² I have adopted this spelling of her name (rather than the more common English form of Nzinga) because it seems to correspond to the rules of the new orthography of Kimbundu adopted by the People's Republic of Angola in 1980; see MPLA/PT, Instituto Nacional de Línguas [Celeste, Maria, Kounta, P. A.], Histórico sobre a Criação dos Alfabetos em Línguas Nacionais (Lisbon, 1980), 64–6Google Scholar, where there are minimal pairs /nz/nj/. Here the sound of the Kimbundu /j/ is equivalent to the French or Portuguese /j/. I have been persuaded in this by the usage of Graziano Maria (Saccardo) de Leguzzano, an excellent speaker of Kimbundu, who also devoted much of his long career in Angola to historical research and who rendered her name as ‘Jinga’ or ‘Njinga’ see his translation of Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Montecuccolo, , Istorica Descrizione de' Tre Regni Congo, Angola ed Matamba (Bologna, 1687)Google Scholar as Descripção Histórica dos Três Reinos Congo, Matamba e Angola (2 vols) (Lisbon, 1965)Google Scholar, and his later study, Congo e Angola con la storia dell'antica missione dei Cappuccini (3 vols) (Venice, 1982–1983).Google Scholar

³ For example, Rodney, Walter, ‘European actions and African reactions in Angola’, in Ranger, T. O. (ed.), Aspects of Central African History (London, 1968);Google ScholarGlasgow, Roy, Nzinga: Resistência Africana à Investida do Colonialismo Português em Angola, 1582–1663 (São Paulo, 1982Google Scholar, originally composed ca. 1972). Also MPLA [Henrique Abranches], História de Angola (Porto, 1976, originally composed 1966), and UNITA, UNITA: Identity of a Free Angola (Jamba, 1985), 21.Google Scholar

⁴ Miller, Joseph C., ‘Queen Nzinga of Matamba in a new perspective’, J. Afr. Hist., XIII (1975), 201–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ Abranches in the MPLA História de Angola, 69–72, had already noted that Njinga had class interests that set her apart from modern nationalists, though he, true to the Marxist-nationalist conception of history, argued that she was progressive through her resistance to Portugal.

⁶ She was assessed largely in the context of Portuguese colonialism in Rodney, ‘European Actions’ Abranches, História de Angola; and Glasgow, Nzinga. Her relationship to the Church forms the principal theme of the most important and best documented study of her by a priest, Jean, Cuvelier and Boone, O., Koningin Nzinga van Matamba (Bruges, 1957).Google Scholar It was on this theme that Cuvelier and Boone were subjected to a scathing review by Jean Stengers in Zaire, XI (1957), 1059–60Google Scholar, a review which nevertheless passed over the major merit of the book's meticulous research.

⁷ Parreira, Adriano, Economia e Sociedade em Angola na Época da Rainha Jinga, Século XVII (Lisbon, 1990), 178–83.Google Scholar Parreira has benefited especially from a fuller consultation of the documents of Fernão de Sousa (see Heintze [ed.] cited in n. 20), published after Miller wrote.

⁸ For the chronology of these events, see Heintze, Beatrix, ‘Das Ende des unabhängigen Staates Ndongo (Angola): neue Chronologie und Reinterpretation (1617–1630)’, Paideuma, XXVII (1981), 222–9, 246–53.Google Scholar

⁹ This position is clear from notes of the visit of Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Montecuccolo to the Kindonga islands in 1662, just a year before Njinga's death. Mss Araldi (Modena), Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Montecuccolo, ‘Missione evangelica al Regno de Congo’, vol. A, Book 2, 166–74 (Mss composed between 1660 and 1665 and revised up to 1668). A modern edition (by John Thornton) and English translation (by Carolyn Beckingham) is currently in preparation.

¹⁰ For example, see the lengthy discussion on the medieval German constitution found in Barraclough, Geoffrey, The Origins of Modern Germany (2nd rev. ed., London, 1947)Google Scholar, which sought constitutional principles by examining events and their descriptions in chronicles and other contemporary sources.

¹¹ Antonio, Gaeta da Napoli, La Maravigliosa Conversione alla Santa Fede di Cristo della Regina Singa e del svo Regno di Matamba nell' Africa Meridionale, ed. Napoli, Francesco Maria Gioia da (Naples, 1668), 188–91.Google Scholar

¹² Chanock, Martin, Law, Custom and Social Order: The Colonial Experience in Malawi and Zambia (Cambridge, UK, 1985).Google Scholar For a similar argument see Ambler, Charles, ‘The renovation of custom in colonial Kenya: the 1932 generation succession ceremonies in Embu’, J. Afr. Hist., XXX (1989), 139–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹³ Thornton, John, ‘The correspondence of the Kongo kings, 1614–35: problems of internal written evidence on a Central African kingdom’, Paideuma, XXX (1987), 410–18.Google Scholar The quotation comes from a letter of Bras Correa (President of the Royal Council of Kongo) to Monsignor Juan Bautista Vives (Kongo's ‘Protector’ at the Vatican), 20 Oct. 1619, in Brásio, António (ed.), Monumenta Missionaria Africana (1st series, 15 volumes) (Lisbon, 1952–1988), vol. 6, 408.Google Scholar

¹⁴ The term is mentioned only in Jesuit descriptions composed around 1580; see Jarric, Pierre du, Histoire des Choses les plus Mémorables Advenues des Portugais… (3 vols., Bordeaux, 1610), vol. 2, 79.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Letter of Antonio Mendes, 9 May 1563, in Brásio, (ed.), Monumenta, vol. 2, 508–10Google Scholar; Apontamentos sobre Paulo Dias de Novais (1560–61) in Ibid. vol. 2, 467–8; Francisco de Gouveia to Jesuit General, 1 Nov. 1564, Ibid. vol. 15, 230–1.

¹⁶ This structure is mentioned as the normal state in the Jesuit accounts. It may well have been informed by the kind of historical precedents that are found in the later traditions, though they do not provide a full text; see Jarric, du, Histoire, vol. 2, 79–80.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (Lisbon), Papeis avulsos, Angola, Caixa 1, document dated 4 March 1612, quoted in Heintze, Beatrix, ‘Unbekanntes Angola: Der Staat Ndongo im 16. Jahrhundert’, Anthropos, LXXII (1977), 776 n. 131.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Rodrigues, Francisco, ‘História da residencia dos padres da Companhia de Jesus em Angola’, (1594) in Brásio, (ed.), Monumenta, vol. 4, 559, 562.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Simões, Garcia to Provincial of Portugal, 20 10. 1575Google Scholar, in Brásio, (ed.), Monumenta, vol. 3, 139.Google Scholar

²⁰ Fernão de Sousa to Governo, 19 March 1625, in Heintze, Beatrix (ed.), Fontes para a História de Angola do Século XVII. I. Memórias, Relações e Outros Manuscritos da Colectânea Documental de Fernão de Sousa (1622–1635). II. Cartas e Documentos Oficiais da Colectânea Documental de Fernão de Sousa (1624–1635) (2 vols., Stuttgart, 1985–1988), vol. 2, 129Google Scholar; ‘Rellação de Dongo que foy a ElRey nosso Senhor’ (6 Sept. 1625), in Ibid. vol. 1, 199. Reflecting on the period some years later, de Sousa felt that the conflict over control of the imbare was the issue that changed the relations between the two powers; de Sousa to Gonçalo di Sousa and his brothers, undated but compiled between 1625 and 1631, in Ibid. vol. 1, 227.

²¹ Fernão de Sousa, ‘Rellação de Dongo’, in Ibid. vol. 1, 200. The passage is ambiguous in Portuguese: ‘porque são quizacos que he o mesmo que captivos d'ElRey, e faltando rej acabarão cõ elle’.

²² Ibid. vol. 1, 200. De Sousa was responding here to discussions as to whether Ndongo should be annexed under its own ruler and assessed a tribute, or treated like the province of Ilamba near Luanda had been, where the royal group had been disbanded. All such plans were contingent, of course, on the Portuguese ability to make the conquests they envisioned, which in the event in Ndongo they were not.

²³ See the telling letter of Fernão de Sousa to the Governo, 15 Aug. 1624, Ibid. vol. 2, 85, in which he notes receiving these terms from Njinga and finding them acceptable. It was only later, as the struggle over the slaves came to a head, that he began to doubt the wisdom of this policy. Still later, in retrospect, he formed the opinion that Njinga had a long-standing hatred of the Portuguese and Christianity and could never negotiate. See de Sousa's retrospective ‘Informação que mandey ao Conselho da Fazenda’, 6 Aug. 1631, in Ibid. vol. 1, 201–2.

²⁴ Fernão de Sousa, ‘Lembrança do estado em que achej ElRey de Angola’, Autumn 1624, in Ibid. vol. 1, 195. For chronology and background, see Heintze, ‘Ende’, 203.

²⁵ Fernão de Sousa to Gonçalo di Sousa, Ibid. vol. 1, 229–30, a retrospective analysis of his proceedings. The doubts about Ngola Hari's claims are set out in ‘Lembrança das rezoens que ha pera Angolla Are naõ ser rey’ (Late summer 1629), in Ibid. vol. 1, 209.

²⁶ Fernão de Sousa to King, 21 Feb. 1626, in Brásio, (ed.), Monumenta, vol. 7, 417.Google Scholar

²⁷ Joseph Miller, foremost historian of the Imbangala, has most recently proposed that the ultimate origins of the Imbangala were among people displaced by droughts in the central highlands of Angola and refugees from the extension of slave raiding and trading activities in the same area; see ‘The paradoxes of impoverishment in the Atlantic zone’, in Birmingham, David and Martin, Phyllis (eds.), History of Central Africa (2 vols., London and New York, 1983), vol. 1, 13941.Google Scholar

²⁸ The best secondary account remains that of Miller, Joseph C., Kings and Kinsmen: The Imbangala Impact on the Mbundu of Angola (Oxford, 1976).Google Scholar See Mss Araldi, Cavazzi, ‘Missione evangelica’, vol. A, Book 1, 18–73, and Book 3. An early account is in Ravenstein, E. G. (ed.), The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battel in Angola and Adjacent Regions (London, 1901 [account first published in 1625]).Google Scholar

²⁹ For an overview of the Imbangala armies in Ndongo and its vicinity during this period, see Sousa, Fernão de, ‘Guerras do Reino de Angola’ (undated, but after 4 Aug. 1630)Google Scholar, in Heintze, , Fontes, vol. 1, 212Google Scholar; for the politics of purchasing their services, see Heintze, , ‘Ende’, 202–3, 209, 211, 221, 249, 256–7.Google Scholar

³⁰ The best account is in António de Oliveira de Cadornega, História Geral das Guerras Angolanas (1680–81) (mod. ed. Matias, Delgado and Cunha, Manuel Alves da, 3 vols., Lisbon, 1940–1942, reissued 1972), vol. 1, 148–50.Google Scholar Though written much later (Cadornega arrived in Angola only in 1639) it is based on the testimony of old Portuguese veterans and their service reports of earlier actions. The de Sousa documents, though contemporary, provide less detail on this action.

³¹ De Sousa to Gonçalo di Sousa, in Heintze, Fontes, vol. 1, 345. The dramatic conversion of Njinga to Imbangala rules is described on the basis of posterior testimony in Mss Araldi, Cavazzi, ‘Missione evangelica’, vol. A, Book 2, 35–7. She is alleged to have pounded up a baby in a grain mortar, like the legendary Ndumba Tembo, founder of the Imbangala company of Kasanje, and to have obtained the right to rule as an Imbangala; MssCavazzi, Araldi, ‘Missione evangelica’, vol. A, Book 2, 35–7.Google Scholar

³² Cavazzi, , Istorica Descrizione, Book 6, no. 123.Google Scholar

³³ Gaeta, , Maravigliosa Conversione, 97, 99–103, 211–13.Google Scholar Even Cavazzi, who was generally negative in his assessments of Njinga, believed that she was good to priests and honored Christianity during this period. MssCavazzi, Araldi, ‘Missione evangelica’, vol. A, Book 2, 64.Google Scholar

³⁴ See Njinga [D. Ana de Sousa] to Governor of Angola, 13 Dec. 1655, in Brásio, (ed.), Monumenta, vol. 11, 526.Google Scholar

³⁵ Cadornega, , História, vol. 1, 353.Google Scholar Njinga sought to marry him to Barbara, but when that strategy failed, he arranged for Barbara to marry Njinga Mona, perhaps in the aim of a compromise between the aristocratic and Imbangala rules. Napoli, Gaeta da, Maravigliosa Conversione, 280–2.Google Scholar

³⁶ Gaeta da Napoli refers to an account of Ndongo history which he had written, which he called the ‘Relatione’ in a letter to the Secretary of the Propaganda Fide in Rome, shortly after he left Matamba in June, 1658 in Brásio, (ed.), Monumenta, vol. 12, 160–2.Google Scholar Gioia da Napoli, editor of the account (see citation in n. 11), is often cited in bibliographies as author, though he states in his unpaginated introduction that he wrote the book from a ‘Relatione sent to me by Antonio Gaeta da Napoli’.

³⁷ Napoli, Gaeta da, Maravigliosa Conversione, 134–48.Google Scholar Though Gaeta identifies his informant only as a ‘ black priest of the country’ who was ‘well versed in the antiquities of kingdom’, the identification of this source as Calisto Zelotes dos Reis Magros is virtually certain. He was one of the few ordained Africans in the area and, since his capture in Wandu in Kongo in 1648, the only priest resident in Matamba. See Mss Araldi, Cavazzi, ‘Missione evangelica’, vol. A, Book 2, 77.

³⁸ Ibid. 149–72. The possibility that some of this Portuguese tradition affected the account cannot be ruled out entirely, for the Portuguese also had versions of Ndongo history, largely collected in the late sixteenth century by Jesuit priests. These accounts do not contain the historical anecdote crucial for constitutional mythology. On some of these early sources, see Miller, Joseph C. and Thornton, John, ‘The chronicle as source, history and historiography: the Catálogo dos Governadores de Angola’, Paideuma, XXXIII (1987), 375–9.Google Scholar

³⁹ For a detailed account of Cavazzi's travels, see Leguzzano's biography in his translation of Cavazzi's Istorica Descrizione, Descripção histórica, vol. 2, 430–2.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Araldi, Mss, Cavazzi, , ‘Missione evangelica’, vol. A, Book 2, 1–24.Google Scholar Interlineal and marginal references, as well as scraps of documents attached to pictures in the front matter, make it clear that the version found here is not the first version of the Mss that Cavazzi wrote. I have argued in the introduction to my critical edition (in preparation) that Cavazzi probably began writing this history in about 1660.

⁴¹ For example, his account of the ‘Jaga’ invasion is based on João dos Santos, , Etiopia Oriental (Lisbon, 1609).Google Scholar He also includes an account of the Portuguese invasion that clearly came from local Portuguese sources and resembles that found in Gaeta da Napoli (based on Massangano archives and local Portuguese tradition). He himself says, in ‘Missione evangelica’, vol. A, Book 2, 19, that his account of ‘what I have written of the Jagas and what remains to be written on Queen Ginga is from personal witness and conversations during the course of twelve years travel…’. Cavazzi's mention of twelve years would make this passage date to 1666, which is unlikely, as the Mss carries the date of 1665.

⁴² See the attempt to use the traditions for historical reconstruction in Heintze, Beatrix, ‘Written sources, oral traditions and oral traditions as written sources: the steep and thorny way to early Angolan history’, Paideuma, XXXIII (1987), 263–87.Google Scholar

⁴³ da Napoli, Gaeta, Maravigliosa Conversione, 134–6.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ On the imagery of the blacksmith, see de Maret, Pierre, ‘The smith's myth and the origin of leadership in Central Africa’, in Haaland, Randi and Shinnie, Peter (eds.), African Iron Working—Ancient and Traditional (Bergen, 1985), 73–87.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ On the changes in Kongo tradition and their connection to the civil wars, see Thornton, John, The Kingdom of Kongo: Civil War and Transition, 1641–1718 (Madison, 1983), 117–19.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ da Napoli, Gaeta, Maravigliosa Conversione, 136–43.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Araldi, Mss, Cavazzi, , ‘Missione evangelica’, vol. A, Book 2, 12.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Ibid. 15.

⁴⁹ Ibid. 5–7.

⁵⁰ For our purposes here, the ‘founder’ is not the person named as the creator of the kingdom itself, Angola Mussuri or Angola Bumbambula, but rather Ngola Chiluangi or Chiluangi Angola, the founder of the ruling dynasty. Although Cavazzi and Gaeta disagree on the exact relationships among the earlier kings, both derive the genealogies of the leading families from this figure.

⁵¹ da Napoli, Gaeta, Maravigliosa Conversione, 144–5Google Scholar; Araldi, Mss, Cavazzi, , ‘Missione evangelica’, vol. A, Book 2, 10.Google Scholar

⁵² Araldi, Mss, Cavazzi, , ‘Missione evangelica’, vol. A, Book 2, 12.Google Scholar

⁵³ Ibid. 14–15.

⁵⁴ Gaeta, , Maravigliosa Conversione, 141.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Araldi, Mss, Cavazzi, , ‘Missione evangelica’, vol. A, Book 2, 10.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Fernão de Sousa to Governo, 15 Aug. 1624, in Heintze, , Fontes, vol. 2, 85.Google Scholar Also see ‘Lembrança do estado em que achej a ElRey de Angola…’ (Autumn, 1624)Google Scholar, in Ibid. vol. 1. 197.

⁵⁷ Araldi, Mss, Cavazzi, , ‘Missione evangelica’, vol. A, Book 2, 16, and in more detail, 33–4.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ de Sousa, Fernão, ‘Rellação de Dongo’, in Heintze, , Fontes, vol. 1, 199.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Ibid. vol. 1, 199, and followed by Araldi, Mss, Cavazzi, , ‘Missione evangelica’, vol. A, Book 2, 34Google Scholar, and Gaeta, , Maravigliosa Conversione, 205–6.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Araldi, Mss, Cavazzi, , ‘Missione evangelica’, vol. A, Book 2, 33, 41, 124.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Italian sources use the unusual masculine forms concubino (plural concubini) as concubina (concubine) is feminine.

⁶² Araldi, Mss, Cavazzi, , ‘Missione evangelica’, vol. A, Book 2, 41Google Scholar; Gaeta, , Maravigliosa Conversione, 218–19.Google Scholar These observations, made by the Italian Capuchins in the late 1650s and 1660s, were also recorded by Dutch soldiers who served in her army during the Dutch occupation of Angola, 1641–8; see Dapper, Olfert, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche Gewester (2nd ed., Amsterdam, 1676 [1st ed., 1668]), second pagination, 237.Google Scholar

⁶³ Cadornega, , Historia, vol. 1, 405.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Araldi, Mss, Cavazzi, , ‘Missione evangelica’, vol. A, Book 2, 96.Google Scholar Cadornega mentions her guard battalion but does not describe it as being composed of women, História, vol. 1, 405.

⁶⁵ Cavazzi, , Istorica Descrizione, Book 6, para 31.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Cavazzi, , Istorica Descrizione, Book 2, para 76.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ The struggle is detailed in Cadornega, , História, vol. 2, 246–9, 254–6, 295–7.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Gaeta, , Maravigliosa Conversione, 144–5Google Scholar, to cite the most obviously pro-Njinga source.

⁶⁹ The crisis is traced in Cadornega, , História, vol. 2, 298–300, 314–29.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ The title was so used in a formal document of Queen Verónica II: Biblioteca da Universidade de Coimbra, Mss 2529, f. 64; Veronica statement, undated, cited and quoted in Campos, Fernando, ‘A data da morte da Rainha Jinga D. Verónica I’, Africa (São Paulo), IV (1981), 79–104;Google Scholar V (1982), 172–204; VI (1983), 89–128, at IV, 86.

⁷¹ The date of her death was given by Modena, Giuseppe Monari da, who helped in the funeral; see Archivio de Propaganda Fide, Scritture Originale nel Congregazione Generale, vol. 641, ff. 129–33.Google Scholar

⁷² Campos, , ‘Data da morte’, IV, 79–90.Google Scholar