 1626, Nzinga became the queen of her people following her brother’s death. According to one source, the king had committed suicide in the face of the increasingly aggressive Portuguese presence in the region. Another source, however, claims that it was Nzinga who murdered her brother.

In the same year, the Portuguese renewed their attacks against the Ndongo by hiring the Imbangala to do their fighting for them. Unable to defeat the Portuguese militarily, Nzinga and her people fled westwards and founded a new state at Matamba.

From Matamba, Nzinga fought against the Portuguese in a war that lasted three decades. Among other measures, the queen offered sanctuary to runaway slaves and Portuguese-trained African soldiers who came to her kingdom. Additionally, she stirred up unrest within Ndongo as well, which was at that time controlled indirectly by the Portuguese via a puppet king.

Moreover, Nzinga exploited European rivalries to her advantage. This can be seen in the alliance that she forged with the Dutch, who were the rivals of Portugal in the region.

The Portuguese were cast out of Luanda in 1641 by the combined forces of the Dutch and the Matamba. In the following year, however, the Portuguese were back, and managed to reclaim Luanda. The Dutch were driven out of Angola, and the queen had to retreat back to Matamba.

Nzingha wasn’t ready to give up and she continued her fight against the Portuguese. But more importantly, perhaps, were the efforts she made to transform her kingdom into a commercial power, considering that it occupied a strategic position between a part of the African coast and it’s interior.

By the time of her death in 1663, Matamba is said to have had developed into a formidable commercial state that was able to deal with the Portuguese on an equal footing.