Merry Christmas, y'all!

 Merry Christmas, y'all!

Everyone have a Happy, Healthy, & Merry Christmas!!

Be safe, be with someone you love, and be merry!



Oh, and let's keep "CHRIST" in "Christmas!"

Get ready for 2014!!

Black History: Warrior Queens, Pt. 3 - Queen Nzinga

Here's yet another entry into Warrior Queens:

Queen Nzinga of Angola



For more info on this Warrior Queen simply click on the links, courtesy of Wikipedia.org, BlackHistoryHeroes.com, and BlackPast.org.

Queen Ana de Sousa Nzinga Mbande of Ndongo

Warrior Queen of Angola

 

Enjoy!!





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Queen Ana de Sousa Nzinga Mbande of Ndongo (Angola)

Image: Queen Nzinga of Angola (circa b: 1581 - d. Dec. 17, 1663)

A brief account of the life and times of one of the earliest recorded African warrior queens, Queen Nzinga (aka Nzinga; Dona Ana de Sousa; Ana de Souza; Zhinga; N'Zhinga; Jinga; Ngola Ana Nzinga Mbande), renowned for her strategic military tactics and political and diplomatic intelligence.

Born as Princess Nzinga among the Mbundu (Ambundu) group of the Ndongo Kingdom in the central west Africa region now known as Angola. Her father was Ngola Kilajua, the word 'Ngola' referring to the title of the ruling chief, which later developed into the national name for the region. Her mother reportedly had no blood ties to the royal family  within the landed chieftain system. Nzinga had one brother, Ngola Mbandi, and two sisters, Kifunji and Mukambu. Though she resisted Portuguese colonial occupation of central west Africa for over four decades, she officially ruled Ndongo from 1624-1626 and 1657-1663.

The earliest European record of Nzinga was a report of her inclusion in her brother's envoy to an 1622 peace conference before the Portuguese's Luanda governor João Correia de Sousa. Luanda is an Atlantic coastal city, the largest city in Angola and the country's capital. An historical account of the conference includes the famous tale of Correia de Sousa's not offering Nzinga a chair, instead placing a floor mat before her to sit. In an 1690 book, the Italian priest Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi, in attendance at the court, memorialized the scene in an engraving whereby Nzinga asserts her status by sitting on the back of a maid servant within her royal envoy during the course of the negotiations. 

Image: Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi, Istorica Descrizione de' Tre Regni Congo, Matamba, et Angola (Milan, 1690), p. 437 Cavazzi writes the Queen's name as 'Zingha'. (Copy in the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University) 

Though a treaty was signed with the Portuguese at this peace conference it was never honored by them. They soon hired the Imbangala (aka Mbangala) to fight against the Ndongo Kingdom as they pushed to capture slaves to further their national slave trading export interests to the so-called New World. Prior to Nzinga's birth, the Portuguese had settled along the southern part of the Congo River and began moving up the Kwanza River Valley in search of slaves and gold. According to historical reports, the Imbangala in the 17th century mostly comprised bands of pillaging warriors native to this regions, founders of the kingdom of Kasanje. They aided the Portuguese colonial campaigns as early as those of Luis Mendes de Vasconcelos in 1618. The Imbangala's historical marauding customs were reportedly abandoned by the late seventeenth century.

Map: main region of military battles between Kingdom of Ndongo and Portuguese in Angola

The Mbundu tradition prohibited women rulers, so upon Nzinga's brother's death she became regent to his son Kiza, but soon convinced the Portuguese to support her bid to the throne. In 1622, she was baptized and took the Christian name Ana, the surname of the Luanda governor de Sousa and the Portuguese title Dona. Hence Princess Nzinga became known as Dona Ana de Sousa in a political move to help secure her succession to the Ndongo Kingdom throne. 

The Portuguese began negotiating directly with Nzinga. The arrival of Fernão de Sousa in 1624 started with discussions with her, but because she was not submissive to the Portuguese ended with her ouster from Kidonga. That same year she is reported to refer to herself as "Rainha de Andongo" (Queen of Andongo). After the Portuguese ouster, Nzinga continued fighting against the Portuguese while in exile. She fled east but reclaimed the island in 1627. She was again driven out by the Portuguese in 1629, the year her sister was captured by their military forces. 

By 1641, Nzinga had entered into was is noted by commentators as the first African-European alliance against another European nations when she entered into negotiations  with the Dutch. In 1646 her army defeated the Portuguese at Davanga, but her other sister was captured. By 1647 her alliance with the Dutch was fruitful in the seizure of Masangano from the Portuguese. In 1648 her army retreated to Matamba, a pre-colonial African Kingdom located in what is now the Baixa de Cassange region of Malanje Province of modern day Angola. 

Photo: Statue of Queen Nzinga in Luanda, Angola on the Kinaxixi Square

In an 1657 speech, Queen Nzinga reportedly stated to her army that an alliance with the Imbangala was then a necessary evil in the military war against the Portuguese. In the same year, however, she signed a peace treaty with the Portuguese. She had fought against the their colonial and slave raiding attacks for decades.  Queen Nzinga died on December 17, 1663 at the age of 80. Unfortunately, her death accelerated Portuguese colonial occupation, as well as their Atlanta slave trade activities in central west Africa.

Photo: modern day aerial view of Luanda, Angola

 

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I gotta revisit this subject at a later date because there's some great info out there.

More to come...

Black History: Warrior Queens, Pt. 2 - Queen Amina

Hey, folks. I hope you enjoyed the last entry on Harriet Tubman.

Here's another Warrior Queen that many people don't know about:

Queen Amina


I have just a small bio on this Warrior Queen below, courtesy of Africanglobe.net.

For more info, click on the links, courtesy of Africanglobe.net & BlackHistoryHeroes.com.

Enjoy!! KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!!!




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Queen Amina of Zazzau: A West African Warrior Queen

November 3, 2013 | Filed under: Featured,Profiles | Posted by: Editorial_Staff

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Image of Queen Amina of the Zazzau Kingdom of West Africa

AFRICANGLONE – Queen Amina (also known as Queen Aminatu), was the elder daughter of Queen Bakwa Turunku, the founder of the Zazzau Kingdom in 1536. Some scholars date Queen Amina’s reign to about 1549, as heir apparent after the death of her mother.

This medieval African kingdom was located in the region now known as the Kaduna State in the north-central region of Nigeria, capital at the modern city of Zaria. Zaria (aka Birnin Zaria) was named after Queen Amina’s younger sister Zariya, and is where the Royal Palace of Zaria resided.
The earliest commentator to mention Queen Amina is Muhammed Bello’s history Ifaq al-Maysur, composed around 1836. Queen Amina is also mentioned in the Kano Chronicle, a well-regarded and detailed history of the city of Kano and the surrounding Hausa people.

It was composed in the late 19th century and incorporated earlier oral histories before the Fulani jihad of 1804-1810. It included king-lists of the various Hausa kingdoms.

Known as a great military strategist, the cavalry-trained Queen Amina fought many wars that expanded this southern-most Hausa kingdom. According to the Sankore Institute of Islamic – African Studies International, a non-profit, non-political educational institution, reporting on this region of the Hausa:

These seven regions witnessed many unusual and strange events. The first to establish government among them, as it has been claimed, was Amina, the daughter of the Amir of Zakzak. She made military assaults upon these lands until she proclaimed herself over them by force.
The lands of Katsina and Kano were forced to hand over levy to her. She also made incursions into the lands of Bauchi until she reached the Atlantic Ocean to the south and west. She died in a place called Attaagar. It was for this reason that the kingdom of Zakzak was the most extensive among the kingdoms of Hausa, since Bauchi included many regions.

Here, it appears that Zakzak is Zazzau, and the reference is to Queen Amina.


Queen Amina is a legend among the Hausa people for her military exploits. She controlled the trade routes in the region, erecting a network of commerce within the great earthen walls that surrounded Hausa cities within her dominion. According to the Kano Chronicle, she conquered as far as Nupe and Kwarafa, ruling for 34 years.

Commemorative stamp of Queen of Amina of Zaria

By 1805, the region was captured by the Fulani during the Fulani jihad. By 1901, Frederick Lugard led British forces and captured Zaria as a protectorate state. This is the same year that it is reported that Zaria sought British protection against slave raids from the Kontagora region.

After a Zaria magaji (representative) murdered the British Captain Moloney in 1902 at Keffi, the British stripped the emirate of most of its vassal states. Since Nigeria’s independence from the British in 1960, Zaria is one of its largest traditional emirates.

Gate to the palace of the emir of Zazzau

Zaria city was originally surrounded by walls built by Queen Amina, but those walls have since been removed. The above shown entrance is to the palace of the Emir of Zazzau.

The emir counsels over a region larger than the city of Zaria. Despite the rise of the nation-states in Africa, the emirs exert significant power within the region and represents the continuation of the traditional leadership of the historical kingdom-states.

Community in city of Zaria, representing traditional Hausa architecture in Africa

Zaria is home to Ahmadu Bello University, the largest university in Nigeria and the second largest university on the African continent. The university is very prominent in the fields of Agriculture, Science, Finance, Medicine and Law.


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Another bad chick (And I mean that in a good way.).

More to come...

Black History: Warrior Queens, Pt. 1 - Harriet Tubman and the Combahee River Raid

Here's alittle Black History dealing with a true Warrior Queen: 

Harriet Tubman.

If you don't know who she is, click on this link and this link for more info, courtesy of Wikipedia.org and The Harriet Tubman Bio Page because truly a Bad Chick.

Harriet Tubman

 Arguably her most famous picture.

Harriet Tubman...

 ...in her later years.

Here's just a piece of her story below, courtesy of Africanglobe.net and About.com's Women's History.

Read on...




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Harriet Tubman and the Combahee River Raid

June 10, 2013 | Filed under: Featured,Headlines | Posted by: Editorial_Staff

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Raid of Second South Carolina Volunteers among the rice plantations of the Combahee, from a sketch by Surgeon Robinson,” published in Harper’s Weekly July 4, 1863

AFRICANGLOBE – One hundred and fifty years ago, on June 2, 1863, Union forces led by Harriet Tubman and Col. James Montgomery engaged in a daring and wildly successful raid up the Combahee River in South Carolina.
The Combahee River Raid crippled local Confederate infrastructure, liberated 756 enslaved Blacks, and earned Tubman well-deserved accolades as the first woman in U.S. history to plan and lead a military raid.

The Military Operation

Harriet Tubman and James Montgomery had set out the night before from Beaufort in three U.S. Navy gunboats. Montgomery commanded a detachment of soldiers from the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers, an all-Black infantry regiment, while a company from the 3rd Rhode Island Heavy Artillery manned the ships’ guns. Harriet Tubman, who had scouted the area and received widespread credit for planning the raid, accompanied Montgomery and was widely seen as jointly leading the operation.

The two Union gunboats which reached the Combahee on the morning of June 2, 1863, proceeded up the river, landing troops as they went. One gunboat, the Harriet A. Weed, anchored near a plantation, while the other, the John Adams, continued upriver, eventually destroying a pontoon bridge and shelling Confederate troops.

The Commonwealth, a Boston newspaper, reported on July 10 that the expedition’s successes included “destroying millions of dollars worth of commissary stores, cotton, and lordly dwellings, and striking terror into the heart of rebeldom,” all “without losing a man or receiving a scratch.” The raid was also intended to remove mines (“torpedoes”) placed by Confederate forces along the river and, thanks to Harriet Tubman’s intelligence efforts, this, too, was accomplished.

Liberating ‘Contraband’

The raid had one final objective: to confiscate valuable Confederate property, what Union forces still tended to refer to as “contraband.”

This goal proved rather simple for Harriet Tubman and James Montgomery. As word spread of the operation moving along the river, enslaved Blacks began leaving their work in the fields and rushing to the riverbanks to board the gunboats, overwhelming overseers and soldiers trying to stop them.

Harriet Tubman described the chaotic scene as follows:

I nebber see such a sight … we laughed, an’ laughed, an’ laughed. Here you’d see a woman wid a pail on her head, rice a smokin’ in it jus as she’d taken it from de fire, young one hangin’ on behind, one han’ roun’ her forehead to hold on, ‘tother han’ diggin’ into de rice-pot, eatin’ wid all its might; hold of her dress two or three more; down her back a bag wid a pig in it. One woman brought two pigs, a white one, an’ a black one; we took ‘em all on board; named de white pig Beauregard, an’ de black pig Jeff Davis. Sometimes de women would come wid twins hangin’ roun’ der necks; ‘pears like I nebber see so many twins in my life; bags on der shoulders, baskets on der heads, and young ones taggin’ behin’, all loaded; pigs squealin’, chickens screamin’, young ones squallin’.” – from Sarah H. Bradford’s “Scenes in the life of Harriet Tubman (1869), Pages 40-41

In all, Tubman reported that the raid liberated 756 enslaved Blacks along the Combahee – or, perhaps more precisely, gave them the opportunity to liberate themselves – and that nearly all of the able-bodied men who were enslaved promptly joined the Union’s colored regiments.

The Lasting Impact of the Raid

Harriet Tubman

The raid’s success, and the role of Blacks in leading and conducting it, as well as the hundreds of enslaved Blacks who rose up at the first sight of Union troops, made a deep impact on the Union public. At the same time, it was frightening and demoralizing for the Confederate side, all the more so because of what the raid implied about what the South’s enslaved population wanted, and was capable of.

In fact, in an effort to minimize the impact on morale and ideology, the official Confederate report was forced to lay the blame for the raid on “a parcel of negro wretches, calling themselves soldiers, with a few degraded Whites.”

The broader significance of the Combahee River Raid, I think, is that it shattered two persistent myths which had long impeded the arrival of emancipation for Black Americans. First, the raid demonstrated very publicly that Black troops were not merely fit as laborers or cannon fodder but were every bit as capable and in some cases even more capable a their White counterpart at executing complex military operations under the most challenging circumstances.

Second, the raid’s success in liberating hundreds of Blacks – or, in allowing them to liberate themselves – electrified the Northern and Southern publics and defied the Confederacy’s insistence on the quiet loyalty of its enslaved population. The raid showed convincingly that enslaved Blacks were, in fact, eager for freedom and willing to rise up on a moment’s notice, if given the opportunity, and to then join Union forces in droves and fight back.

Together, these two powerful truths helped to show the necessity and rightness of emancipation, at a time when the Northern public, in particular, was only beginning to wrestle with that very issue.


James DeWolf Perry is the executive director of the Tracing Center. He received an Emmy nomination as the principal historical consultant for the PBS documentary “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North,” in which he also appears as a descendant of the DeWolf slave-trading family of Bristol, R.I. Since the film’s premiere, James has spoken about his family’s, and the nation’s, historic role in slavery, and has facilitated discussions about the nation’s legacy of slavery and race across the country and abroad. He can be reached through his blog, The Living Consequences.

By: James DeWolf Perry


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Harriet Tubman DID NOT play.


More to come....

Over 3 months since my last post..

Damn.

I don't believe I let over 3 freakin' months pass since I posted on my blog last!

Damn, again.

I've been busy as hell trying to get my head right for what I have in store for 2014 when it comes. The "Master Plan" is about to be in full effect! 

REAL TALK.

Stay tuned, y'all...