Reviews

February 2018: Olagbenro (Ola) Oladipo (University of Wisconsin-Madison). Book Review on Linda Heywood. 2017. Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 320 pp.

“Heywood is committed to lifting Njinga’s historical status to that of other famous women in history, and for this reason the focus on her subject is justifiably unwavering…”

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February 2018: Jelmer Vos, American Historical Review, Linda Heywood’s Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen

“Heywood convincingly reveals the story of a key political figure in the Atlantic World during the seventeenth century, an African woman who left a major mark on her country, and whom her European enemies and allies came to recognize as their equal. With this book, in short, Heywood has done African and Atlantic history a great service.”

To read the full book review, please visit the following link: American Historical Review of Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen

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14 January 2018:  David Kite Vigo County Public Library, “The Book Beat: Slave to her own ambition,” Tribune Star

“Queen Njinga of Angola has not received her due. Typical of national heroes, she has been over-simplified into a symbolic figure to serve a cultural narrative. She is best remembered as being the first Angolan leader to successfully resist Portuguese colonization, but such a description does not do her justice. In her new biography, “Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen,” Linda Heywood, professor of history and African American studies at Boston University, wrests Njinga from this one-dimensional obscurity to reveal a vibrant and forceful individual worthy of the title.

Sub-Saharan Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries was remarkably similar to feudal Europe, with analogous economic models, feudal obligations and social classes, including serfdom and slavery. When the Portuguese arrived in 1575, they found ready-built, tightly controlled, and highly lucrative slave markets. They also found that Njinga’s predecessor, despite being firmly in power, was sufficiently corrupt and iron-fisted that many Angolan lords and nobles eagerly allied with the Portuguese.

Heywood’s narrative reveals a complex character. Cut-throat and cruel, Njinga was also a compassionate and benevolent matriarch who commanded unswerving loyalty. As a political chameleon, she effortlessly adopted or abandoned whatever religious or cultural practices were expedient to her agenda. Yet, she seemed genuinely to adopt Christianity, and worked ceaselessly with missionaries to convert her people. As a part of, and apart from, her negotiations with the Portuguese, she regularly requested that missionaries be sent to minister and build churches in her territories. Njinga was also an accomplished and capable diplomat. To cement her rule and help in her wars against the Portuguese, she successfully forged alliances not only across many central-African regions, but also with the Dutch, who were also seeking access to the slave markets.

Though interesting and informative, the book suffers from severe internal inconsistencies. For example, Heywood often discusses how pre-European Angolan society practiced slavery and positioned itself to be the sole middleman between the lucrative slave markets of central Africa and Europe, yet at one point she claims that it was the Portuguese who were responsible for initiating and controlling the slave trade. She also relies almost exclusively on Portuguese archival sources for information on Angola and Njinga (Angolan society was pre-literate at the time), yet finishes her book with a scathing critique of those very sources and challenges their veracity.

Nevertheless, this book sheds an important light and much needed perspective on European conquest and colonialism. Heywood stresses that contracts between Europeans and Africans at this time were “not the sort of agreement made during the height of colonial conquest in the later nineteenth century between [Europeans] scheming to deceive illiterate, primitive African ‘chiefs.’” They were formal contracts between equals. The empires and societies that Europeans encountered were often on a much more equal footing than most moderns are aware. Europeans, as often as not, were useful tools and pawns of the governments they encountered. Njinga of Angola is one such prime example.”

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January 2018: Review by Jared Ross Hardesty in the Journal of Jesuit Studies 5

“Biographies of early modern queens abound. Women like Elizabeth i, Cath- erine the Great, and Isabella of Spain have been the subject of countless books. Yet, this biographical tradition, focusing on powerful women as politicians, diplomats, and cultural arbiters does not extend beyond Europe, despite the existence of female leaders and warriors across the globe between 1500 and 1800. Linda M. Heywood, Professor of African American Studies and History at Boston University, aims to expand and transcend this tradition by writing the first full-length biography of Njinga (1583–1663), the queen of the central Afri- can kingdom of Ndongo-Matamba. Njinga, like other early modern monarchs, played an important role in the process of state formation. Unlike European queens, however, Njinga was not a promoter of colonization, but rather resist- ed it, waging a forty-year guerilla war against Portuguese attempts to conquer Angola.

Heywood’s biography of Njinga is a gripping account of a queen and the world she shaped. Although organized as a chronological narrative, the author does pay attention to “themes of power, leadership, gender, and spirituality” (3). It is also part of a burgeoning literature on West Central Africa and its con- nections to the Atlantic world between 1480 and 1850. Much of this scholarship focuses on the diasporic dimensions of this area and the millions of captives sent to the Americas. By focusing on Njinga, Heywood helps us better under- stand how and why the Portuguese trafficked so many Angolans into slavery. Njinga’s life also demonstrates that Africans were not just hapless victims of European colonization, but actively resisted incursion, enslavement, and displacement.

The book opens with background on the formation of the kingdom of Ndongo, its relationships with its neighbors, and the Portuguese attempts to colonize Angola. Born into this context, Njinga grew up in a kingdom under constant assault by the Portuguese. Around the age of forty, Njinga emerged as Ndongo’s chief diplomat, serving under her brother, the erstwhile king. During a huge summit held in Luanda, the Portuguese colonial capital, in 1622, Njinga proved herself an adept politician. She also received baptism as a token of her willingness to negotiate, beginning a fraught relationship with the Catholic Church.

When her brother died in 1626, Njinga took charge. For the next thirty years, rarely a year would go by without conflict. Eventually, the Portuguese drove Njinga away from her kingdom, where in exile, she became a member of the Imbangala. A violent, warrior belief system that worshipped death, mayhem, and war, being Imbangala allowed Njinga to attract large numbers of followers and conquered entire kingdoms, such as Matamba. To thwart the Portuguese, Njinga also allied with the Dutch when they captured Luanda in the 1640s. By the middle of 1650s, however, the war had begun to take its toll, as much of the population had been displaced or sold away. Looking for a way to bring both peace and to protect her kingdom’s sovereignty, Njinga embraced Catholicism, inviting Capuchin missionaries into her lands. She hoped that Rome would recognize Ndongo-Matamba as a Christian kingdom and thus prevent further Portuguese attacks.

To reconstruct this fascinating life, Heywood draws from a wide variety of sources. Most important is Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi de Montecuccolo’s Mis- sione evangelica nel Regno di Congo. Cavazzi, an Italian Capuchin priest, lived with Njinga during the final years of her life, served as her confessor, and record- ed her biography and the history of Angola. In addition to Cavazzi, Heywood uses Portuguese colonial documents from both Lisbon and Angola and records of the Dutch West India Company. These provide insight into how Europeans regarded Njinga, often believing she was a powerful, respected ruler and fierce warrior. Finally, the author examines the accounts of the Jesuit priests, such as those of Fathers Baltasar Barreira, Diogo da Costa, and Pero Rodrigues who travelled with the Portuguese. These documents provide keen insight into the cultural and political worlds of the Mbundu, Njinga’s ethnic group.

As these Jesuit accounts suggest, readers of this journal will be particularly interested in this biography. Heywood reminds us that the “Jesuits […] played a central role as the religious arm of the Portuguese conquest of Angola” (168). They were one of the main beneficiaries of this colonial endeavor, yielding not only souls, but also tracts of land and slaves. Heywood also offers a different perspective of the Jesuits. Given their extensive writings about the Americas, Asia, and Africa, they usually control the narrative. By reading these docu- ments across the grain, however, Heywood shows the Jesuits in a less glorious light. Their relationship to the colonial state and the assistance they provided in defeating Ndongo was why Njinga demanded Capuchin missionaries when she decided to create a Christian kingdom.

Overall this is a compelling biography, but there are two issues. First, the author does not always interrogate the sources. The book is, in many ways, a catalog of atrocities including massacres, infanticide, and cannibalism. Many of these acts could be attributed to Njinga herself. While she was a member of the Imbangala for decades, it is still important to remember that accounts of these horrors come from European sources. It behooved priests, soldiers, and colonial administrators to present Njinga as evil. To leave these biases unad- dressed, as the author does in many places, could leave readers to believe that Njinga was as tyrannical as Europeans portrayed her. Second, following the introduction and first chapter that sets the context, the biography is hyper- focused on Njinga. While that makes sense in some ways, it excludes important background, such as the unification of Spain and Portugal (1580–1640), which affected the course of Njinga’s reign. Likewise, readers never learn the fate of Ndongo-Matamba following Njinga’s death.

These are minor criticisms, however. Njinga’s life is fascinating and Heywood narrates it in a well-paced and enthralling manner. For that reason and given its moderate length, this book would be perfect for assigning to undergraduates or for non-specialist readers. Perhaps, most importantly, Heywood decisively demonstrates that Njinga belongs in the pantheon of powerful early-modern queens.”

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9 June 2017: Review by Delinda J. Collier in The Times Literary Supplement