Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from house
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm far A Dowdy and I'm DeLine Choker Boarding and
Speaker 1: today's subject is a warrior and a queen. Her name
Speaker 1: is Dinga of Dongo and the Tamba, And even though
Speaker 1: she's considered one of the best documented rulers of her
Speaker 1: era in Africa, probably many of you, like us, hadn't
Speaker 1: ever heard of her before. I mean, have you heard
Speaker 1: of her? I had not to know, and I first
Speaker 1: heard of her on a website for historical Halloween costumes.
Speaker 1: So that's not really um, I don't know where you'd
Speaker 1: expect that history resource for your research. I'm skeptical now.
Speaker 1: It's not where you'd expect to first hear about a
Speaker 1: historical figure like this. But she was there, tucked in
Speaker 1: with these more familiar names, people like Queen Victoria, Cleopatra,
Speaker 1: people who you might actually go out and see somebody
Speaker 1: dressed as them for Halloween. But she's a pretty amazing ruler,
Speaker 1: and not just because she would throw a sword around
Speaker 1: her neck and enter battle well into her sixties. She's
Speaker 1: most impressive for her ability to maintain her independence despite
Speaker 1: in fighting, despite battling colonial powers, and despite a strong
Speaker 1: prejudice among her own people against women rulers. Plus she
Speaker 1: had styled she had kind of some swagger. I'd say
Speaker 1: she had a very interesting style. In fact, the best
Speaker 1: story about her has the still uncrowned and Zinga acting
Speaker 1: as her brother the king's emissary to Portuguese colonists. So
Speaker 1: when she saw the Portuguese governor hadn't provided her with
Speaker 1: a chair because he was intending to humble her and
Speaker 1: have her sit on a mat, she ordered her attendant
Speaker 1: down on hands and knees and carried out negotiations sitting
Speaker 1: on her back. So that's a power play for sure.
Speaker 1: It certainly embarrassed the Portuguese. That made an impression on
Speaker 1: all of those who who witnessed it. But the Women
Speaker 1: in World History Encyclopedia describes in Zinga as a proto
Speaker 1: nationalist leader. They describe her as wildly and intelligent. I'd
Speaker 1: say the chair stunt proves that, and one who quote
Speaker 1: maintained her power by adopting contradictory strategies which ultimately succeeded.
Speaker 1: And I really think contradictory. Once you hear about this,
Speaker 1: lady is a super understatement because Zinga was a ruler
Speaker 1: willing to embrace, for instance, Catholicism and then go to
Speaker 1: ritual cannibalism from that, and then back to Catholicism again,
Speaker 1: all to keep power. She would broke her a slave
Speaker 1: trading agreement with the Portuguese, then announce her kingdom as
Speaker 1: a safe haven for escape these all over Africa. You know,
Speaker 1: these real dramatic changes in policy in order to to
Speaker 1: hold onto her power. And those are just a couple examples,
Speaker 1: and it really worked. The style of hers really work.
Speaker 1: She ruled for forty years and she established a kingdom
Speaker 1: that of we did colonization for about two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty years after her death. But first, before we go
Speaker 1: into all of that, how did she get her start
Speaker 1: and what was she up against? So we're going to
Speaker 1: take a little bit of a look at her background
Speaker 1: to begin with. And to look at her background, we
Speaker 1: have to also look at the background on the situation
Speaker 1: at the time. The Portuguese had arrived in Africa in
Speaker 1: the late fourteen hundreds. They wanted slaves for their colony
Speaker 1: in Brazil, but they didn't want the competition of the
Speaker 1: English and French in northeast Africa, so they went south
Speaker 1: to what is today Congo and Angola. When they reached
Speaker 1: Angola by the early fifteen hundreds, they found a collection
Speaker 1: of African kingdoms ruled by aristocratic families that would frequently
Speaker 1: turn over the kingship, so they'd flip it between noble families,
Speaker 1: so any designated king was really only in power temporarily
Speaker 1: before the next family captured the crown. It reminds me
Speaker 1: a little bit of elected officials, but also just sort
Speaker 1: of coup after coup after coup um nobody would really
Speaker 1: count on passing on the kingship to his son. But
Speaker 1: one of the more important kingdoms in this area was Indongo,
Speaker 1: which was formed by the Mundu people in the late
Speaker 1: fifteenth century. And the Mundu had been threatened by the
Speaker 1: Kingdom of Congo to the north, and eventually, of course
Speaker 1: also by the Portuguese, and this had really forced them
Speaker 1: to tighten up their leadership structure from what you just
Speaker 1: described to Blina and make it more about heredity and
Speaker 1: center power and government in the Indongo kingdom, which would
Speaker 1: be ruled by a king called angla Uh. And just
Speaker 1: because it sort of helps me understand this and put
Speaker 1: it into more context. It's that word and gola um
Speaker 1: that drove the Portuguese to start calling the whole area
Speaker 1: and gola kind of strange sense. That word just means king.
Speaker 1: It's do you think that maybe the whole area would
Speaker 1: end up being called Indongo. That's not how it went down.
Speaker 1: So this noble run system was also put to the
Speaker 1: side and favor of a royal slave run state, the
Speaker 1: slaves taking high positions in the military or government, even
Speaker 1: collecting taxes, kind of like the janissaria. So not how
Speaker 1: you normally think of slaves disenfranchise um. These were people
Speaker 1: who had more power and presumably could be relied on
Speaker 1: a little more than the in fighting nobles. So at
Speaker 1: first the Portuguese treated in Dongo and other kingdoms in
Speaker 1: the area as trading partners, albeit kind of trading partners
Speaker 1: with a gun to their head. Basically, supply of slaves
Speaker 1: will be your trading partners. If you don't, well, then
Speaker 1: your own people will be enslaved, maybe even you the nobles,
Speaker 1: or you the rulers. So not much of a choice there.
Speaker 1: But once they established a slave trading base at Luanda Island,
Speaker 1: they got even more aggressive the Portuguese. The Portuguese did right,
Speaker 1: old trading partners suddenly became enemies at that point. After
Speaker 1: a few decades of fighting, things were at a semi
Speaker 1: stalemate until about sixteen twelve to sixteen twenty two, when
Speaker 1: the Portuguese brought in the Bengala warriors as mercenaries, and
Speaker 1: the in Bengala practiced ritual cannibalism. The enslaved boys for troops,
Speaker 1: they killed kids born in their camps, and they had
Speaker 1: democratically elected leaders. I mean, except for that last part,
Speaker 1: they're pretty scary. They were really really terrifying, and with
Speaker 1: im Bengala help, the Portuguese did manage to finally bring
Speaker 1: Dongo that kingdom to its knees, and the king Bandi
Speaker 1: had to flee his own country. Okay, so this is
Speaker 1: where our lady Zinga finally comes in. So with King
Speaker 1: Bande on the Lamb, he sent his sister who is
Speaker 1: in Zinga, as an emissary to the Portuguese in about
Speaker 1: sixteen twenty one or sixteen twenty two, and she was
Speaker 1: there for pretty serious negotiations, not only to try to
Speaker 1: patch things over with the Portuguese, you know, try to
Speaker 1: get it so her brother could return to his kingdom,
Speaker 1: but to stave off to African competitors to the in
Speaker 1: Dongo throne as well. But despite you know, those like
Speaker 1: really serious needs of hers, she did not come begging
Speaker 1: to the Portuguese at all. She of course pulled off
Speaker 1: that servant chair stunt that Dablina described in the beginning,
Speaker 1: something that was so absolutely shocking to those present that
Speaker 1: one of them, Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi, depicted it in this
Speaker 1: really fantastic illustration. You can look this one up and
Speaker 1: I think just the expressions on everybody's face is really great.
Speaker 1: And Zinga looks quite comfy and stately on her human chair.
Speaker 1: The non weight bearing attendants look pretty impressed with their
Speaker 1: not their queen at this point, but a representative of
Speaker 1: their king. Some of them are almost smirking a little bit.
Speaker 1: The governor looks super awkward, his legs are all splayed
Speaker 1: out while he's sitting on his traditional chair. And meanwhile
Speaker 1: the servant on the ground looks solid, not like she's
Speaker 1: suffering under the under the weight or anything. It's a
Speaker 1: great picture. So what happened after that little snapshot that
Speaker 1: we see, well, once did and Zinga went to work
Speaker 1: Portuguese Governor Korea Disoza demanded that all Portuguese war prisoners
Speaker 1: be released. She demanded that all Mbundu people be returned
Speaker 1: from slavery in Brazil and exchange. So they were kind
Speaker 1: of at a stalement, I say. Eventually they settled on
Speaker 1: releasing Portuguese prisoners in exchange for in Bondi being allowed
Speaker 1: to remain ruler of an independent kingdom for good measure,
Speaker 1: and Zinga also converted to Catholicism. Governor Disza acted as
Speaker 1: her godfather in this case, and she actually took his name,
Speaker 1: becoming Donna Anna Dissa. She knew it couldn't hurt to
Speaker 1: become the Portuguese Christian ally exactly. So it sounds like
Speaker 1: Bondi would be eternally grateful for his sister for working
Speaker 1: out this fantastic deal. But the two had a bit
Speaker 1: of a history of bad blood together, and Bondi himself
Speaker 1: had killed their father as well as possibly different sources
Speaker 1: say uh and Zinga's infant son, in order to really
Speaker 1: consolidate his own power. But before her stint as a negotiator,
Speaker 1: and Zinka had definitely been reduced to having to flee
Speaker 1: her own kingdom because of her brother, so things weren't
Speaker 1: great between them. So maybe it's not a huge surprise
Speaker 1: that in sixteen twenty four Bondi wound up dead under
Speaker 1: mysterious circumstances. That's the way he seen described everywhere. Not
Speaker 1: quite clear on how how he met his end, but regardless,
Speaker 1: and Zinga took control after that, despite some major obstacles
Speaker 1: against her becoming queen. Just to give you an idea
Speaker 1: of what those obstacles were, hereditary kingship was not set
Speaker 1: in stone at the time, and even if it was,
Speaker 1: Zinka's mother was a slave, so I would have excluded her.
Speaker 1: That would not have applied to her. And even if
Speaker 1: that was okay, she was a woman, and that Umbundu
Speaker 1: specifically did not allow women to rule. So it begins
Speaker 1: to sound less like a cork of lineage and more
Speaker 1: were like a coup. With the fact that she did
Speaker 1: become the leader, and since her position was so unstable,
Speaker 1: she really desperately needed the support of the Portuguese to
Speaker 1: maintain it, so she entered into a deal with them
Speaker 1: that opened up Umbundu areas to Portuguese slavers. She wanted
Speaker 1: to become a middleman for slaves, not a source. She
Speaker 1: also welcomed their missionaries into her capital, which strengthened her
Speaker 1: base there, and she by doing that, she also emphasized
Speaker 1: that she was a Christian. Ally, she was working definitely,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't long before she was betrayed by the Portuguese,
Speaker 1: changing alliances herself, she banded up with the former enemy
Speaker 1: and Portuguese ally that we talked about before, the in
Speaker 1: Bungalow warriors, who conveniently enough and unlike her own people,
Speaker 1: had a tradition of centering power on kinless women. And
Speaker 1: she also got some support from a pretty unexpected source.
Speaker 1: Considering that she was still acting as a middleman for
Speaker 1: slave she sent out a message to escape slaves across
Speaker 1: the region and even the continent, offering asylum in exchange
Speaker 1: for loyalty. And so she ultimately transformed herself from a middleman,
Speaker 1: from a slave provider to a safe haven for these
Speaker 1: fiercely loyal escape beas. Because you can imagine, if you
Speaker 1: finally got somebody who would stick up for you, you
Speaker 1: would ultimately fight for her. So she further undermined the Portuguese,
Speaker 1: not just by collecting these escaped slaves and turning them
Speaker 1: into her own warriors, but by placing moles in the
Speaker 1: Portuguese forces. So she knew that the colonizers relied on
Speaker 1: black soldiers, and she'd send out her own guys into
Speaker 1: their ranks. And then these infiltrators would gradually work their
Speaker 1: way up and begin to cause trouble, you know, stir
Speaker 1: things up, encourage desertion, and sometimes whole companies of Portuguese
Speaker 1: soldiers would turn tail and join Zinga, taking of course
Speaker 1: all of their nice Portuguese equipment and gear and weapons
Speaker 1: with them. But still, in spite of all this, by
Speaker 1: about sixteen twenty nine, the Portuguese forced in Zinga to
Speaker 1: abandon in Dongo. She spread rumors that she died and
Speaker 1: tried to kind of drop off the map at this point.
Speaker 1: Then suddenly she popped up again on the outer edges
Speaker 1: of Umbundu Lands in the Kingdom of Matamba. Matamba had
Speaker 1: been left desolate in the first round of the Portuguese
Speaker 1: in Bengala raids from the sixteen twenties and left rulerless
Speaker 1: unlike Indonga, though Matamba had an ancient tradition of women rulers,
Speaker 1: and so nin Zinga was able to consolidate her power there,
Speaker 1: and she again offered sanctuary to runaways and formed a
Speaker 1: new kind of military, one where kids would leave their
Speaker 1: families and grow up in militia communes, again a way
Speaker 1: to inspire this fierce loyalty to her, she'd also this
Speaker 1: is another good way to get loyalty. She would use
Speaker 1: her sisters as warriors, and even going to battle herself,
Speaker 1: dressed in skins and equipped, as we mentioned, with that
Speaker 1: sword around her neck, an axe and her girdle, and
Speaker 1: bows and arrows in her hands. So a pretty scary
Speaker 1: figure in her own right. But her most important initiative
Speaker 1: in Matamba came in the sixteen thirties when she blocked
Speaker 1: the main slave trail to the interior, closing down the
Speaker 1: market in a sense. She still sold some slaves off herself,
Speaker 1: but she kept more as mercenaries. So this made Batamba
Speaker 1: a gateway, not a source for slaves. It was the
Speaker 1: ultimate goal in Dongo from the start, so to control
Speaker 1: these routes more thoroughly. Though she'd formed confederation, she knew
Speaker 1: that she couldn't defeat all her neighbors. She need to
Speaker 1: work with some of them, so she'd partner up with
Speaker 1: neighbors like Congo den both keep them off, and also
Speaker 1: started a rebellion in Dongo, which by this point was
Speaker 1: controlled by a Portuguese puppet, so her enemy. Essentially, she
Speaker 1: made a new European ally too in the sties. When
Speaker 1: the Dutch came into the picture, she figured it was
Speaker 1: a great way to um play another European power off
Speaker 1: of the Portuguese, and uh it worked pretty well. The
Speaker 1: Dutch occupied the Portuguese trading post at Luanda, and by
Speaker 1: the Portuguese withdrew. This ended up sort of being the
Speaker 1: apex of Zinga's power, though, and she really worked to
Speaker 1: make sure everybody knew how strong she was. She also
Speaker 1: at this point wanted to get around any lingering questions
Speaker 1: that maybe lying around about whether she was actually fit
Speaker 1: to serve as a woman, so naturally she declares herself
Speaker 1: king just avoided the issue entirely that way exactly, And
Speaker 1: this kingship of hers came complete with a harem of men.
Speaker 1: She would dress the men in this harem as women
Speaker 1: and have them sleep in the same quarters as her
Speaker 1: ladies in waiting, the same female attendants who doubled as
Speaker 1: her personal bodyguard to further bolster her position as a
Speaker 1: woman leader, she'd promote other ladies too, powerful positions in
Speaker 1: the government and the army, and of course this we've
Speaker 1: already mentioned, her sis serves out there fighting in the
Speaker 1: army along with her. But her powers still hinged on
Speaker 1: playing one European power off of another, and when the
Speaker 1: Dutch left the region in sixteen fifty in Zinga was
Speaker 1: forced to ally herself with her longtime enemy, the Portuguese.
Speaker 1: She signed a treaty with them in sixteen fifty six
Speaker 1: and promised to deliver a quota of slaves, but also
Speaker 1: got their assurance that she'd be able to maintain her
Speaker 1: kingdom's independence and end the war with Dongo. To that
Speaker 1: war that had been going on for so long with
Speaker 1: the puppet ruler, she re converted to Christianity, and even
Speaker 1: though she left no heirs, when she died in sixteen
Speaker 1: sixty three, her general started this dynasty of queens who
Speaker 1: this is absolutely amazing. They ruled Matomba and in Dongo,
Speaker 1: which of course did not have that tradition of female
Speaker 1: rulers for eighty of the one hundred and four years
Speaker 1: after her death. The last of those women rulers died
Speaker 1: in seventeen sixty seven. Matta but wasn't integrated into the
Speaker 1: Portuguese colony of Angola until nineteen o nine, whereas in
Speaker 1: Dongo was lost to Angola bout the Puppet King's son
Speaker 1: just a few years after in Zinga's death. So it
Speaker 1: just goes to show what a strong kingdom she built
Speaker 1: on her up there. And according to the Met Museum,
Speaker 1: which has loads of information on the famous servant chair illustration,
Speaker 1: and Zinga became a sensation in Europe around the same
Speaker 1: time after the publication of her biography, Zinga Randy Angola. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and apparently it was a pretty salacious biography with a
Speaker 1: lot of exaggerated facts in it, but it really made
Speaker 1: her a popular figure. People were interested in learning more
Speaker 1: about her. I kept on thinking, though, I know, we
Speaker 1: we don't. We don't like to compare people to Western
Speaker 1: figures all the time. We've talked about that. I think
Speaker 1: with Lakshmi Bay wasn't she called the joan of But
Speaker 1: I also think that sometimes it really helps you give
Speaker 1: a comparison, It helps make place it in context. It does,
Speaker 1: And for this once I started reading about and I
Speaker 1: couldn't help think of two figures. One was Elizabeth first
Speaker 1: and the other was hat shep Set of Egypt. And
Speaker 1: she reminded me of Elizabeth because of the obvious struggle
Speaker 1: she had to overcome about her gender. You know, England
Speaker 1: was not really cool with a female ruler and that
Speaker 1: and then objections to her lineage too, you know, her
Speaker 1: mother was a slave. And then she reminds me of
Speaker 1: Elizabeth most though, because that that mastering of playing one
Speaker 1: group off against the other. I mean, it would really
Speaker 1: take a strong person to be able to do that
Speaker 1: and not end up losing your kingdom or becoming a
Speaker 1: puppet ruler yourself. She reminded me of hat Shops that
Speaker 1: because of her just total decision to avoid the prejudice
Speaker 1: against queens and rule as a king, I mean, complete
Speaker 1: with this harem of of men um. So I thought
Speaker 1: that was strange that one person could remind me of
Speaker 1: two so very different queens. Yeah, but I think that's
Speaker 1: it makes in Sinka so unique, is that she reminds
Speaker 1: you of these two people, but she kind of mixes
Speaker 1: them both different ads in her own thing, and it's
Speaker 1: totally different and maybe actually the perfect Halloween costume you
Speaker 1: saw this on a Halloween costume site, right, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was an elaborate costume they had set out for her,
Speaker 1: So maybe some of y'all that's when for you to consider.
Speaker 1: All right, well, I guess we'll have to wait to
Speaker 1: hear from our listeners then and see if they dress
Speaker 1: that bazar. But speaking of our listeners, it's time to
Speaker 1: move on to listener mail. First, we have this beautiful
Speaker 1: sunset picture from Guatemala that Ryan sent us. He says,
Speaker 1: I hope you got this postcard that I sent from Germany.
Speaker 1: I'm from California but in a Master's of International Nature
Speaker 1: conservation program, and he says that right now he's doing
Speaker 1: research in the mountains of Guatemala. So thank you Ryan
Speaker 1: for sending us this. It's beautiful. It's a lovely card.
Speaker 1: We have another postcard from Crispin and Chrispin, your handwriting
Speaker 1: it's like a font almost, it's pretty amazing. So he
Speaker 1: wrote to us to say that he loves the podcast
Speaker 1: and they provide a great deal of entertainment which is
Speaker 1: in very short supply when living here in the outback
Speaker 1: of Central Australia. I'm a British guy who decided to
Speaker 1: abandon the Cubicle and spend a few years traveling around
Speaker 1: the world. I have dropped my backpack to live and
Speaker 1: work for three months in the village of Laura. I
Speaker 1: believe at Iris Rock in April, my time in Australia
Speaker 1: comes to an end and I will be off to
Speaker 1: Southeast Asia. So thank you very much. He also suggested
Speaker 1: that we do an episode on Irish Rock, which would
Speaker 1: certainly be um, certainly be interesting. We haven't done Australian
Speaker 1: history since our our ned Kelly Bush Rangers. That's true,
Speaker 1: we have had a big dump of Australian Oh we
Speaker 1: had our our Freedom writers too, so this would probably
Speaker 1: be from much older history than that. So thank you
Speaker 1: to both of you guys for sending such lovely postcards.
Speaker 1: And I also want to thank my friend Marie Crystal
Speaker 1: too for helping us out with these pronunciations. We did
Speaker 1: our best with the m and ends down. We didn't
Speaker 1: butcher them too badly. Of course, any mistakes are ours
Speaker 1: and not herds. But thank you again. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And if any of you guys want to suggest topics,
Speaker 1: maybe some more African history, we are getting their February too,
Speaker 1: and so we'll be covering Black History Month, of course.
Speaker 1: Uh please email us. We have a new email address.
Speaker 1: It is History Podcast at Discovery dot com. We've finally
Speaker 1: switched the main names to our parent company. We're still
Speaker 1: at missed in History on Twitter and we're still on
Speaker 1: Facebook too. Those they're both great ways to contact us.
Speaker 1: And if you want to learn a little bit more
Speaker 1: about female empowerment, we have a great article called how
Speaker 1: Feminism Works on our website. You can look that up
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