Content note for colonialism, forced sterilization
Colonial powers have taken great pains to erase or demonize any traces of queerness in the cultures with whom they interacted. One succinct description of how the myth that queerness is inherently not African came to be can be found in Boy-Wives and Female Husbands by Stephen O’Murray and Will Roscow:
“Among the many myths Europeans have created about Africa, the myth that homosexuality is absent or incidental in African societies is one of the oldest and most enduring. For Europeans, black Africans—of all the native peoples of the world—most epitomized “primitive man.” Since primitive man was supposed to be close to nature, ruled by instinct, and culturally unsophisticated, he had to be heterosexual, his sexual energies and outlets devoted exclusively to their “natural” purpose: biological reproduction. If black Africans were the most primitive people in all humanity—if they were, indeed, human, which some debated—then they had to be the most heterosexual.
[...]
The sexualization of “primitive” Africans can be traced to Edward Gibbon’s comments in the 94th chapter of his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. When it was published in 1781, hardly any Europeans had travelled more than a few miles into the African interior. Still, Gibbon wrote, “I believe, and hope, that the negroes, in their own country, were exempt from this moral pestilence [i.e., homosexual ‘vice’].” Belief and hope have been confounded in reports of African homosexuality ever since.”
In the rare instances where queerness has not been completely erased from the narrative, a contradictory picture is painted. Queerness is demonized and treated as if the participants are unwilling or unknowing. Queerness cannot exist in Africa because queerness cannot exist naturally, but if it does, it is simply because no one has ever thought to question or resist it.
A certain level of cognitive dissonance is required to continue with the violence of colonialism, and racism is often both the source and excuse for this. As with any lie, conflicting facts and disproving observations will begin to appear over time. Within the life of Ngola Nzinga, the cracks begin to appear rather quickly, and though much of the truth is likely out of reach, the lies have begun to peel away.
Born in 1583, Nzinga was accurately predicted for greatness. As her mother gave birth to her, they found Nzinga had the umbilical cord wrapped around her throat, which was the source of her name and the early belief that she would grow up to be a wise, powerful, and proud person. This quickly proved to be true. Her father, the Ngola (translatable to king), took an interest in Nzinga and her training, taking her to battles with him, teaching her how to fight, and letting her learn multiple languages. At the time, the Kingdom of Ndongo (now Angola) was at war with Portugal. Portugal tried to gain dominion over the nation to create a slave trade and send missionaries in, all of which Nzinga’s father fought against.
Unfortunately, due to her father favouring her, when her brother took his place as Ngola, he saw her as a direct threat. Though there hasn’t been record found suggesting a female ruler of Ndongo before Nzinga, her brother was likely more afraid of the possibility of Nzinga giving birth to someone who would dethrone him. In general, he was not a particularly popular ruler, believed to more or less be a puppet of colonial powers, and overall weak. He struck out at his sister, killing her son and sterilizing her. Still, she was sent for when her brother got in over his head with the Portuguese.
Despite the obvious bad blood between the two, Nzinga showed up to the negotiation with the Portuguese and was finally given the opportunity to be the wise, powerful and proud person she had always been. Arriving at the meeting, the Portuguese had set it up so there was only one seat in the room, where the Portuguese diplomat would sit, forcing Nzinga onto the floor and creating an immediate power imbalance. Nzinga was not phased by this and asked one of her servants to kneel, spending the whole of the meeting sitting on them. She walked out of the meeting having negotiated her brother’s freedom, and soon after, when her brother died, she took his place as Ngola.
It must be noted that the translation of Ngola comes out to king and not queen, which is reflected in how Nzinga reacted to the station—dressing in traditionally masculine clothing and collecting a group of consorts to follow her around. She called the consorts, all assigned male at birth and dressed in traditionally feminine clothing, her “wives.”
There are generally two paths records take with these pieces of information. One is to use the facts as additional “shocking” examples as to Nzinga’s behaviour. She was also said to have eaten the hearts of her brother’s family, drank the blood of decapitated slaves before battle, and had any prospective lovers fight to the death before being given the opportunity to sleep with her. They were also killed after they slept with her. The second path is to treat her choices as being forced and the only things she could have done—discussing the situation as if this was simply the natural series of choices any heterosexual, cisgender woman would make upon her brother’s death.
Either framing takes away Nzinga’s autonomy in her own life. Nzinga was not a powerless, easily influenced person who was forced to act a certain way by the people around her. If she was, she simply would not have become Ngola at all. She was smart, powerful, and knew better than most how to get what she wanted. What she wanted in this situation was to be Ngola, and it is possible that dressing as a man would make that easier in some ways, but it undoubtedly made it harder in others. She has since become an icon to other queer African people. Mikael Owunna said of her:
“The thing about Nzinga is her title was Ngola, and Ngola means king, Nzinga ruled dressed in full male clothing as a king, and she had a harem of young men dressed as women who were her wives. So in the 1600s, you basically had a butch queen with a bunch of drag queens for wives leading a fight against European colonization.”
Along with being a queer icon, Nzinga was also an incredible negotiator. In a situation where both colonial powers and neighbouring nations were fighting to gain control of Ndongo, she fought for much of her life to retain sovereignty. This, of course, was not smooth sailing.
Using flattery and smooth-talking to manipulate the Portuguese, she allowed herself to be baptized and used the name Dona Anna de Sousa for a period of time. Still, the relationship between the two nations was fraught, with much infighting and disagreement as to what each was willing to give up for peace. As any goodwill began to dwindle, Nzinga was eventually forced to outright fight the Portuguese, which was in its own an opportunity for Nzinga to show her competence as a leader. While she lost many battles, her acclaim grew throughout both Ndongo and Europe. Exiled for a time, she consolidated power in her travels and continued building an expansive reputation.
What is known is she placed women in positions of power, granted freedom to slaves and gathered other exiled Ndongans to build her numbers. As she fought a guerilla war with the Portuguese, she made in-roads with the Dutch as well as the Kingdom of the Kongo. Expanding her rule and territory, she posed a legitimate threat to the Portuguese, who tried replacing her with a puppet ruler who, like Nzinga’s brother, was fairly unpopular. While she was willing to negotiate on slave trade, a sticking point in negotiations was her refusal to convert back to Christianity, as her allies at the time deeply valued religious loyalty. Eventually, after becoming ruler of Ndongo again, and once her allyships switched from the Dutch back to the Portuguese, she would return to Christianity and rule in peace for forty years.
As for how colonial powers viewed Nzinga’s way of dress, Boy-Wives and Female Husbands by Stephen O’Murray and Will Roscow says:
“In the late 1640s, a Dutch military attaché observed firsthand what must have struck him as the strange organization of her court. As Ngola, Nzinga was not “queen” but “king” of her people. She ruled dressed as a man, surrounded by a harem of young men who dressed as women and were her “wives.” Wherever she appeared, her subjects fell to their knees and kissed the ground. Nzinga managed to preserve Ndongo independence for a generation—indeed, it was not until the early 20th century that the Portuguese finally broke Mbundu resistance.
Other early reports from Angola make it clear that Nzinga’s behaviour was not some personal idiosyncrasy but was based on beliefs that recognized gender as situational and symbolic as much as a personal, innate characteristic of the individual. A result of these beliefs was the presence of an alternative gender role among groups in the Kongo and Ndonga kingdoms. According to Andrew Battel, an English prisoner of the Portuguese in the 1580s, natives of the Dombe area were “beastly in their living, for they have men in women’s apparel, whom they keep among their wives.” “
It is at this point where an older article about the Social Men of Nuer becomes relevant. In fact
“The term queer must be questioned in its application to the situation. If the term queer is defined by a difference from the norm in relation to sexual and gender identity, then it would be wrong to apply it [...] If it is understood and respected that while the queer community is not a monolith, it has some base shared experience that the word becomes relevant.
[...]A woman can still be seen as a woman without experiencing sexism (or the same version of sexism as other women), as there is still an underlying layer of shared experiences and realities that comes with identifying as a woman. While few singular realities are universal, the unique collection of realities that every individual woman has can be a tie to connect her to the grouping of womanhood. Even if the only thing a woman has in common with women as a group is self-identifying as a woman, that is enough.”
As with the case of the Nuer men, to call Nzinga a transgender man does not feel entirely right. Any specific label that has been discovered and steeped in hundreds of years of nuance, cultural connotations, and discourse that Nzinga had no opportunity to experience, is imperfect. Specifically, when the Ndongo had a more fluid understanding of gender than the more accepted rigid ones that bind much of society today, any specific label would be incomplete at best. Again, the label of queer comes in largely because of its wide definition, with the word transgender somewhere close by if it is being used as an umbrella term rather than a specific identity.
Regardless of all of this, Nzinga enjoys a controversial and expansive legacy. A much-discussed figure, she is seen as Angola’s founding mother, as well as being the basis of many myths. On the other side, the people who were enemies for much of her life remain so after her death. With much of recorded history coming from the pens of white men who disapproved of every aspect of Nzinga as a human being, it can be difficult to uncover the truth and impossible to find an objective primary source about her life. Linda M. Heywood wrote a book about Nzinga, writing:
“Queen Njinga....came to power in Africa through her military prowess, skillful manipulations of religion, successful diplomacy, and remarkable understanding of politics. Despite her outstanding accomplishments and her decades-long reign, comparable to that of Elizabeth I of England, she was vilified by European contemporaries and later writers as an uncivilized savage who embodied the worst of womankind.”
Still, people look closer, and there is worth in simply that. In recent years, the narrative has been analyzed and deconstructed by Black women across the world, including Linda M. Heywood. Over time, contradictory and nonsensical as they can be, colonial narratives have been deconstructed. In the struggle to find replacements for the space they took up, even absence can be closer to the truth.
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
Disclaimer: some of the sources may contain triggering material
The Enigmatic Queen Nzinga of Ndongo THE SHELF. (n.d.). Retrieved February 23, 2022, from https://blogs.harvard.edu/preserving/2013/11/18/the-enigmatic-queen-nzinga-of-ndongo/
A Gender Variance Who’s Who: Nzinga Mbandi (1583 - 1663) queen. (2013, September 11). A Gender Variance Who’s Who. https://zagria.blogspot.com/2013/09/nzinga-mbandi-1583-1663-queen.html
Alexander, L. M., & Jr, W. C. R. (2010). Encyclopedia of African American History [3 volumes]. ABC-CLIO.
Bortolot, A. A. I. (n.d.). Women Leaders in African History: Ana Nzinga, Queen of Ndongo | Essay | The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Retrieved February 23, 2022, from https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pwmn_2/hd_pwmn_2.htm
Donnella, L. (2017, May 12). Picturing Queer Africans In The Diaspora. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/05/12/476893927/picturing-queer-africans-in-the-diaspora
French, M. (2008). From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World Volume II: The Masculine Mystique from Feudalism to the French Revolution. The Feminist Press at CUNY.
Queen Nzinga (1583-1663) •. (2009, June 16). https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/queen-nzinga-1583-1663/
Queen Nzinga: An African “King” to be Reckoned With. (2017, September 25). Mark Carlson-Ghost. https://www.markcarlson-ghost.com/index.php/2017/09/25/queen-nzinga-warrior-woman-king/
Queering History, Queering Africa. (n.d.). Retrieved February 23, 2022, from https://www.albany.edu/faculty/jhobson/middle_passages/queerafrica/project.html
Sullivan, K. (2020, September 22). Queen Nzinga: One Of Africa’s Fearless Female Leaders. Grunge.Com. https://www.grunge.com/250676/queen-nzinga-one-of-africas-fearless-female-leaders/
The Enduring Power of Queen Njinga | BU Today. (n.d.). Boston University. Retrieved February 23, 2022, from https://www.bu.edu/articles/2011/the-enduring-power-of-queen-njinga/