National Geographic History - July 2019

80 JULY/AUGUST 2019

groups into themselves. The vast ethnic, lin-

guistic, and religious diversity in these king-

doms allowed for easily identifiable differences

among groups, making it easier for kingdoms to

sell their enemies in exchange for weapons and

goods to expand and protect their territories.

Grand empires, such as the Kongo, Dahomey,

Yoruba, Benin, and Asante, were vying for wealth

and power in their regions, and Europeans were

in need of laborers to build their colonies. It was

the ideal circumstance to bring about the largest

forced migration in human history.

In just two years, 1618 and 1619, the Portuguese-

Imbangala alliance resulted in the capture and

enslavement of thousands of Ndongo people,

filling at least 36 ships with human cargo. These

captives would be sent to the Spanish and Por-

tuguese colonies in Central and South America

to work as laborers. It was through this arrange-

ment that slavery would spread to British North

America in 1619, when chaos intervened and the

destiny of those “20 and odd” Africans was re-

directed to a place called the Colony of Virginia

on the Atlantic coast.

Q

UEEN ANA NZINGA was born in 1583, and in 1624, at the

age of 42, she became the Queen of Ndongo, just five

years after the Angolans arrived in Virginia. Her reign

came amidst the ongoing war between the Portuguese,

and her people of Ndongo. She attempted to shift the political

partnership between the states, offering herself as a convert to

Catholicism in return for the termination of slave raids that were

devastating her people. Portugal’s colonial Governor agreed, and

acted as her godfather for the conversion. Queen Nzinga main-

tained a strong political relationship with the Portuguese for two

years, but in 1626 they betrayed her and began taking Ndongo

captives again. As a result, she established a nearby state, Mat-

amba, which acted as a refuge for victims of the trade, meanwhile

ordering her militia to attack the Portuguese who had taken over

her former state of Ndongo. Queen Nzinga ruled until her death

at the age of 81.

LONG LIVE

THE QUEEN

QUEEN NZINGA, ARMED WITH A BOW AND ARROW, LEADS A MILITARY BAND IN

THIS ILLUSTRATION CREATED BY ITALIAN MISSIONARIES IN THE MID-1600S.

ALBUM

MICHAEL RUNKEL/AGE FOTOSTOCK

PRISON WALLS

First built in 1583, the

Massangano fortress in Angola,

Africa, was once used as a

base for Portuguese slave-

capturing operations. Captured

Africans were held here, forcibly

baptized, and then sent to

Luanda, where they were forced

aboard ships to the Americas.