Queen nzinga mbande biography books

She took on the title of Ngola, a term traditionally reserved for male leaders, and embarked on a strategic campaign to liberate her kingdom from Portuguese control. Understanding the importance of alliances, she sought support from other African states and even European powers opposed to Portugal. Her conversion to Christianity and strategic marriage alliances were part of her diplomatic efforts to build a coalition against the Portuguese.

Queen Nzinga is perhaps best known for her military acumen. She trained her army in the art of guerilla warfare, conducting hit-and-run attacks on Portuguese settlements and supply lines, which severely disrupted their operations. Her leadership inspired other African leaders to resist European colonization, making her a symbol of pan-African resistance.

She solidified her position of authority in Matamba by enacting military and societal changes that bolstered the defenses of her realm. Throughout her reign, Queen Nzinga continued to serve as a symbol of fortitude and defiance, motivating countless Africans to struggle against injustice and persecution. The memory of Queen Nzinga serves as a constant source of inspiration for academics, activists, and world leaders, emphasizing the value of bravery, tact, and tenacity in the face of difficulty.

She continues to be a symbol of African resistance to colonialism and a source of inspiration for upcoming generations pursuing equality and justice. Click and watch Why is Queen Nzinga important to history? Angolan queen Nzinga, a courageous and clever woman, battled Portuguese invaders to establish peace in her realm. He wrote it so the readers could see that you should never give up on your dreams and always stand up for what you believe in, and that is what Nzingha stood for.

She was a symbol of inspiration to her people when she ruled, and was when she died too. Everyone who reads this book can relate to it, because we all want something in life and there are always people trying to get in your way, or people that are plotting against you. I would recommend this book to everyone, and to teenagers that are thinking on giving up their dreams, so that they could see how this one girl kept on believing even when their was only a little piece of hope.

Jocelyne Jam. Based on true events, Nzingha,Warrior Queen of Matamba, tells the story of the arrival of the Portuguese to Angola inthrough the diary of thirteen year old princess Nzingha. As the oldest daughter of the Ngola of Mbundu Kingdom, Nzingha dreams of a day when she can lead her people in spite of her lazy step-brother, the heir apparent.

We follow this journey through her numerous diary entries; from her struggle to be a warrior, to her encounter with the Portuguese slave traders both on the coast of Luanda and from the Rocky slopes of Matamba. We see her learn that not everyone you consider an enemy is indeed an enemy, and that a friend can spring out of a foe. This is a beautifully written book where history is interwoven with fiction to create the perfect blend of education and pleasure.

Queen nzinga mbande biography books

It paints a realistic picture of the era; the ruthless slave traders using every trick in the book to get slaves and the wars that followed in this quest for human cattle. As I read through this book, I realized what slavery really looked like between Angolan tribes, the difference between being sold as slave to another tribe and being sold as a slave to white man.

This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers. Show full review. So, like, not to make everything about race or whatever but I was so psyched to read this book and learn about Nzingha but the story part of the book is only like 90 pages! There was a ton of potential for a great story here but I feel like the writer just did. Honestly, it felt a bit insulting to African culture.

Why would you offer such a weak and flippant story to such an important historical figure? Nzingha lived at such an important time; right as the slave trade was opening up in earnest in America and Brazil. She fought against slavery and led an army and yet you only deem her worthy of 90 pages of a plot-less ramshackle half-butt story????

What gives??? I am so disappointed! Virginia Henderson. Author 15 books 79 followers. I've had this book for a really long time and only read it once before but after recently reading Njinga of Ndongo and Matamba I felt like revisiting this one just for fun. The Dear America series will always hold a special place in my heart. I think my favorite parts were the pictures, recipes, maps and more in the back of the books.

They really brought the stories to life. This particular book was never one of my absolute favorites but reading it again after so many years I appreciated the twists and the 'who can I trust'? Overall, not a bad read. I wish it had been a bit longer tho. I enjoyed it and if you like the series or have an interest in Africa and it's famous queen, you might like this too.

Forever Young Adult. Anna Elizabeth. Some good info in here about Nzingha and her life in the s in Africa. It was interesting to read about her culture and how African "royalty" is formed under the chief, the Ngola. However, it didn't bother me so much that I didn't like this book overall, because it's so extremely short. It also reveals a twist that is then taken back almost immediately.

This one's good for the cultural and historical info, but lacking for a compelling story in the fiction department. Violet Perry Just a Bookish Blog. Good historical fiction novel, although it's really see short. Another pre-read for J's 8th grade year. This one is a quick, light read focusing on the early teenage years of Nzingha. It does a decent job of introducing the young woman and evoking the world she lived in.

I did find myself wanting more of the story - she only becomes queen in the epilogue. This book was very cool and feminist. I usually try to give a better description, but this is the truth. My main qualm is how short it is, as it is the shortest in the entire series. I don't know much about African culture, and while I did enjoy what I saw here, I still found that it could have been longer.

Nzinga managed to save her entire nation from the slave-abducting Portuguese. We need to have more of a focus on her role in history, and just stop ignoring her right now. The Royal Diaries was a non-euro-centric series of fictional diaries on the lives of various real princesses throughout history. They always have a historical note at the end which is almost always very informative.

I borrowed this from the library becuase of fond memories of reading other books from this series a number of yours ago as a tween. This book lvied up to those memories and was a fun ascape back into those years, and I recommend it to anyone just arriving at them. The only thing I'd say, is that the book and it's epilogue made a focus of Nzingha being against slavery, when in fact, she was merely against slavery as practised by europeans, not that of her own people.

And as commendable as her life seems to have been, I felt there was a distinct effort to whitewash her in this area, and to insinuate that she was something that she does not appear to have been, namely a principalled anti-slavery campainger. Using her forces, she cut other rulers off from the Portuguese-controlled coast, capturing parts of the Kwango River and bringing the region's key slave supplying lands under her control.

She also expanded her territory to the north, and in doing so established diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of the Kongo and Dutch merchants, who were increasingly active in the area. Nzinga also established a lucrative slave trade with the Dutch, who purchased as many as 13, slaves per year from Nzinga's kingdom. She also refused to be re-admitted to the Christian faith, which became a point of contention between the two parties.

Inforces from the Dutch West India Companyworking in alliance with the Kingdom of Kongoseized Luandadriving out the Portuguese and setting up the directorate of Loango-Angola. The fall of Luanda was a major blow to the Portuguese, and Nzinga quickly dispatched an embassy to the Dutch-controlled city. Hoping to form an Afro-Dutch coalition against the Portuguese, Nzinga requested an immediate alliance and offered to open the slave trade to them, though she was concerned that the Kingdom of Kongo her people's traditional northern rivals was growing too powerful.

The Dutch accepted her queen nzinga mbande biography books of an alliance and sent their own ambassador and soldiers some of whom brought their wives to her court, soon assisting her in her fight against the Portuguese. Having lost large amounts of territory and forced to retreat to Massanganothe Portuguese governor attempted to make peace with Nzinga, but she refused these overtures.

The capture of Luanda also left Nzingha's kingdom as the pre-eminent, if temporary, slave-trading power in the region, allowing for her to build a sizeable war-camp kilombo of 80, [ 46 ] a figure which included non-combatants [ 47 ] members, including mercenaries, escaped slaves, allies, and her own soldiers. Using the large size of her army, her new wealth and her famous reputation, Nzinga was able to reclaim large parts of Ndongo from to Though these lands had never been part of Ndongo, Nzinga refused to withdraw and added the conquest to her kingdom, an act which greatly offended the Kongolese king, Garcia II.

With the nobility flocking to her side, Nzingha was able to collect more tribute in the form of slaves which she in turn sold to the Dutch in exchange for firearms, thereby increasing her military and economic power; byshe considered Garcia II of the Kongo to be her only queen nzinga mbande biography books equal in the region, while the Portuguese viewed her as their most potent adversary in Africa.

InNzinga defeated the Portuguese army at the Battle of Ngoleme. Then, inshe was defeated by the Portuguese at the Battle of Kavanga and, in the process, her sister Kambu was recaptured, along with her archives, which revealed her alliance with Kongo. As a result of the woman's spying, the Portuguese reputedly drowned the sister in the Kwanza River.

Despite these successes, the allies' control over Angola remained tenuous. Lacking artillery, Nzinga was unable to effectively break the Portuguese defenses at Massangano, while political infighting and developments in Europe weakened the Dutch forces in Angola. After suffering through a major Portuguese bombardment, on 24 August the Dutch commander sued for peace with the Portuguese and agreed to evacuate Angola.

While her wars against the Portuguese and their allies continued, Nzingha created alliances with neighboring kingdoms, expanding her influence even as she aged. Throughout the s and s, Nzinga began to tentatively adopt Christian cultural traditionsfollowing her conversion to the faith in This began in when her army captured a Portuguese priest, and expanded when her forces in Kongo captured two Spanish Capuchins in ; unlike other European prisoners, the queen granted missionaries extended freedoms in her war camp.

One of the Spaniards, Father Calisto Zelotes do Reis Mago, would go on to become a longtime resident at her court and her personal secretary. During the early s, Nzinga sent requests to the Capuchin order for more missionaries and for support against the Portuguese — effectively turning the missionaries into de facto diplomats between her and the Vatican.

In addition to using Christianity as a diplomatic tool, Nzinga adopted Christian customs into her court. From the s onward, she increasingly relied on Christian converts at her court. Just as she had done with the Imbangalan culture several decades before, Nzinga appropriated aspects of Christian ideology and culture, adding these to her existing court traditions to create a new class of Christian councilors loyal to her.

Nzinga's efforts to convert her people was not without controversy, and some conservative religious figures pushed back against her policies. In response, Nzinga empowered her Christian priests to burn the temples and shrines of practitioners who opposed her, and ordered that they be arrested and turned over to her for trial. Traditionalists were dismissed from her court, after which she sentenced them to public whippings.

Several prominent Mdundu and Imbangala priests were sold as slaves to the Portuguese, with Nzinga personally asking that they be shipped overseas; profits of the sale were then used to furnish a new church. By the kingdoms of Matamba and Portugal had been at war for nearly 25 years, with both sides having become exhausted. Despite difficulties, a peace treaty was signed between Nzingha and the Portuguese in late Under the term of the peace treaty, Nzingha agreed to cede lands on her kingdom's western coast to Portugal, with the Lucala River becoming the new border between Portuguese Angola and Matamba.

In return, Portugal ceded the Kituxela region to her. Nzingha also agreed to allow Portuguese traders inside Matamba, while they agreed to intervene if Kasanje or Nogla Hari attacked her. The Portuguese agreed to concentrate the slave trade in a market in her capital effectively giving her a monopoly on the slave trade and send a permanent representative to her court.

In return, Nzingha agreed to provide military assistance to the Portuguese and allowed for missionaries to reside in her kingdom. A final provision asking that Matamba pay Portugal tribute was proposed, but never ratified. While several sources [ 9 ] [ 4 ] [ 64 ] describe the treaty as making concessions to Portugal, others note that her recognition as a ruler by Portugal gained Nzingha legitimacy and political stability.

Upon Kambu's arrival to Matamba the terms of peace were officially agreed upon, and as was tradition Nzingha and her officials clapped their hands letting the Portuguese know that peace terms were accepted. After the wars with Portugal ended, Nzingha attempted to rebuild her kingdom. As noted by Linda Heywood, Nzingha's final years were spent establishing a unified kingdom she could pass on to her sister.

However, her native Ndongo had been ravaged by decades of war, with wide swathes of the land left depopulated; as such, Nzingha focused her efforts on strengthening Matamba. Peace caused major changes at Nzingha's royal court. Whereas in wartime she had adopted the masculine dress and mannerisms of an Imbangala warlord, in the postwar era Nzingha's court became more feminine; she adopted new fashions in court, imported silk and goods from Europe, placed renewed focus on education replacing military drills and abolished concubinage, eventually marrying her favorite concubine in a Christian ceremony.

She distanced herself from the Imbangalan culture and abolished many of the democratic and meritocratic policies she had tolerated in wartime, seeing them as a threat to the monarchy. During the s specifically after a period of serious illness in Nzinga grew increasingly concerned about who would succeed her as ruler of Ndongo and Matamba.

She feared that her death would lead to a succession crisis, which would cause her Christian conversions to be undone, and spark renewed Portuguese aggression. To ensure the transition would be smooth, she appointed her sister Kambu as her heir, forgoing any of the traditional Mbundu elections. However, she grew increasingly concerned that her sister's husband, Nzinga a Mona, was growing too powerful.

Nzinga a Mona was a skilled soldier who was raised in the Imbangala tradition, and while he had been a lifelong soldier in Nzingha's army, in his older age he increasingly came into conflict with Nzinga. She feared that Nzinga Mona's adherence to Imbangala tradition would destabilize the new, Christian kingdom she had established.

In OctoberNzinga fell ill with infection in her throat and became bedridden. By December of that year the infection had spread to her lungs, and Nzinga died in her sleep on the morning of 17 December. Ceremonies were held across Matamba and in Luanda, where both the Portuguese and Mbundu populations held services in her honor. Following Nzinga's death, her sister Kambu more commonly known as Barbara or Dona Barbara assumed the throne.

A powerful queen who reigned for queen nzinga mbande biography books thirty years, Nzinga has been the subject of many works. In her native Angola, oral traditions celebrating Nzinga's life began immediately after her death. Though her kingdoms would eventually be incorporated into Portuguese Angolacommemoration of Nzinga and her achievements persisted.

In the midth century, Nzinga became a powerful symbol of Angolan resistance against Portugal during the Angolan War of Independence. The Portuguese, Nzinga's longtime rivals, wrote a number of works relating to her life. The first biography of Nzinga was published by Antonio da Gaeta a Capuchin priest who had lived in her court in ; Gaeta's work praised Nzinga's diplomatic skills and compared her to famous women from antiquity, but also pointedly noted that she had ultimately been persuaded by divine providence to accept Christianity.

Antonio Cavazzi another Capuchin who had resided in Nzinga's court wrote a biography of her inagain noting her political skill, but also describing her as a queen who had ruined the land. Together, Gaeta and Cavazzi's biographies became the primary sources for Nzinga's life. Portuguese writers would continue to write about Nzinga into the 20th century, normally depicting her as a skilled, "savage" opponent who had ultimately been forced to submit to Portugal and accept Christianity.

Numerous western authors have written about Nzinga. A heavily edited translation of Cavazzi's earlier biography, Labat's work formed the basis on which many Western sources would depict their image of Nzinga; whereas Portuguese sources focused on Nzinga's capabilities as a leader and conversion to Christianity, Western sources in the 18th and 19th centuries tended to heavily focus on her sexuality, alleged cannibalism, and brutality.

Jean-Louis Castilhon wrote a fictional story of her life inportraying her as cruel but not a cannibalwhile the Marquis de Sade wrote about Nzinga's alleged cruelty and promiscuity in his work Philosophy in the Bedroomin which he cites her as an example of a woman driven to evil by passion.