The historical setting
Nzinga or Njinga Ana de Sousa Mbande (c. 1583 – 17 December 1663) was a southwest African paramount ruler who ruled as queen of the Ambundu Kingdoms of Ndongo (1624–1663) and Matamba (1631–1663), located in present-day northern Angola. Born into the ruling family of Ndongo, her grandfather Ngola Kilombo Kia Kasenda was the king of Ndongo, succeeded by her father. Nzinga received military and political training as a child, and she demonstrated an aptitude for defusing political crises as an ambassador to the Portuguese Empire. In 1624, she assumed power over Ndongo after the death of her brother Mbandi. She ruled during a period of rapid growth of the African slave trade and encroachment by the Portuguese Empire in South West Africa. The Portuguese declared war on Ndongo in 1626 and by 1628, Njinga's army had been severely depleted and they went into exile.
Nzinga's Embassy
In 1617, Ngola Mbandi Kiluanji died and Ngola Mbandi, his son and Nzinga's brother, came to power. Upon assuming the throne, he engaged in months of political bloodletting, killing many rival claimants to the throne, including his older half-brother and their family. Thirty-five at the time, Nzinga was spared, but the new king ordered her young son killed while she and her two sisters were forcibly sterilized, ensuring that she would never have a child again. According to some sources, Nzinga was singled out for harsh treatment as she had a longstanding rivalry with her brother. Perhaps fearing for her life, Nzinga fled to the Kingdom of Matamba. Having consolidated his power, Mbandi vowed to continue the war against the Portuguese.
However, he lacked military skill, and while he was able to form an alliance with the Imbangala, the Portuguese made significant military gains. Faced with the Portuguese threat, in 1621 he contacted Nzinga, asking her to be his emissary to the Portuguese in Luanda. She was the best fit for the job, as she was both of royal lineage and spoke fluent Portuguese. She agreed to lead the diplomatic mission with the stipulation that she be granted the authority to negotiate in the king's name and permission to be baptized – an important diplomatic tool she hoped to use against the Portuguese.
Rise to power
In 1624, her brother died of mysterious causes (some say suicide, others say poisoning). Before his death, he had made it clear that Nzinga should be his successor. Nzinga quickly moved to consolidate her rule, having her supporters seize the ritual objects associated with the monarchy and eliminating her opponents at court. She also assumed the title of Ngola, conferring a position of great influence among her people. An opulent funeral for her brother was arranged, and some of his remains were preserved in a misete (a reliquary), so they could later be consulted by Nzinga. One major obstacle to her rule, her 7-year-old nephew, was under the guardianship of Kasa, an Imbangala war chief.
To remove this potential pretender to her throne, Nzinga approached Kasa with a marriage proposal; the couple were married, and after the wedding she had her nephew killed—in Nzinga's view, final revenge for her own murdered son. However, her ascension to the throne faced severe opposition from male claimants from other noble families. According to Mbande tradition, neither Nzinga nor her predecessor brother had a direct right to the throne because they were children of slave wives, not the first wife.
Conquest of Matamba
Following her expulsion, Nzinga and her supporters continued to fight against the Portuguese. To bolster her forces, the queen looked to make allies in the region while keeping her battered forces out of reach of the Portuguese army. During this time she was contacted by Kasanje, a powerful Imbangala warlord who had established his own kingdom on the Kwanza river. Kasanje and the Imbangala were traditional enemies of Ndongo, and Kasanje himself had previously executed several of Nzinga's envoys. Kasanje offered Nzinga an alliance and military support, but in return demanded that she marry him and discard her lunga (a large bell used by Ndongan war captains as a symbol of their power). Nzinga accepted these terms, married Kasanje and was inducted into Imbangala society.
The exiled queen adapted quickly to the new culture, adopting many Imbangala religious rites. Sources (African, Western, modern, contemporary) disagree on the intricacies and extent of Imbangala rites and laws (ijila), but it seems that Nzinga participated in the customary initiation rites – in which she drank human blood in the cuia, or blood oath ceremony, and anointed herself with oil made from an infant crushed in a mortar, the maji a samba – in order to become accepted as a leader in the highly militarized Imbangala society.