Hot History - Njinga Mbande: The Woman King

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

Hi divas! Strap in today because we are chatting about the Angolan warrior queen who fought off both the patriarchy and slavers through her wildly sharp wit AND wildly sharp weaponry. THIS is the story of Njinga Mbande, and I can't wait to share it with you!For more on Njinga, I recommend you watch the African Queens series on Netflix!Shout out to our incredible researcher Charlotte Wilkes for pulling this together, and to Inger Shiel for chatting with us.If you're wanting more Hot History you can follow along on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and of course, right here!

Testing, testing, testing, one, two, three. Hello, my divas. If you are listening on audio, you may realize I'm sounding extra hot and extra crispy. And that is because, which if you're watching on video, you'll see, we have a gorgeous new mic set up. I am so excited to just continue to level up these episodes for you week in and week out. And we are testing this out, seeing how it goes. If the audio is a little bit different, a little bit unusual this time, please bear with us. Also, if you're watching on video, I am so insecure and in my own head.

I was like freaking myself out this morning on what I'm going to do with my hands now. So if you hear, like if you're listening, if you hear some flapping noises, it's probably me just like waving my hands around. So I'm really going through that at the moment. We're just going to give me some grace during this period. Okay, let's get into it. roll the whimsical medieval thing. Hi guys and welcome back to Hot History, your corner of the internet where we cover all the things in history that you probably should know, but don't.

I'm Ainsley Harvey, your hot historian here, ready to chat about one of the most incredible, okay, and underrated and unrecognised and generally unknown warrior women in history. In Jenga Mbunday. Now, my deavers, when it comes to badass warrior women, I am not short for subject matter, okay? We have Budica, Isabella of Castile, Joan of Arc, and so many more. But few, if any, were as fierce or as profitable as this Angolan Queen, who wielded her wildly sharp wit and wildly sharp weaponry to fight off both the patriarchy and slavers alike.

So let's get straight into it today, guys, by rewinding it all the way back to the African region of Andongo in 1583, where Princess Njiga Mbanda is born. Now, before we get into her actual life, okay, into the weeds, I want to give you some context here on both the time period at large and the location, because these are really essential to understand the wider politics and cultures in this story. So, as we said, we are currently in 16th century Africa, specifically Ndongo, which sits in the highlands east of Luanda, between the Kauanza and Lukala rivers in what is now modern-day Angola on the western coast of Africa. The capital of Ndongo was a city called Cabassa, and this is where the royal family lived, and let me tell you, Divas, my God, it is breathtaking, okay? For while Angola today is mainly a savannah, back during an indones.

Jingas time, it was full of rainforests. So, you know, we're picturing like swaying palm trees and bright sun and tropical breezes and sparkling rivers and so many animals. Okay, the entire cast of the Lion King is showing up. Plus, to top it all off, it has some of the greatest natural resources in Africa. Still today, being one of the three largest diamond suppliers on Earth. So this is an incredible place to live. But it all. also presented unique challenges, because 16th century Africa is not like the Africa we know today, guys. Firstly, it wasn't made up of modern countries like it is now, but rather divided into empires, kingdoms, sultanates, and city-states across the entire continent. And while I don't want to

like bog us down too much in the detail here, I could genuinely talk about this all day, I am going to give you a brief lay of the land again so we can kind of, you know, make sense of what's to come. So, in West Africa, we have the Songhai Empire, which was largely Muslim and very, very rich, thanks to its gold reserves, making it the largest of the African powers at the time. Then we have the Kingdom of Congo, which neighbours in Dongo in Central Africa, a region which is largely ruled through this kind of hierarchy system of provinces and subordinate rulers, including Ingenka's family. Then in northeast Africa, we have the Christian Ethiopian Empire, competing.

with Muslim states, while North Africa embraced the Islamic religion, thanks to increased dominance from Muslim kingdoms and the Ottoman Empire. We then come over to the East Coast, and this was made up largely of wealthy Swali trading cities such as Mambasa, who facilitated trade with Arabia and India. So a really big mix of different religions and cultures and languages and economies, and of course, many, many other smaller communities and tribes who make up the wider African kingdoms, which can be a lot to process, guys. I will say researching this. I was like, oh my gosh, this is so rich and gorgeous and incredible and amazing, but kind of hard to piece together. So I just think of it as like a big patchwork, right, of different states and societies,

all of whom are connected by three enormous commercial worlds, thanks to their access to the Mediterranean, the Trans-Saharan trade system, and the Indian Ocean. But a fourth avenue was rapidly emerging at this time, the Atlantic trade system, which is where we come back to Njinga and Ndongo. So Ndongo is made up of a number of political territories that were independently ruled by Sobars, who are similar in many ways to kind of lords and nobleman, and guys, excuse the Western references here, it's just kind of like the easiest way to communicate the structures here. And all of these people reported to the Angola, who was the ruler or,

King. Now, he was supported by a group of advisors, administrators and religious authorities who helped govern the kingdom, including the Makota, a council of senior nobles and the Tandala, who was kind of like a chief of staff, I guess, is the most kind of modern comparison. So, this system of governance is really quite political and it has to be, because by 1617, Ndongo was one of the biggest and most powerful kingdoms in Central Africa, with historians estimating that the population could have been up to 200,000 people. For the most part, these citizens were relatively free to live normal lives. They farmed the land for corn and cotton. They raised livestock such as pigs and goats, and worked as artisans and blacksmiths. But there were some groups in Andongo society who were

not free. Similar to serfs in many ways who were tied to the land and landowners where they worked, these were peoples who were captured during battles and essentially treated as slaves under the authority of the Ngola, who, if you haven't already guessed, is Injenga's father, Mbandi are Angola Kilwanji, who ruled Ndongo from 1592 onwards when Injinga was about 10 to 12 years old. So our diva is a princess, right, whose mother, Kengela Kananabe gave birth to the young girl rather precariously, with her name deriving from the Kimbundu word Kunjinga, which loosely translates to twist. Because when Njinga was actually born, her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck, something which was seen by the spiritual leaders of the tribe as a bad omen.

But not everyone believed this. As we said before, right, Christianity and Islam are sweeping through parts of Africa. And one capuchin missionary named Antonio Kovasi believed that the umbilical wrapping around her throat was actually a symbol of great resistance and survival, something which Njinga would need if she was going to make it to adulthood. You see, despite okay being basically royalty, life for Njinga and her four known siblings wasn't easy. In fact, it was actually plagued by a lot of rivalry. As the favourite of her father, who professor and historian Linda Haywood says garnered respect from and instilled fear in enemies and followers alike,

and Jenga was the golden girl. Okay, she has at this point all of her father's kind of affection, and attention, and love and respect, something which pissed off her brother Mbanty. So there's quite a lot of tension, right, happening within the royal family here. But that is nothing compared to what is going on outside of Andon. For at this point in time, there was a trade so lucrative and so far-reaching that it laid

the foundations for many of the economic powers we know today. That was slavery. Now, this was hardly a new phenomenon by the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In fact, slavery has had many, many iterations throughout time from ancient Mesopotamia to Egypt. I mean, the Bible, right, is littered with examples of slavery, which mainly involve slaves being taken as prisoners after they were captured in war, forming the backbone of many powerful empires as kind of a normal part of daily life. Some were laborers, for example, in Egypt where we know slaves worked in mines, some as household staff like we see in ancient Greece, and others

as working members of society and the army, like in ancient Rome, which really relied heavily on slavery during military campaigns across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. And, I mean, Not that it's necessarily relevant here, but I do love a little bit of debunking, a little fun fact for your Friday. So for many years, people actually believe that slaves built the pyramids. But historians now believe that they were, in fact, mainly built by paid laborers and skilled craftsmen who worked when the Nile flooded and farming was temporarily impossible. Although, if you watch like the History Channel after 11 p.m., they'll tell you it's aliens. But this is all the ancient world, right? primarily BC. So how has slavery evolved since then?

Well, by the time the 16th century rolled around and Njinka was born, European nations began exploring and colonizing the Americas, with Portugal and Spain establishing colonies that required enormous amounts of labor to grow things like sugar, tobacco and other valuable crops for trade and export. So who then did all of this work, right? Well, of course it was the indigenous populations. However, as a result of their colonization, which brought things like disease and warfare and kind of the very force labor they depended on,

a lot of the indigenous populations dramatically decreased, creating a severe labor shortage. So what now? Right? Like these people have ravaged kind of the indigenous native population. They've largely ravished a lot of the land. So who is going to work for the profits of this enormous enterprise that we've brought to these nations? Well, for this, they turned their wandering, greedy, colonial eyes to West Africa, opening up the Atlantic Avenue we spoke about earlier.

Now, at first, so kind of in its origins, right, it really was as horrific as this kind of sounds, a trade, right, with Portuguese trading silks, mirrors and jewelry in exchange for people. But that only lasted for so long. And eventually these first slavers began just taking people from their homes. They pillaged villages, forced men, women and children. into cooperation through intimidation, using new world weapons such as crossbows and large swords, terrorizing locals by, like, as I was reading this, apparently one of their key tactics was cutting off people's noses as they kind of hop from village to village, something which ultimately

became the foundation of the largest force migration in human history, the transatlantic slave trade. This was a system which went on for 400 years, with an estimated 12 million Africans being forcibly taken from their families and their homes, loaded onto overpacked ships to face the Middle Passage, aka the fierce Atlantic Ocean, where again these men and women and children are all packed tightly below deck with little food, water or sanitation and sometimes often shackled in place. Under these kinds of conditions, disease spreads like wildfire. And many people die before ever reaching their destination, with their bodies, these kind of like rotting corpses, right? Simply being dumped overboard, not even having a chance to sink to the depths of the ocean

before being eaten by sharks, who even learned to follow Portuguese slave ships. That's how many corpses were being thrown overboard, how many people were dying on these journeys, with the These sharks changing their native habits and migration patterns as a result. On this, Dutch merchant William Bowsman rode, when dead slaves are thrown overboard, I have sometimes not without horror, seen the dismal rapaciousness of these animals. Four or five of them together shoot to the bottom under the ship

to tear the dead corpse to pieces. So, in short, absolutely fucking horrendous, right? like this has been such a heavy few weeks of research and I struggle to communicate it to you guys because there are genuinely no words to kind of sum this up beyond like evil and and insidious and like devilry right especially when we are talking to describe the institution of slavery particularly the transatlantic slave trade with and like this is genuinely terrible to say but like if we're being honest those that died on board were the lucky ones because for the people who then reached the Americas they were sold at slave markets separated from their families their names

their heritage like any kind of human decency and forced to work on plantations in horrific conditions for nothing while creating the enormous wealth for European empires and later the United States, all of which was built on the back of millions of enslaved Africans who were considered inferior for their race and their heritage and their value as human beings. Something which has gone on to shape societies throughout the America's end, the world, leaving enormous, long-lasting social and economic inequalities the continuous, the continue to influence the world we live in today. I mean, just look at the US here. That's before we even turn our heads over the pond right to the fucking Brits.

Because America, by the early 1800s, had millions of enslaved African Americans, which the South's economy relied on, eventually then, leading to the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, which like, great. But still, it doesn't really matter, right? The damage, the impact, the altering of not only like a basic human decency in what we as kind of a species consider okay, but the tectonic foundations of society changing forever. Because even after, right, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery, you've still got segregation. Jim Crow, hate crimes, racially motivated attacks now in person and online, which often seep into the highest systems of government and enforcement.

So this is a systematic problem, right? And that's before we even get to modern slavery. Because if you thought it kind of ended here with the signing of, you know, the 13th Amendment, you are very much mistaken because slavery, especially of women, still exist today in the form of human trafficking and forced labor. All of which, again, is influenced by the precedent that the transatlantic slave trade in particular, not saying, you know, everything or all other kinds of slavery didn't, but But largely this kind of was the key catalyst for persistent economic inequality,

systematic racism and social divisions which impact our world to this very day. And Injinga is born smack bang in the middle of where the Portuguese are currently hauling millions of people and resources from the African coast. Which does beg the question here, guys, how they even end up here in the first place. And it is a good question and one which, I like, again, this has been a really hard and also fascinating few weeks because we never covered the transatlantic slave trade in school. Like, I was texting my friends this week being like, hey, is it just me or did, like, do any of you remember this? I was texting people from, like,

other states. I don't know if this is just an Australian thing. I'd love to hear from you guys. If you are listening internationally, comment below if you do learn about this. But we don't really cover it, let alone kind of its early origin. So, like I said, it's been, um, a really large learning experience for me personally. So we are going to have to rewind again, and I am aware we are kind of jumping around with timelines this episode, but I think it's all such important context. So let's go to 1575. So at this point, around 10 years before Injinka is born when the Portuguese under explorer and colonizer, Paolo Dias de Novig's first established a base at Lewanda Island. Now, Paolo, who has a great villain name, our

Lizzie McGuire movie, originally cooperated with the Angola of the time who was in Jinga's grandfather. But just like Paolo from Lizzie McGuire movie, he was also a traitor. You see, at first, he's all obliging. Right? He's like, hey guys, how are you? I've got these, you know, amazing mercenaries. I'd love to send them to kind of serving your army. I want to keep you safe. Right? You're going to be secure from kind of neighboring kingdoms and Muslims and the boogeyman. and, you know, because we're allies like, I've got your back. But guess what? He did not have their back, for he too was speaking in the tongue of evil autotune,

because these mercenaries were actually spies, sent deep into Andongas territory to report on access to trade, resources, and population for slavery. Leading to outright war between the Ndongos and these troops, with Portugal then sending additional soldiers who attempted to push inland into the very heart of Andongos. territory. But they tried and failed, with Andongos fighting prowess pushing the invaders back. However, they couldn't quite get rid of them. In fact, another African state actually came to the rescue here, with the Northern Kingdom of Congo, like coming in at the last minute, you know, kind of allowing the Portuguese to set up a base on the Kwanza, which was a huge fort used for

the mass capture and enslavement of people from the African interior, who were then, I think, largely sent to Brazil, if that's correct. This is an incredibly precarious time for Inginga's father, who, seeing a situation which could only escalate further, insisted on his young favourite daughter's education. Learning oration, geography, and most importantly, honing her physical prowess, and Jenga excelled throughout her career, being strong, fast and having a talent for tactics, which made the army her favourite place to hang out. From hand-to-hand combat to weaponry and strategy, Nginga trained with and against her father's finest soldiers, attending war councils, going to state rituals, and ultimately gaining the respect of her entire kingdom,

something which she used to her utmost advantage by hand-selecting the finest concubines for herself. That is right, my dee, is our gal is out here, like kind of having a hot girl summer in Dongo, right? with her favourite concubine being a man named Kea Atoshi, who she fell pregnant by and shortly gave birth to his son. But despite this moment of personal joy, Njinga and indeed Ndongo more widely, cannot celebrate for long because her father, Mbondekwanji, dies in 1617. This is an event that completely destabilises the region,

with a succession crisis breaking out amongst his children, speaking of which we should probably touch on kind of who they are. So as we know, we have Njinga, obviously, but we also have her two sisters, Kambu and Fungi. And then we have her two brothers, okay? One, a stepbrother. His name is Kilwanji, and the other is her full brother, who've already spoken about before, Mbante. Now, even though Kilwanji is older and his mother was the Angola's main wife. Bande, in all of his kind of self-glory, believed it was he who should rule

and went to bloody and brutal ways to ensure that was the case. Firstly, and probably most obviously here, he kills Kilwanji and anyone in his father's court who stood in his way. Then he killed the rest of his male relatives, including Injinga's infant son, a baby. If you think that's the worst of it, hold on, because he then goes and sterilises his

sisters, including Injinga, to prevent any future challenges to his throne. So this guy is fucked up, right? Like a proper psychopathic joker, Lex Luthor, ginger-haired little fuck from the impossibles level of villain, okay, who was in no way, shape or form equipped to rule. Something which became pretty dire, because the Portuguese are taking every chance they can to seize Ndongo in the wake of Kilwanji's death. Bending together with a group of fierce warriors for hire called the Imbangala, who are revered at this point, guys, for their fighting skill and guerrilla warfare,

the Portuguese pushed and pushed and pushed on Ndongo's border. Now, I want a caveat. We don't know a lot about Njinga's life kind of during this period, but we do know that Ndongo was under such serious threat, because in 1622, she does the unthinkable, takes a job working for her brother. Yeah. The motherfucker who killed her child and sterilized her sisters and herself, and was now running her kingdom into the ground, exposing her people to the banalities of slavery.

So she's like, look, I got a step in here, okay? Let me do something. And she kind of goes, all right, I'm going to pack up and I'm going to ship out for a 300 kilometer, or for my non-Ozi Divas, 200-mile journey, to go and chat with the Portuguese at their headquarters in Luanda. Yeah, she's got balls. Like, I find Njinga such an incredible, fascinating kind of look at leadership, because at this point, she just decides she's had enough, right? The, like, in Bengalis are there, the Portuguese are constantly down her throat, and as such, she meets with officers to negotiate for her region's protection.

something which I'm sure you can imagine tickled them all pink. I mean, like to them in general, the sight of a woman full stop, let alone a native woman coming into their camp and demanding to negotiate was a dead set, full-blown, starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum comedy. But Njinga used all of this to her advantage. You see, through their racism and misogyny, they saw her as no real threat. someone to be easily subdued, turned away and put in her place. So they invite her in and decide to kind of make, you know, a bit of a message out of this

by bringing her into the tent and kind of humiliating her, with all of the men present pulling up a chair and sitting, leaving nothing out for Injinga but a straw mat on the floor, which they point for her to sit. The obvious inference here, we are the colonizers, you are the colonized. But Njinga refused to acknowledge both their prejudice and her like internal, like, outrage and, you know, kind of anger here, remaining calm and instead snapping her fingers, ordering one of her attendants to get on his hands and knees before walking over, turning around and sitting on his back, effectively using him as a human chair.

Now, as you can imagine, everyone in the room falls down. head silent. Okay, as she stares each and every single one of them down, decked out in head to toe traditional clothing with layers of rich cloth and kind of beads and jewelry and like precious gems, which is this absolute stark comparison to like anything that any of these Europeans are wearing. So our gal really knows how to assert her dominance here, okay, using this whole kind of seating fiasco as the ultimate middle finger. Not only showing her enemy she had full control in this, But she now also sat, this is my favourite detail, several inches above each of them, shocking those present so much that they wrote it down,

which is the very first time and Jenga and Bandai is recorded in the history books, which really makes her in this kind of situation the perfect example of why women only occupy 0.5% of the historical record, okay? Because we only get included if we piss men off enough that they actually write it down. So to my divas, you keep up the good work. You know, we have needles to nudge and many, many men to piss off to level those scales. So clap, clap, clap. So after the human chair fiasco, what goes on with these negotiations? Well, Njinga, because she's a smart, confident, clear and concise queen,

tells them that she wants peace between Ndongo and Portugal, who will remove themselves from her borders, return slaves from her region, and basically, like, get the fuck out of Ndongo's affairs. Right? Pretty basic. The Portuguese, though, turn their noses up at this. After all, you know, they're just going to keep on dragging people out of their border towns if there's nothing in this for them. So what are they asking for? Well, firstly, they wanted an annual tribute of slaves from the region, which Njinga rejects, instead offering something else to the colonising force. Her religion. You see, the Portuguese are Christians, Catholics, to be specific, and after staying with a family of a prominent Portuguese official during this season, visit, Njinga became besties with his wife, a woman named Anna De Silva, who was deeply Christian

and kind of recommends to Njinga, you know, as part of her negotiations if she is baptized into the Catholic faith, assuming the Christian name of Anna de Sousa, these negotiations could, you know, kind of go smoother and probably be one. This, for the political savvy Njinga, seemed like a pretty decent price to pay. After all, what is faith but what's held in our hearts? And if the Portuguese kind of wanted it to put on this show, then like, whatever, she's going to do it. So, there, at the camp, Njinga is baptized, with Anna De Silva and her husband becoming her godparents, which turned out to become this kind of real turning point for these negotiations, with the Portuguese signing a treaty with Njinga on behalf of her brother and the people of Ndongo for peace.

Now, you may be thinking, you know, this seems just just, all too easy. And in this, you would be right, because there was another condition to this piece. For in exchange for the Portuguese staying away from Andongo, Njinga condemned her neighbouring states as new slave supply zones. Now, a lot is said about Njinga's involvement within the slave trade itself, both like in this instant with the Portuguese here and kind of throughout her life more broadly, with estimates that she facilitated the trade of more than 200,000 enslaved peoples from surrounding lands. So this argument, like, it isn't without merit, right? That's a big fucking number, which, of course, is devastating. And as we have all well and truly established

right now, and just because we're normal fucking human beings, right? Slavery, abysmal, abhorrent, never should have happened with history and humanity being all the bloody because of it. Like, I don't feel like I really even need to caveat this, but I'm just re-enacted. forcing. But during Inginga's time, slavery was neither illegal nor abnormal. In fact, the first public sale of African slaves occurred in Laos, Portugal, 178 years before Inginga landed in the history books, and would remain legal in Britain for another 211 years after, and as we already covered, in America, for another 243. So while again, this argument for Inginga's involvement within the slave trade is not a wrong one, I do think it's important to unhinger's important to

understand that at this point in history, slavery was an unavoidable fact of life, making the abolition movement as equally kind of improbable as impossible. Plus, let's be so fucking for real, right? Like, blaming In Jenga a 16th century African woman for the product of European colonizers, and assigning her equal, or if not more blame for this product, is pretty fucked up, especially because in this instance, Njinga's best chance of saving her people was to reposition Ndongo as an intermediary to slavery rather than a supply zone for it, which is exactly what she did with this treaty. Something which made her realize she was fucking done with her psycho-loser, freaky freak of her brother, okay? And as such,

returns to Ndongo a changed woman. A woman with purpose as clear as the diamonds pulled from her kingdom's hills, that Mbonday had to go. Something, which I'm sure had like absolutely nothing to do with his total kind of unsuspicious suicide by poisoning in 1624. Like, I just can't imagine what's happened here. Terrible. Right? Like, I just can't believe it, but it's all good because, you know, Njinga's here. She's alive. She's the heir. And she becomes queen of Andongo, after which one, one, of her first decisions is to kill Mbundi's seven-year-old son as revenge for her own child. So a very much like Hazel the Dragon, son for a son, eye for an eye kind of situation here.

But there was a problem. The boy was actually away training with the in Bengalis and living with their chief, a man named Kasa. So to get to the boy to kind of, you know, write the wrongs, and Jenga decides to fake marry this man, inviting her nephew to the ceremony where she has him murdered and thrown into a nearby river in front of all the wedding guests. So again, it's very like game of throne. It's very red wedding actually, right? An act which obviously pisses off this guy like Kasa and the Imbangalas who call off the wedding and kind of, you know, kick and jinger out. But guys, she's fine, right?

She's queen. Her dead baby has been avenged and her throne is secured. So she's ready to get shit done without these. man. She's like, whatever. And she does this ASAP, electing her two sisters as her council, after which she reoccupies territory, makes alliances with fringe tribes, and begins disrupting the slave markets into it, Dongo by blocking off roads, something which, as you can imagine, royally pissed off the Portuguese, who were not only losing money at this point, but also, and this is one of my favorite fucking details in this, I hate the Portuguese so much. Love your

chicken, but you're all fucked in this instance, right? They are also losing their enslaved soldiers who joined Ndongo's army after Njigga I convinced them all to rebel. So she's stirring the pot, right? And definitely has the upper hand here, Devas. So the Portuguese then decide to do what the Portuguese do best, besides chicken. They waged war in 1626, firing on Njinga's army and absolutely annihilating it. Yeah, you see, despite Inginga's strategic mind and knowledge of the land you'd

grown up on, it really is no match when the Portuguese have firearms and muskets. After all, let us not forget, this is the age of gunpowder weapons, and despite our diva, like literally coming out on the battlefield and slaying people down with her battle axe, it's no match when the Portuguese can fire people down from 50 metres away, right? Which leaves in Jenga no choice other than to flee with her life, during which time the Portuguese kind of staged this big, like, dramatic coup d'etat promoting one of Njinga's internal enemies who acts as a puppet ruler, allowing the Portuguese to open Ndongo back up as a slave centre. Now, you may be sitting there thinking, that's kind of cowardly for this queen to abandon her kingdom in this time, but I want to remind you guys

of something. Njinga and Bande is a woman. Okay, a very, very special. smart woman at that, one who recognised that being caught between a rock and a hard place would mean certain death for her. And so she decides to flee with as many of her people as possible, rather than making a foolish stand on the back of her ego, something which plenty of her male predecessors had done before her. And again, like, this wasn't an easy decision for her by any means. She absolutely loses face by doing this, but she understands at her core, and it's what makes her such a good ruler and so smart that the only way for her to save her kingdom is if she's actually alive to do it. So after she kind of makes this decision, I'm going to flee,

you know, I'll come back and fight at a later day. She abandons her bases at the Condonga Islands where, according to historians, Emily Anne Jordan and Jonathan Jordan, she and about a hundred of her guards became kind of surrounded by the Portuguese on one side and then trapped by a cliff face on the other, where she then uses vines to basically like climb down this cliff face to escape. Very, um, like Indiana Jones. Okay. So this is a woman who is determined to survive. But how? What's she going to do? Where can she go? After all, the Portuguese are now hunting her. So she's pretty desperate. So much so that she turns back to a former friend slash foe, the in Bengalis. Yep, my divas.

these guys come up, like, I just pop up all the time. And when I was researching this, they remind me very much, if anyone's seen Black Panther of the Jabari. They're like up in the mountains, incredibly skilled. They kind of got beef with some people. And to be honest, the whole kind of plot of Black Panther one where the Royal Family have to go up to the Jabari for help is kind of similar to Injinga here, who really has to, you know, kind of approach the big in Bengala himself. Chief Cassanjay, whose army at this point is 80,000 warriors strong and be like, hey. When West Jet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked,

the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to Westjetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. Can you help? Now, at first, and I think this is pretty fair, right? He's wary. He's like, hi, who have you come to murder this time? But after some diplomacy, strategy and light flirting,

he agrees to forge an alliance against the Portuguese, but only if she marries him. Which like, ugh, fucking eye roll guys, this diva doesn't want to marry any of you. Okay, she just wants to save her people. But again, rock, hard place. So she agrees doing what she does best. Adapt. Something which, and like a bit of analysis coming up here, my div is so strap in, right?

Something which has been interpreted in a number of different ways by different historians of different races at different times. Because essentially to become an Imbengala queen, it is said that Njinga and Bandai had to participate in certain sacraments, which include things like human sacrifice, cannibalism, and a blood oath, aka the literal drinking of human blood. Now, I want to be really clear. There is like a big fat donut, right? Zero evidence of this ever happening. And there wouldn't be, right?

Again, we're up in the, like this mountain tribe in the 16th century. They're not necessarily recording, like, who's drinking, who's blood or whatever. But someone is recording what. going on at the time. The Portuguese, who have every reason right now to portray it and ginger, not only in a negative light, but motivated by their racial prejudice as a savage, a monster. Yeah? Someone who would, and these are actual examples, okay, crush a baby with a pestle and rubbets remains over her body, eat human hearts la DeNaris Dothraki, and drink human blood from a fresh skull. Just let that sink in. Now, again, want to reinforce. All of this

unconfirmed, okay? And just like simply stinking of racist, sexist Portuguese propaganda, with the marquee to say, describing her as, quote, a woman driven to evil by passion. There's also throughout a lot of the reporting that deals with in Jingar, mentioning of her strength and skill in battle, of which there is no doubt. But instead of, you know, kind of at admiring these and it being kind of this positive thing, it's chalked up to her savagery, with Western accounts marking her sexuality, alleged cannibalism, and brutality as a direct symptom of her race. And that's before we get to the plain old misogynists, okay, who American historian Linda Haywood tells us describe Njinga's kingdom as, quote,

a barren, unfurtile land that had eventually collapsed due to her usurping the natural order of things. Something which, one, totally untrue. And two, I think like, it's actually quite a modern thing to say in many ways. Like it pulls on a lot of the kind of in-cell, red pill, misogynistic kind of handbook, right? Where the world is apocalyptic, it's on fire, it's barren, it's cursed, because women aren't doing their rightful job. Which, like, if we go even further back, guys, it's very like full of man, right? Eve's in the garden, she kind of sins and steps out of line and she's thrown out into the barren world. Pandora as well, kind of the opening of this curse box for which men must pay the consequences. And again, you know, very, very literal comparisons here

in terms of Jinga's barren kingdom and barren land and her own barren womb after she's sterilized. So really clear prejudices in the historical reporting here, which are, again, factually incorrect and plain as day. Something which is really important to mention when talking about Njinga and any woman throughout history, to be honest, especially women of colour. So when we are covering women on this pod in your own lives, kind of doing your own research, you know, you're going to make sure you've got kind of your prejudice, like, searching a hat on or whatever, because yeah, it does require kind of a deeper level of analysis to pick the bullshit. But alas, I digress, guys. For Njinga did officially become part of the Mbangala tribe at this point in time, which she commanded to invade

Matamba, a neighbouring city-state founded at some point in the early 16th century and known for two things. Firstly, its military strength and secondly, its history of female rulers, making it the perfect place for Njinga to re-establish her position in 1631. So, Deva's just to check in here, right, through many a sacrifice, including leaving her homeland and like marrying this guy, Njinga has bounced back. Now becoming queen of Matamba, who commands an army of 100,000 warriors. So it's like Deneres with the Unsullied, right? She's like doubled her army, basically. Now re-established and reprotected, Njinga decides to do things a little differently than she did in the early years in Andongo.

Instead, opening Matumba as a sanctuary to runaway slaves and Portuguese military defectors alike, strengthening both the population and the military, which she reorganised into a system called Colombo, which as kind of like militarised, armed boy scouts, where youths are kind of raised in communal militia, where they develop skills and camaraderie and nationalism and are all kind of made loyal to their queen. But more than military strength and becoming a safe haven, and Jinka realized the only real way to get Ndongo back, okay? The only real way to free her people, which, FYI haven't even mentioned this,

also includes her two sisters who are being held captive by the Portuguese, was to beat these motherfuckers at the thing they understood and revered and wanted most in the world. Money. Okay. Having navigated the peripheries of the slave trade, and with a strong numeric literacy, Nginga manages to transform Matamba into an elite trading power by capitalizing on its position as a gateway to the Central African Interior.

Here, she facilitates the trade of slaves, resources and her mercenary forces, all while launching guerrilla attacks on the Portuguese in her homeland, many of which she personally led with the In Bangalas by her side. So at this point, Njinga is going about building her economy, okay? She's hot-smart, reaching it up, but she's still without her sisters and feeling the effects of their absence in her life. But, and like, if you think Njinga is not well covered, these sisters, like almost totally forgotten, and I'm obsessed with them, okay? They are not simpering ladies in all of this, like kind of cowering in the corner behind the Portuguese, okay? They are princesses of Ndongo, sisters of a queen.

So even in their imprisonment, they're aiding the war effort for their nation by becoming spies. Sexy, obsessed. Okay, pretending they're extremely devout Catholics that enjoy praying. Fungi and Kambu begin eavesdropping on officers who reveal that the Portuguese forces ain't doing so well. Information they managed to smuggle out to their sister in Matamba, who said, smells opportunity and a side of hairy. Oh wait, no, that's not actually what she smells. That's just the Dutch who have landed in Luwanda. Now, for my F1 fans, insert Max Verstappan Audio key. And for my history fans, insert the Dutch West India Company. Now, for context at this

point, okay, the Portuguese have really had the African slave trade cornered for nearly a century. But now, in 1641, Britain, the Netherlands and France want in. Which is exactly why the Dutch West India Company pulled up on the Wondon shores looking not only for slaves, but for access, which would allow them to capture the single most important transatlantic trade post at the time, something which would end up ferrying an estimated 2.8 million Africans per year across the Atlantic during the height of the trade, not to mention, of course, as well, kind of the countless natural resources that are pouring out of the region during this time. So the Dutch will want this place pretty badly. Okay, badly enough to bring very big guns and very big cannons and very big energy

to all but obliterate the exhausted Portuguese stronghold in Africa, giving them and Njinga, a common enemy. Now, you may be thinking, and rightfully so, hang on, didn't you just say like they're here for slaves? So why would Njinga want to work with them? And it is true. That is what they're there for. But largely, that's all they're there for.

Because unlike the Portuguese, the Dutch have no real interest in conquering or colonising Africa. Not obviously that this makes it, like, in any way, shape or form or rightly better. but in Njinga's mind, the Dutch are the lesser of the two evils. Okay, so she decides to make a deal with the devil and joins the Dutch campaign against the Portuguese in a series of wildly successful conflicts between 1641 and 1648.

Now, during this time, Njinga and the Dutch all but drive the Portuguese out of the country, but these motherfuckers are slippery. Okay, they're always like escaping or popping up somewhere else with a major victory for them occurring in 1646, which forced Njinga to flee her war camp where they find Fungi's letters and decide to punish the Andongo Princess by drowning her in a river, something which gets back to Injinga who loses her fucking mind. And when I say that, guys, I'm not talking about like a temper tantrum, like big man flipping a table

or Regina George kind of, you know, scream and spit the dummy kind of reaction. I am talking about something far scarier. This was a cold, calculated, driven, assassin-level focus to now fuck shit up. Okay? Again, bringing back Game of Thrones. Think DeNaris when Mascades' head got lobbed off. Dracarus is currently all she's thinking about. So she kind of goes back to the Dutch at this point and is like, guys, what do we need to do to close this thing off, right?

What do you need for me? Here's what I need for you. Let's get this done. So yet another negotiation occurs here where the Dutch are like, look, like if you want this done quicker, we can give you soldiers, we can give you guns, but in return, we want access to the Portuguese slave trade network without any interference or word from you. And Jenga in return, like she's over at this point, right? She's like, fine, whatever, but I want two things in return. One, I want us to take Fort Massengano ASAP, which is where her sister's kind of being held. And two, I want you and all of your forces to recognize me as king. Yes, my deathers, you did hear that right despite the new mic.

And Jenga didn't want to be seen as a princess or a queen, but an equal. Someone whose authority was absolute. Because in all of this process, kind of the fighting and the fleeing and the strategy and the alliances and the death of her sister, and Jenga Mbande transformed herself into the woman king, which is exactly how she wanted to be recognised, and I think anyway, to be remembered. Whether this was because she'd kind of faced all of this and it was very transformative, or she started to maybe, you know, face obstacles within her state for being a woman, or perhaps she's just like a non-binary diva. And Jenga begins dressing like a matumban king. Okay, decked out in traditional dress and armour. She's also kind of

taking male and female concubines. My favourite, she marries multiple husbands who she then makes fight for the honour of sleeping with her and began insisting on being referred to always as king. She even made one of her husbands dress in woman's clothing and demand he be referred to as queen just to drive the point home here. At this time, she also, including her involvement within the army, training extensively after the death of her sister and kind of, you know, riding into battle with her troops, evading all manner of threats and plots and raids and kind of assassins, right, attempts upon her life from enemy tribes and the Portuguese alike. So she's ready and primed for a fight and really seals this Dutch treaty with a kiss

by throwing in one last item for the fine print, that she will be, from this moment forward, the independent ruler of both Matamba and Ndongo. So she's going for the full clean slate here, Devas. She's like, I'm not given up this, you know, incredible place that I've like, this is my territory, Matamba, but I also want my homeland back. And let this be an example that if you're in contract negotiations or something like that and you're kind of like, oh, you know, I don't want to be greedy.

Look, I can't ask for that. And Jenga did. So you should just fucking take it, okay? The Dutch agree to this. And, you know, they kind of sign this treaty after which, and Jenga's like, let's lock the fuck in. We're going to start planning this campaign to get my sister back. Now, at this point, after this signing,

this kind of looks in the back, right? Like, obviously, she still needs to go and win the battle. But she's kind of set up for success. she's got a plan and initially this is all looking good. However, in 1648, with her transition to woman king fully established and the plans for taking the fort, like really kind of being finalised in the last stages, the Dutch pull out of the endeavour, moving their forces to Luanda to protect the port, which the Portuguese desperately wanted back. Like this is a big commodity, right? So much so they send a massive army from Lisbon, which the Dutch kind of like have no choice but to defend against,

which like, whatever, I guess, like, why can't you, why can't both of you fuck off, right? And also, why can't this diva just get her sister back? Like, she's annoyed by this point. I'm fucking pissed off, right, this whole time. And she's just, like, at her wits end, willing to do whatever she needs to do, including turning her back on the Dutch and negotiating directly with the Portuguese. Well, to actually be specific in this instant, actually negotiating with the Catholic Church, which, FYI Divas, strap back in here if you took your seatbelt off, put it back on.

Because when I was researching this, I was like, fucking of course this happened. But in my brain, which like really just in my private school, like Christian brainwashing, right? I was like, oh, this can't possibly be true, but it is. So, in 1654, the Portuguese sent a Catholic envoy to basically negotiate with Injinga specifically for her sister's release. So not a land negotiation or a military alliance, really more like a ransom here, which hinged on two key things. One, the whole of Injinga's kingdom, so Matamba and Ndongo, would convert to Christianity. And two, she would give the Portuguese 200 slaves. Now, again, and I think it's an important conversation to have Njinga's involvement with the slave trade

comes up here, right? But people in glasshouses should not throw stones, okay? Because for all of the criticism of Injinga's actions within the slave trade, we very, very seldom hear analysis about the Catholic Church's involvement in the slave trade, which historian Dr Kelly Carter Jackson says, quote, the Catholic Church is very much complicit in slave trade. You know, we haven't had nuanced conversations about how much the church plays a role in the slave trade and how much the wealth of the slave trade is building up the church. And that is bang on here, guys. Like this is a really, the more of us digging into it, like a really complicated relationship historically, which rarely gets pulled out. So I'm going to put my gloves on today and yank at that bitch, okay?

Now, I am not saying and no one would say that the Catholic Church is responsible for creating slavery, right? We already said at the top. Slavery existed in many societies before European Atlantic expansion, but Catholic institutions and leaders legitimized and participated in and benefited from systems of enslavement throughout the entire transatlantic slave trade. For example, like beyond this specific one, right, in the 15th century, so before this, papal documents such as 14, 52's Dumbdaversus and 1455's Romanus pontifix gave Portugal the first kind of religious justification it needed to quote, conquer non-Christian peoples and reduce enemies to slavery in certain situations. Then, if we come back to the Injinga example here, right, we know the

church sends missionaries, whose aim it is to convert as many people as possible within these African regions to Christianity. Something which also came, as we see, with these religious figures negotiating for slaves, with some Catholic institutions even owning their own enslaved peoples, or at the very, very least, like the bare minimum in this kind of arrangement, benefiting economically because of the trades that they facilitated. The devastating irony of which is that the church, Right? preached Christian equality and salvation, while actively operating within and benefiting from societies that treated millions of Africans as property. This, of course, right, and it's like some, not all, yeah, in any situation, was condemned by some figures within the church who did

eventually go on to support abolition, but the fact remains, and again is actually seldom spoken about, that conversion to Christianity became deeply interconnected with European imperial expansion and the slave trade which came from it. And I just like, I find it such a hypocrisy that anyone can look at the life of Injinga and Bandai and assign her the same or a similar level of guilt and complicity to the Portuguese and the church in this case when she herself and her people are a victim of this institution. Like, it's just dripping in racial and misogynistic and Christian bias, like, blah, gross. Especially because Injinga actually says no to giving these 200 slaves, okay? But she does, however, concede on the kind of like Christian element, right? She

lets churches be starting to set up missionaries into her regions and she does start baptizing her people, even writing to the Pope herself about these actions, something which the Portuguese at the direction of these missionaries decide to release her sister for, allowing the pair to finally be reunited. Speaking of which, before we move on, I really want to recommend to you guys, because I love a recommendation. You know this, that if you're wanting more on this story, you should definitely go and watch the Netflix docu-series called African Queens. There is a whole kind of episode here on Njinga, and it really looks at her relationship with her sisters, what makes her tick, It chats about a lot of the kind of bias and prejudice in her reporting.

And I do think it's really important to hear from Angolan's when speaking about Njonga. It's kind of made by Angolans here because it's all well and good, right, for me to come and talk to you about this. And obviously we're going to because she's hot and it's history. But this is an Angolan story. So you should hear from the people directly. And I will link the information for that in the show. notes for you as well. I highly, highly recommend. Now, coming back to our timeline, let's look at where we are. So, as we said, Njinga and her sister are reunited and they're kind of staying

relatively out of trouble, which I do say with a grain of salt, because Njinga is still personally leading raids on Portuguese camps at this point in her life, despite and hold on to your hats here, Divas, being in her 60s. Like, just incredible, I could not love this woman more. she's so amazing, right? Something which eventually saw the Portuguese, like, forced to sue for peace in 1657, after yet another lengthy negotiation, without any human chairs, the basis of which was endongo being delineated and Jenga being reinstated as its ruler, while also being recognised as woman king of both Matamba and her homeland. Something, which had ultimately taken many years and many innocent, and not so innocent lives, to achieve.

making Inginga and Bande the first female African leader to be recognized by any colonizing force in history. Successfully, having kept both kingdoms independent from Portuguese control, Njinga upheld her end of the bargain, disbanding the fearsome in Bengala warriors who kind of return home to the mountains, she herself converting fully to Christianity, and as we said, allowing missionaries into her territory, something which she recognized as really essential, and kind of playing this game of Thrones, I guess, if you will. Which, like, really, when we look at her life, and again, I know I've kind of like glazed her a bit and been like she's such an incredible ruler, but she is. Because the key thing we see within Jenga is that she recognizes very early on, this is given take.

She's never foolish enough to just, like, demand outright peace and sacrifices many personal protections and freedoms in the process of kind of the greater good or the best version. of good, not to mention her ego which rarely got in the way of her decisions. And so, these final years of the warrior queen's life were pretty full ones, as she continued to defend her borders, push for economic expansion, and fight for the rights of women to lead, naming her sister as heir to the kingdom, which came into being in 1663 when in Jenga and Bande, the woman king died peacefully in her bed at a whopping 81 years old. passing into legend as the ultimate leader, warrior and diplomat, whose life paved the way for four other African queens to rule after her. So, like an absolutely incredible life, right? And,

not to mention a huge innings, 81 years old in the 17th century, like, wow, incredible. Something which she is still remembered and praised for alongside obviously her life heroism and military skill today, with her kind of life story being passed down by both descendants still in Angola today and those of enslaved people who were abducted from the regions, so kind of these slaves that were taken, primarily Afro-Brailians who celebrate Queen Injinga at the Rio Carnival every year. Her impact is also still felt in modern politics in Angola, with Inginga becoming a symbol of the Angolan independence movement in the 60s and 70s,

who claimed her as their national hero, erecting a five-meter-tall bronze statue of the queen which stands in the wonder today. Really becoming, you know, this true testament to the woman who fought against colonization, sexism, gender norms, and the enslavement of her people. Breaking just about every rule in every book, paving a history that even 360 years after her death remains as empowering and inspiring as ever. which brings us to the end of another episode of pot history, guys. Thank you so much for listening along as always and make sure to tune in next week because we are going to deep dive. Like,

oh my gosh, I'm so excited for this series, guys, I cannot tell you. We're deep diving. One of the most fascinating, tragic and enduring periods in human history. The Salem Witch Trials. Okay. From the origins of the. the witch, right, to the impact of the Malius Malifakarim and exactly how one small town in colonial America changed how we think about witches and women forever. All that and so much more coming to you in a two-part series dropping on Friday, as usual, and then the following Tuesday. So I will remind you guys in that Friday episode when part two is dropping, but if you can, please make sure to tune in for part two and finish the story. Until then,

if you are looking for some more Hot History, you can follow us on Instagram and Substack at Hot History Club. Don't forget, if you follow us and subscribe on Substack, you can get every Monday like this week in History newsletter. You can also follow us on YouTube and TikTok at hot.com. It has been a pleasure getting down and dirty in time with you, and I will speak to you all shortly. Thanks, guys. Love you. Bye. This episode of Hot History was recorded on Darrag Land. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal Thank you.