Sixteenth-century, Luanda.
An emissary of the Ndongo people approaches the Portuguese governor,
expecting the courtesy owed to any foreign dignitary.
But there's only a mat on the floor, no chair in sight.
The Portuguese governor looks placidly on, waiting for her to place herself at his feet.
The Ndongo emissary however, will not be diminished by this man, the living symbol of the conquering forces
that have ravaged her country. At her command, one of her servants goes down on all fours.
The woman then seats herself, regal, perfect as the cold gleam of her acts.
So enthroned, she begins her negotiations with the governor.
This will be the first time Nzinga challenges the Portuguese, but it will not be the last.
*extra history intro music*
One quick aside before we continue the tale. Please give a warm Extra History welcome to Cass,
who guest-wrote these next two episodes. Thanks, Cass.
Queen Nzinga of the Ndongo and Matamba kingdoms,
and scion of the Mobundo people, will spend 40 years standing between the Portuguese and their ambitions,
using everything at her command. Her cunning, her ruthless intellect, her military acumen and even
the bodies of her people. Whatever it takes to succeed.
Her single-mindedness is no surprise.
Nzinga was born with her umbilical cord twisted around her neck, marking her for an unusual life.
She was also her father's favorite child.
For Nzinga was more scholarly than her siblings, more physically adept, better even than her brother
at wielding the battle axe, the symbol of her royal line. And as she grew older, the king's favo(u)r
allowed her access to affairs of state. The hot-blooded Nzinga became witness to her father's counsels
in both war and peace. And the lessons she learned there would serve Nzinga well.
Portugal was spreading its reach across the continent,
hungry for conquest and starved for slaves to fill its ships.
In fact, to the Portuguese, Nzinga's country represented an endless supply of muscle and sinew.
And their philosophy was as simple as it was brutal. If a slave died, they only need to fetch more.
Few could stand in their way. The Ndongo said that the Portuguese killed so many of their people that
Portuguese soldiers walked across fields of corpses. Portugal's presence would come to define Nzinga's life.
She spent her early adulthood involved in military campaigns, some under her father's command,
others as part of her brother's war effort. And the two siblings, despite their willingness to cooperate
in the face of a mutual adversary, shared a long-standing animosity.
For years Nzinga's brother stood in her shadow.
So when he finally took power, Nzinga's brother did everything he could to keep his sibling in her place.
In fact, according to one story, he ordered her newborn son murdered, and had Nzinga and her sister sterilized,
ensuring there would be no usurpers to the throne. But Nzinga's brother made a mistake.
He didn't count on how deeply the desire for revenge would settle into her bones.
So when he sent his sister to speak to the Portuguese, he did so out of desperation.
and Nzinga on the other hand did it because she saw an opportunity.
Luanda, 1626. Nzinga's mission to the Portugese.
Nzinga is charm incarnate, elegant, endlessly amiable.
She arrives at the head of a massive delegation, carried by her servants, resplendent in the finery of her people.
A queen. Yet, she remains the picture of humility. Every official to ask of her time is granted an audience.
She courts the friendship of the governor's wife, and she embraces the Catholic faith.
The Portuguese negotiators see Nzinga as the equal her brother never was,
worthy of their respect and even worthier of their caution. More importantly to her though,
she will strike a blow against her brother. And she will prove herself, once and for all, is better.
And oh-ho ho boy, did she ever do that.
According to one story, Nzinga upon returning from her expedition, harangued her sibling mercilessly.
She humiliated him for his losses, his inability to command the respect of his enemies.
Their great Kingdom was in shambles and it was, Nzinga said, his fault. There was no question that
her brother's days were numbered. Though whether his end was suicide, euthanasia at his request,
or murder at his sister's hand, no one will ever know for sure.
But one thing is known. With her brother gone the way was clear.
Nzinga would finally take her place as ruler of the Ndongo.
Her first act as Queen was to ensure that no one would ever be able to take away her hard-won power.
Now during the 17th century, there lived groups of marauders and mercenaries,
known collectively as the Imbangala. They were notorious across the continent.
Some stories even claim that they were cannibals, who engaged in ritual sacrifice,
and stole adolescents to fill their ranks. But despite their reputation, both the Portuguese and the locals sought the Imbangala services.
Nzinga herself had fought beside them more than once, and it was in too in the Imbangala's care that her brother
placed Nzinga's nephew, confident perhaps that there was no safer place for the boy to be from Nzinga.
But always crafty and relentless, Nzinga had an idea.
She sought out the leader of the Imbangala band, and made a great show of expressing her love.
Despite his initial misgivings, her quarry submitted to her affections. And the two arranged to be married.
But before the ceremony even concluded, Nzinga took ahold of her brother's son, slew him,
and threw the boy's corpse into a river, declaring to all that she had finally avenged her son.
And with that, her throne was safe. Meanwhile, Nzinga's Portuguese contacts knew nothing of these matters,
having only seen Nzinga at her most agreeable, they had no cause to think of her as a threat.
Her brother after all had been ineffective, an inconvenience at most. Why would she be any different?
especially given how readily Nzinga, who had become the goddaughter to the governor's wife,
had embraced Portugal and its religion. But they soon realized it was all an act.
Unwilling to honor their previous agreements, the Portuguese governor demanded Nzinga return
the soldiers and slaves that had run away to join her in her lands,
and ordered her to become a vassal of his king. Having achieved so much in the last few decades,
the Portuguese saw no reason to bend. As far as they were concerned, the continent belonged to them.
All of the leaders of the Mbundu, including Nzinga, owed tribute.
But actually, these Portuguese demands assisted Nzinga's caused tremendously
She sent messengers deep into her enemy's territory, armed with the promise of freedom and a reminder
that it was better to be masters of their own land, than to stand bowed under colonial rule.
Nzinga sheltered all those who escaped to her territory, and when their former overlords demanded their return,
the new ruler of the Ndongo simply replied that there were no such slaves in her possession.
Man, John Cena's got nothing on her.
Throughout it all, Nzinga continued to stand as an example to her peers:
cordial, yet completely resistant to attempts to humble her. For the first time since their arrival,
fifty years before, the Portuguese stranglehold on the region was loosening. And that made them afraid.
Nzinga's enemies changed their tactics. They branded her a pretender to the throne, unfit for rulership
because of her gender. In one of his many letters to the Portuguese King, the governor of Luanda wrote that
"but a woman has never governed this kingdom! ouehh."
And because of that, she needed to be replaced. When Nzinga heard that officials in Luanda
had decided to capture her and install a hand-picked candidate in her place, she fled because she knew
she was not yet ready for an all-out war, not with the Portuguese, and definitely not on their terms.
But if her old enemies were expecting Nzinga to vanish, they were wrong. Nzinga settled in a lowland area
in the northeastern fringe of the old Ndongo state, close to the kingdom of Matamba,
where ancient queens once ruled. Here among their ghosts, she settled and began amassing her power,
waiting again for the right moment to strike. And new allies trickled in to join her.
And that was when the political landscape changed.
For the Dutch had arrived to South Central Africa, looking for slaves and a way to disrupt
the Portuguese expansion. Nzinga looked at this enemy of her enemy, and sent her ambassadors.
*Queen Nzinga series outro music*