Queen Nzinga Mbande was a ruthless and powerful 17th century African ruler of the Ndongo and Matamba Kingdoms (modern-day Angola). Nzinga fearlessly and cleverly fought for the freedom and stature of her kingdoms against the Portuguese, who were colonizing the area at the time.

Around the turn of the 17th century, the independent kingdoms and states of the Central African coast were threatened by Portuguese attempts to colonize Luanda. (Luanda, today the capital of Angola, was founded in 1576.) Portugal sought to colonize the region in order to control the trade in African slaves, and attacked many of their old trading partners to further this goal.

Unlike many other rulers at the time, Nzinga was able to adapt to these changing circumstances and fluctuations in power around her. By … Read More »

Corazon Aquino (1933-2009) was the first female president of the Phillipines, and is known for leading the People Power Revolution in 1986 which restored democracy to the country. She was named TIME’s Woman of the Year in 1986.

Cory Aquino did not aspire to be a politician. In 1955, after graduating from Mount St. Vincent College in New York City, she married Benigno Aquino (nicknamed “Ninoy”), a young politician. She supported her husband’s career as he was elected senator, raising 5 children at home.

Ninoy Aquino became a popular, outspoken opponent of Ferdinand Marcos, the dictator who held the presidency from 1965. In 1972, Ninoy was imprisoned for eight long years, and then exiled to the United States. Ninoy was finally allowed to return to his homeland in … Read More »

Image by GflaiG on Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Sayyida al Hurra was a 16th-century pirate queen. Though Islamic records of the time are strangely silent about her, she was a powerful force of the time and an equal ally of the famous pirate Barbarossa. Her real name is unknown; the title Sayyida al Hurra means “noble lady who is free and independent; the woman sovereign who bows to no superior authority.”

Sayyida was from the Kingdom of Granada, the last Muslim-ruled state in Spain at the end of the Reconquista (the centuries-long retaking of the Iberian peninsula from the Moors). Her family fled to Morroco after the fall of Granada in 1492.

The city of Tétouan in northern Morroco which Sayyida ruled was first settled … Read More »

Nana Asma’u (1793-1863) was a princess, poet, and teacher, and is considered the precursor to modern feminism in Africa. She had such an impact of the education of women, that in Nigeria today, many Islamic women’s organisations, schools, and meeting halls are named after her.

Nana was a member of the Fodio clan who ruled the Sokoto Caliphate in modern-day Nigeria. Her family was part of a fundamental Islamic sect, known as the Qadiriyya, who focused on the pursuit of knowledge as a spiritual path.

She had an excellent education from a young age. She learned all the Islamic classics, memorized the entire Qur’an, and was fluent in four languages: Arabic, the Fula language, Hausa and Tamacheq Tuareg. She wrote poetry in the first three, … Read More »

Eugenia Charles (1919-2005) was the Prime Minister of Dominica from 1980 to 1995. She was Dominica’s first and only female prime minister, and Dominica’s longest-serving prime minister.

She became interested in law while working at the colonial magistrate’s court. After studying law at the University College of the University of Toronto and the London School of Economics and Political Science, she passed the bar and returned to Dominica, to become the island’s first female lawyer in 1949.

In the 1960′s, Eugenia began campaigning against restrictions on press freedom. She helped to found the Dominica Freedom Party in 1978, and was its leader from the early 1970s until 1995, helping Dominica to gain independence from Great Britain in 1978.

In 1980, Eugenia became the Prime Minister of Dominica. The Dominica … Read More »

Enheduanna (2285-2250 BCE) was an Akkadian princess as well as High Priestess of the Moon god Nanna. She was one of the earliest women in history whose name is known. She is regarded by literary and historical scholars as possibly the earliest known author and poet of either gender. Her works were written in cuneiform about 4300 years ago.

Enheduana is a title she was given when she was ordained as “en” priestess; her birth name isn’t known.

Although her official title was “en” (high-priestess) to the god Nanna, she appears to have been passionate about the goddess Inanna as well. Of her five recovered works, two are long hymns to Inanna:

My Lady, Your greatness is manifest,
May your heart for my sake ‘return to its place’!
Your great deeds are unparalleled,
Your greatness … Read More »

Lady Anne Clifford, (1590–1676) was the only surviving child of George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland and his wife Lady Margaret Russell, daughter of Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford. In 1605, she became the 14th Baroness de Clifford in her own right, and hereditary High Sheriff of Westmorland.

When her father died in 1605, she succeeded to the title of Baroness Clifford, but her father had willed his earldom and estates to his brother Francis Clifford, 4th Earl of Cumberland. Starting at the age of only 15, she became involved in a long and complex legal battle to obtain the family estates, instead of the £15,000 her father had willed to her.

Because her marriage to her first husband (Richard Sackville, 3rd Earl of Dorset) was … Read More »

That dark dweller in Braj
Is my only refuge.
O my companion, worldly comfort is an illusion,
As soon you get it, it goes.
I have chosen the indestructible for my refuge,
Him whom the snake of death will not devour.
My beloved dwells in my heart all day,
I have actually seen that abode of joy.
Meera’s lord is Hari, the indestructible.
My lord, I have taken refuge with you, your maidservant

Meerabai (also called Meera Bai, Meera, or Mira) was a Hindu mystical singer and a princess. About 1,300 prayerful songs or “bhajans” and Hindi poems attributed to her are popular throughout India and have been published in several translations worldwide. She is one of the most well-known Indian poets in history.

At a very young age, Mirabai (1498-1547) fell in love with an iconic idol of the god … Read More »

Mandukhai Khatun (1449-1510), also known as Mandukhai Sechen Khatun, was a Mongolian Empress. The word “Khatun” is the female form of the word “Khan”, as in Genghis Kahn.

Born into a family of aristocrats, she married Manduul Khan when she was 18 years old, and bore a daughter, whose name unfortunately isn’t known.

Soon after the death of her husband the Khan, Manduhai adopted the 7-year-old orphan Batmunkh, then the last living direct descendant of Genghis Kahn. Manduhai named him “Dayan Kahn”, meaning “Great Kahn” or “Khan of whole universe”.

When Dayan Khan turned 19, Manduhai married him, again becoming the Khatun or Empress. Older and more experienced than the Khan, she retained great influence over court and military. Together they reunified the Mongol retainers of the former eastern region of the … Read More »