Queen Ana Njinga, who reigned between 1583 and 1663, resisted Portuguese rule for 37 years, denying them full control of present-day Angola.
Queen Njinga, who was born around 1583 into a royal family of the Ndogo Mbandu kingdom in West Central Africa, was known by many different names. In Portuguese, she was called Nzinga or Ginga. In the native monarchy of Ndongo, her name was Ngola Njinga. In English, she was known as Ana de Sousa, a name given to her by her Godmother, wife to Governor Joao Corria De Sousa, after she was baptised into Christianity.
Njinga became queen of Mbundu in 1626 after her brother committed suicide in the face of rising Portuguese demand for slave trade. With her resilience and bravery, she fought and resisted the Portuguese for 37 years, denying them control of her nation.
During her brother’s reign, she attended a number of peace treaty meetings representing her brother and negotiating with the Portuguese under Governor Sousa, who had established a fort and settlement at Luanda in 1617 for the Portuguese and were encroaching on Mbundu land. She had also received military and political training as a child which helped her navigate diplomatic waters.
In the series of meetings, Njinga sought to establish her equality with the representative of the Portuguese crown. She knew of the events in the nation that had led to the Portuguese dominance of the normally independent nation.
With that knowledge, she knew that refusing to trade with the Portuguese would put her in a difficult spot because she needed to maintain relations with the Portuguese to maintain the source of guns.
In 1627, she formed alliances with former rival states and led her army against the Portuguese, initiating a 30-year war. She exploited European rivalries and forged an alliance with the Dutch, who had acquired Luanda in 1641. With the Dutch’s help, Njinga defeated a Portuguese army in 1647.
Njinga had become so experienced in different battles that even in her 60s, she ably orchestrated guerrilla attacks on the Portuguese, which continued even after her death, which inspired the crucial successful 20th-century armed resistance that led to independent Angola in 1975.
Queen Njinga died peacefully in her eighties on December 17th, 1663, having eluded the Portuguese and their allies attempts to capture or kill her.
