Warfare, Enslavement, and Leadership: The Seventeenth-Century Legacy of Queen Njinga

The paper will examine the actions of the rulers who took over the state of Matamba after the death of the famous Queen Njinga and explore the part they played in the continuing export of slaves to the Americas. When Njinga died in 1663 after nearly forty years of warfare she bequeathed an independent state to her successors.  Within a few years however, chaos and civil wars threatened the independence that Njinga had fought so hard to preserve.  The paper argues that the ever increasing demands of the Portuguese and other Europeans for slaves to feed the markets in Spanish America and Brazil were the major factors that led to increased warfare and enslavement and the collapse that Matamba experienced following Njinga’s death to 1730.