Queen Nzinga Mbande, also known as Ana de Sousa Nzinga Mbande, was a ruthless and powerful 17th-century African ruler of the Ndongo and Matamba kingdoms (modern-day Angola). Nzinga fought fiercely and cleverly for the independence and stature of her kingdoms against the Portuguese, who were colonizing the area at the time. She offered sanctuary to people escaping slavery, but she also sold captives to Portuguese and Dutch traders.
Negotiating for a Kingdom Under Attack
Around the turn of the 17th century, the independent kingdoms and states of the Central African coast were threatened by Portuguese expansion from Luanda, in what is now Angola. Portugal sought to control the trade in enslaved Africans and attacked many of its old trading partners to further this goal. Captives were shipped across the Atlantic, especially to plantations in Brazil.
From 1617 to 1621, the Portuguese governor of Angola carried out an aggressive campaign against the kingdom of Ndongo. His troops and their African allies invaded the capital and forced King Ngola Mbandi, Nzinga’s brother, to flee to islands in the Kwanza River. Thousands of Ndongo people were taken prisoner and enslaved.
The king sent his sister Nzinga Mbande to negotiate a peace treaty in 1622. She traveled to Luanda with a delegation that included attendants, musicians, and enslaved people to be given to the Portuguese.
Ndongo needed relief from both Portuguese attacks and raids by African war bands. Nzinga sought an alliance with Portugal to help her brother keep his kingdom. She agreed to an alliance, but refused the governor’s demand that her brother pay an annual tribute to the king of Portugal. Tribute would mean accepting a subordinate position.
The Portuguese also wanted to spread Catholicism. Nzinga’s brother had given her permission to be baptized as a way of securing peace. She accepted baptism as Ana de Sousa Nzinga Mbande, with the Portuguese colonial governor serving as her godfather.
Under the agreement, the Portuguese were to withdraw their fort at Ambaca and return people they had captured. Ndongo’s king was to leave his island refuge, return to his capital, and reopen markets to Portuguese merchants.
The new alliance didn’t last very long, however. Portuguese forces remained in Ndongo, and in 1624 Ngola Mbandi died of unknown causes, though it was rumored he committed suicide. (Other accounts claim Nzinga poisoned her brother, or murdered her brother’s son the heir after Ngola committed suicide, in order to seize power.)
As the new sovereign of Ndongo, Nzinga inherited the struggle with Portugal as well as opposition to her own rule.
Offering Refuge, Selling Captives
Nzinga’s position as queen wasn’t secure. Rivals challenged her right to rule, and being a woman gave her opponents another argument against her.
Ndongo’s ruler depended on alliances with local chiefs, who had followers and interests of their own. Portugal could weaken Nzinga by drawing chiefs away from her, as well as by attacking her forces. Recruiting people to her side was an essential part of her resistance.
To build up her kingdom’s military power, Nzinga offered sanctuary to runaway slaves and Portuguese-trained African soldiers leaving Portuguese service. Her messengers went from village to village, inviting people to join her and offering land where they could live and farm. Portuguese governor Fernão de Sousa complained that whole settlements were leaving his territory for hers.
The offer gave people somewhere to go, while strengthening Nzinga and depriving the Portuguese of workers and troops. She refused Portuguese demands to send fugitives back.
But her protection didn’t extend to everyone. In negotiations after becoming queen, she offered to reopen slave markets if the Portuguese withdrew from a fort in Ndongo. In another letter to a Portuguese commander, she complained that a rival had seized enslaved people she was sending to market, and demanded their return.
Nzinga opposed the seizure and sale of people she considered under her protection. She also claimed the right to sell others. Her dispute with Portugal was over who could be enslaved and who controlled the trade, as well as who ruled Ndongo.
Building a New Kingdom in Matamba
Portugal backed a rival ruler of Ndongo, and in 1626 Portuguese attacks forced Nzinga to flee. She continued fighting, forming alliances with Imbangala war bands, armed groups that recruited followers and lived by warfare and raiding. They offered military strength, but their support wasn’t something she could always count on.
After further defeats and the loss of allies, Nzinga moved east. In the early 1630s, she conquered the kingdom of Matamba. Matamba became her new base, though she continued to claim the throne of Ndongo. Much of Ndongo remained outside her rule.
From Matamba, Nzinga rebuilt her strength and stirred up rebellion in Ndongo, now governed through a Portuguese-backed rival. She developed Matamba as a trading power and the gateway to the Central African interior. Captured enemies were among the people she sold into slavery. Trade helped sustain the power she used to resist Portuguese conquest.
Joining Forces With the Dutch
In 1641, the Dutch captured Luanda from the Portuguese, giving Nzinga a new opportunity. She allied with them against their common enemy. The Dutch West India Company, a trading company with its own ships and soldiers, wanted access to the region’s slave trade.
Nzinga supplied the company with war captives and received goods and promises of military help. The Dutch eventually sent soldiers to fight alongside her army. Together they won important victories, pushing the Portuguese back toward their inland stronghold at Massangano.
The Dutch hold on Luanda didn’t last. In 1648, a Portuguese expedition from Brazil attacked the port. The Dutch surrendered and agreed to withdraw their troops, including men still campaigning with Nzinga. They hadn’t informed her, despite an agreement requiring them to do so before negotiating with Portugal.
Nzinga lost her European ally while her army was still fighting inland. She retreated to Matamba. The alliance had brought the Portuguese close to defeat, but it hadn’t driven them out.
Peace, and the Price of a Sister’s Freedom
Nzinga continued to resist, but she also worked toward a settlement. One urgent concern was her sister Barbara, whom the Portuguese had captured in 1646. Nzinga wanted her released and intended her to succeed her as queen.
Catholic missionaries helped carry messages between Nzinga and Portuguese officials. In the mid-1650s, the negotiations produced a peace agreement: the Portuguese recognized her rule in Matamba, and she accepted missionaries and renewed her commitment to Catholicism. Trade with Portuguese merchants continued.
Barbara’s freedom came at a cost paid by other people. As part of the negotiations, Nzinga promised a payment in enslaved people. A missionary later reported that she thanked her soldiers for taking captives to ransom her sister.
Barbara was released, and when Nzinga died in December 1663, she succeeded her. With Nzinga’s rule, Matamba had become a powerful kingdom that could negotiate with Portugal as an independent state. She had secured recognition of her kingdom and a sister free to rule it.
Sources and Further Reading
- Linda M. Heywood, “Njinga,” Dictionary of African Christian Biography.
- John K. Thornton, “African Political Ethics and the Slave Trade,” in Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa, and the Atlantic, pp. 38–62, especially pp. 47–50.
- Martin Lienhard, “Queen Njinga’s Milongas,” in Africamericas: Itineraries, Dialogues, and Sounds.
- Mark Meuwese, Brothers in Arms, Partners in Trade, chapter 4, especially pp. 214–224.
- John K. Thornton, “Legitimacy and Political Power: Queen Njinga, 1624–1663,” The Journal of African History.
- South African History Online, “Njinga Ana de Sousa.”
- John K. Thornton, introduction to Cavazzi’s Missione Evangelica.
- John K. Thornton, A History of West Central Africa to 1850, pp. 121–123 and 150–151.
- Alexander Ives Bortolot, “Women Leaders in African History: Ana Nzinga, Queen of Ndongo,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
A note from the author: I substantially updated and expanded this article on October 29, 2026. Comments posted before that date refer to the original, shorter article, published on January 12, 2012. I’ve kept the earlier discussion here, but some of the comments below are about wording or omissions that the update addresses.
Excellent article as always. I referenced this post on the SSS facebook page today. I’m posting about queens and rulers this week for Women’s History Month and am looking for those we may not know. Nzingha was perfect! Thanks for your excellent web site!
Thanks so much!
It’s so cool to imagine all of this really happening, thank you so much for the article! Nzinga sounds like such a fierce warrior queen and I find that so awesome.
A TWISTED-BIAS HISTORY OF A GREAT QUEEN AND PEOPLE. AFRICANS MUST RE-WRITE OUR TRUE HISTORY.
Lawrence Aziz Brown, it’s not enough to just say “a twisted-bias history”, you have to explain what is and why, otherwise nobody’s learning anything. If the story shared above is not accurate, I’d love to hear the real one.
Why no mention of her kidnapping and selling slaves to the Portuguese? This is what she is known for.
Hi Holly ~ I didn’t come across any mention of anything like that in my research. Do you have a source you can point me to? Thanks.
Although I offer no reference, I watched a program on TV where they said she sold slaves and other prisoners to the Portuguese until they wanted more, and then went after her people…including the two princesses.
the program to which he is referring is “mankind: the story of all of us” on the H2 channel. i’m watching it right now. according to them, she had a lucrative partnership going with the portugese selling people from the neighboring tribes to them as slaves. apparently, these people she preyed upon struck a deal with the portugese to launch a combined attack which toppled her from power and enslaved her people. if so, it sounds more like poetic justice than some courageous stand for freedom.
Hi Holly, I have been working on my ancestry and find that she is my 10th great grandmother. I was quite shocked. I am trying to confirm this and am interested in finding out more about her. Can you suggest the best direction for me to take that will help me learn more about her. Thanks.
I’ve heard the same thing about her selling slaves to the Portuguese. I do know that she had relations with a white man from Spain/Portugal or southern France whose last name was Monsingaux. I do know that this relationship had a son, who ended up in the Virginia Colony, and from these two persons, came forth a family with the last name of Mozingo – and there is a black line and a white line that is found in parts of Virginia, NC and SC. If I recall right, Dona Ana is my 15th great grandmother, and there is another man in town who has the Mozingo last name. The doctor and I are part of the white lineage.
@KeriLynn Engel I just finished writing a short biography of Nzinga for a World Civilization class as she does appear in my textbook and I found her story particularly interesting. If you’d like to read about some of the more negative aspects of this queen, I’d suggest reading “Nzinga of Matamba in a New Perspective” by Joseph C. Miller, an article that appeared in the Journal of African History, XVI 2 (1975), pp. 201-216. It also goes into how she had to overcome the political and social norms of west-central Africa to claim the throne.
By any chance, did her converting to Catholicism affect her selling of slaves>
Queen Nzinga Mbande was a military strategist and powerful 17th century African ruler of the Ndongo and Matamba Kingdoms. I can’t believe that I wasn’t taught about her while in high school or in college. We need more women like her, today!! Nonetheless, she’s featured in my new book, “7 Types of Queens, Kings Desire.” http://www.7queens7kings.com
I would recommend that all with negative comments and those who want to get a non biased view to get and read the book The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams. He spent 18 years traveling across the continent to do his research. I would not trust the Portuguese or any white person for that matter to report an accurate unbiased story. History is jam packed with lies, cover-ups and deception from that perspective. There’s much to hide and cover up and much truth to be revealed.
Thank you for the recommendation. Here’s the book for anyone else who’s interested: http://amazon.com/Destruction-Black-Civilization-Great-Issues/dp/0883780305
And who do you think that wrote and preserved the memory of this woman in the first place?
These accounts, come from the “Tower of the Tomb”, our national archives, and possibly to some extent the Dutch archives.
Sorry, but a lot of this information is incorrect, first she was defeated and even converted to Christianism by the name Dona Anna de Sousa.
Done on her own accord looking for a truce with the Portuguese, hence the name “Anna”.
Second, she was in fact a pawn between Dutch and Portuguese politics at the time and a despot to her own people.
She sided with the Dutch at her convenience, but not necessarily because of her brilliantism as you put it.
African tribes have been warring each other for centuries, she had far more enemies than just Europeans.
This cohesive unity you see in Angola nowadays is due only to the colonialism period.
I apologize in advance if this ruins someones day, but I’m far more concerned with historical acuity than with petty political escapades.