Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen

I had never heard of Queen Njinga before my family history research took me to Jamestown VA and I learned about the first Africans that were brought to the area. Linda Heywood has written a thorough biography of Njinga and brought her to life. Thank you Ms Heywood!

Linda Heywood brings us the most complete World Biographical story of Queen Nzinga, called Njinga to us all. Previous accounts of her historically were represented by her “would be” conquers and political opportunists, who presented her story to match their agendas. I had not heard of Nzinga ever in a History class and knew nothing about her. I learned of her while researching Family history. And Hidden History. Researching ancestors of oral traditions, such as Native and Africans American mostly has to be done in a Historical context. That is an approach I have taken regarding Jamestown and Creole Louisiana. If you know what country has the Archives, much can be found. MS Heywood proceeded to do just that, Finding and getting permission to study Archives of many countries of Portugal, and translated materials of the Dutch, and Oral local Kimbundu, stories in Angola. I learned of the first Africans in my Jamestown research and found them in my own research of an unusual surname Mozingo. Linda Heywood and John Thornton research is valuable in learning this story taking place in history of the First Africans in the 400 year of their arrival here with twist of fates. The first Africans were very good at learning and using the court system to earn their freedom from people who reneged on their contracts of service to try enslave them for life. , Key, Guins, Johnson and others showed great skill to gain freedom for theirselves andtheir descendants. They had come from Angola, Nzinga kingdom. Nzinga was a complex, stragic ruker, with no equal in her times . Her Legacy is an example for all of us in taking note of women’ “place” in the world and a shining example to inspire us. Linda Heywood brings us Njinga the “Kind Grandmother “ who loved her family and her nation.

Queen Njinga’s story belongs in everyone’s list of important people in world history. She managed to secure a leadership role in a country that did not welcome females in positions of authority, waged a heroic struggle to save her country from Portuguese invaders, conducted international diplomacy in Africa and in Europe, challenged the religious world in which she lived, as both a Catholic and a follower of traditional religion. She is certainly well known in Angola, and in Brazil, where she survives as a character in folklore, but few know her story outside those two countries..Linda Heywood has produced, at last, a biography of Njinga which can elevate her to that place. It is based on an amazingly rich and diverse set of original sources, that include not only reports by Portuguese and Italian priests and missionaries, soldiers or governors, but even on a parcel of letters that Njinga herself wrote. It is not because of a lack of first hand eyewitness accounts of her life that we do not know about her, but rather because Africa and African leaders have gotten short shift in world history.This is a compelling story, well-told with dozens of fascinating anecdotes and first-hand accounts of her derring-do. Heywood shows her climbing down cliffs on a flimsy rope ladder to escape the Portuguese who are pursuing her, of her remarkable gender role reversals, in having her male concubines dress as women and sleep chastely among her serving maids, or writing a letter of recommendation for a Portuguese ambassador who negotiated a peace treaty with her.We couldn’t have a better introduction to her life and times than Heywood’s breathtaking story, that even committed readers of fiction would enjoy.

At the urging of a good friend familiar with Linda Heywood and her work I read this book not knowing what to expect at all. The biography exploded any expectations I possibly could have made. Njinga is, as Heywood emphasizes beginning and end, every bit as significant a figure as her contemporary Elizabeth I of England, in European history as well as that of the larger world. Njinga's life is a story of gut wrenching ferocity in equal parts with heart wrenching desperation. Her decades long struggle against the Portuguese takes enough twists and turns to put John Foxe's Elizabethan hagiography to shame. There's hardly a point in her life when Njinga's life's work, not to mention her literal life, was in mortal peril.At the same time, Heywood unrolls the maddening sequence of central African colonization. Local governors realize only after decades that they've utterly destroyed and depopulated the region beyond further exploitation, and even so their European rulers ignore them. I got the heavy impression of a multi century crime against humanity being a game of monopoly to its instigators. The Dutch, Jesuits and Vatican all appeared to take turns at a tragedy with what is now a monstrous and well known end.Njinga is without qualification the most fascinating historical figure I've read of and this book is indispensable to any understanding of early modern history.

I really liked having a chance to learn so much about a person/era/location that I’d previously known nothing about. We should all know more about Queen Njinga and what she accomplished, which this book definitely achieves. It can be repetitive at times and it’s a bit more “academic” than most “narrative nonfiction,” and the prose doesn’t always flow smoothly, but it is still a page turner that had me hooked from the beginning. Because of how interesting Queen Njinga is and how she’s been written out of the history books, this book definitely worth reading despite the minor flaws.

I really loved the book and the quality. Would definitely recommend!

Eine häufig behandelte Pserönlichkeit, verdient Njinga einfach diese ausgezeichnete wissenschaftliche Biographie. Auch für denjenigen, der die Originalquellen zum großen Teil schon gelesen hat, ist diese Gesamtinterpretation spannend zu lesen - mit dem Cliffhanger, dass Heywood in einem Interview schon andeutete, an einem zweiten Teil über das Nachwirken Njingas als Figur in der Karibik etc. zu arbeiten.