ABSTRACT
Njinga Mbande, or Ana de Sousa, the Christian Portuguese name she took on following her strategic christening, ruled the Ndongo and Matamba Kingdoms from 1624 to her death in 1663. Njinga’s lineage could be traced back to the founders of the Ndongo Kingdom, over a century prior to her birth. The reign of her grandfather, Ngola Kilombo kia Kasenda, saw substantial incursions of the Portuguese and military conflict, with resounding defeats on both sides. The establishment of Portuguese and Dutch colonial presence in the region hinged on tensions and conflict between local kingdoms, and when Njinga took power in 1624, the Portuguese had seized control of coastal and inland territories between the Lifune and Kwanza rivers. Portuguese imperial signification of Njinga in positing her as an unfit ruler to her Ndongo rivals reveals much of the contradictory discourses inscribed on Black women’s bodies, already in the early centuries of Western expansion.
