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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from house

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Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm far A Dowdy and I'm DeLine Choker Boarding and

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Speaker 1: today's subject is a warrior and a queen. Her name

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Speaker 1: is Dinga of Dongo and the Tamba, And even though

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Speaker 1: she's considered one of the best documented rulers of her

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Speaker 1: era in Africa, probably many of you, like us, hadn't

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Speaker 1: ever heard of her before. I mean, have you heard

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Speaker 1: of her? I had not to know, and I first

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Speaker 1: heard of her on a website for historical Halloween costumes.

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Speaker 1: So that's not really um, I don't know where you'd

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Speaker 1: expect that history resource for your research. I'm skeptical now.

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Speaker 1: It's not where you'd expect to first hear about a

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Speaker 1: historical figure like this. But she was there, tucked in

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Speaker 1: with these more familiar names, people like Queen Victoria, Cleopatra,

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Speaker 1: people who you might actually go out and see somebody

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Speaker 1: dressed as them for Halloween. But she's a pretty amazing ruler,

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Speaker 1: and not just because she would throw a sword around

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Speaker 1: her neck and enter battle well into her sixties. She's

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Speaker 1: most impressive for her ability to maintain her independence despite

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Speaker 1: in fighting, despite battling colonial powers, and despite a strong

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Speaker 1: prejudice among her own people against women rulers. Plus she

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Speaker 1: had styled she had kind of some swagger. I'd say

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Speaker 1: she had a very interesting style. In fact, the best

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Speaker 1: story about her has the still uncrowned and Zinga acting

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Speaker 1: as her brother the king's emissary to Portuguese colonists. So

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Speaker 1: when she saw the Portuguese governor hadn't provided her with

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Speaker 1: a chair because he was intending to humble her and

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Speaker 1: have her sit on a mat, she ordered her attendant

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Speaker 1: down on hands and knees and carried out negotiations sitting

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Speaker 1: on her back. So that's a power play for sure.

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Speaker 1: It certainly embarrassed the Portuguese. That made an impression on

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Speaker 1: all of those who who witnessed it. But the Women

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Speaker 1: in World History Encyclopedia describes in Zinga as a proto

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Speaker 1: nationalist leader. They describe her as wildly and intelligent. I'd

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Speaker 1: say the chair stunt proves that, and one who quote

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Speaker 1: maintained her power by adopting contradictory strategies which ultimately succeeded.

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Speaker 1: And I really think contradictory. Once you hear about this,

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Speaker 1: lady is a super understatement because Zinga was a ruler

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Speaker 1: willing to embrace, for instance, Catholicism and then go to

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Speaker 1: ritual cannibalism from that, and then back to Catholicism again,

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Speaker 1: all to keep power. She would broke her a slave

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Speaker 1: trading agreement with the Portuguese, then announce her kingdom as

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Speaker 1: a safe haven for escape these all over Africa. You know,

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Speaker 1: these real dramatic changes in policy in order to to

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Speaker 1: hold onto her power. And those are just a couple examples,

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Speaker 1: and it really worked. The style of hers really work.

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Speaker 1: She ruled for forty years and she established a kingdom

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Speaker 1: that of we did colonization for about two hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty years after her death. But first, before we go

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Speaker 1: into all of that, how did she get her start

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Speaker 1: and what was she up against? So we're going to

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Speaker 1: take a little bit of a look at her background

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Speaker 1: to begin with. And to look at her background, we

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Speaker 1: have to also look at the background on the situation

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Speaker 1: at the time. The Portuguese had arrived in Africa in

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Speaker 1: the late fourteen hundreds. They wanted slaves for their colony

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Speaker 1: in Brazil, but they didn't want the competition of the

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Speaker 1: English and French in northeast Africa, so they went south

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Speaker 1: to what is today Congo and Angola. When they reached

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Speaker 1: Angola by the early fifteen hundreds, they found a collection

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Speaker 1: of African kingdoms ruled by aristocratic families that would frequently

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Speaker 1: turn over the kingship, so they'd flip it between noble families,

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Speaker 1: so any designated king was really only in power temporarily

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Speaker 1: before the next family captured the crown. It reminds me

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Speaker 1: a little bit of elected officials, but also just sort

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Speaker 1: of coup after coup after coup um nobody would really

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Speaker 1: count on passing on the kingship to his son. But

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Speaker 1: one of the more important kingdoms in this area was Indongo,

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Speaker 1: which was formed by the Mundu people in the late

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Speaker 1: fifteenth century. And the Mundu had been threatened by the

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Speaker 1: Kingdom of Congo to the north, and eventually, of course

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Speaker 1: also by the Portuguese, and this had really forced them

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Speaker 1: to tighten up their leadership structure from what you just

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Speaker 1: described to Blina and make it more about heredity and

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Speaker 1: center power and government in the Indongo kingdom, which would

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Speaker 1: be ruled by a king called angla Uh. And just

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Speaker 1: because it sort of helps me understand this and put

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Speaker 1: it into more context. It's that word and gola um

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Speaker 1: that drove the Portuguese to start calling the whole area

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Speaker 1: and gola kind of strange sense. That word just means king.

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Speaker 1: It's do you think that maybe the whole area would

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Speaker 1: end up being called Indongo. That's not how it went down.

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Speaker 1: So this noble run system was also put to the

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Speaker 1: side and favor of a royal slave run state, the

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Speaker 1: slaves taking high positions in the military or government, even

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Speaker 1: collecting taxes, kind of like the janissaria. So not how

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Speaker 1: you normally think of slaves disenfranchise um. These were people

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Speaker 1: who had more power and presumably could be relied on

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Speaker 1: a little more than the in fighting nobles. So at

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Speaker 1: first the Portuguese treated in Dongo and other kingdoms in

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Speaker 1: the area as trading partners, albeit kind of trading partners

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Speaker 1: with a gun to their head. Basically, supply of slaves

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Speaker 1: will be your trading partners. If you don't, well, then

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Speaker 1: your own people will be enslaved, maybe even you the nobles,

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Speaker 1: or you the rulers. So not much of a choice there.

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Speaker 1: But once they established a slave trading base at Luanda Island,

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Speaker 1: they got even more aggressive the Portuguese. The Portuguese did right,

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Speaker 1: old trading partners suddenly became enemies at that point. After

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Speaker 1: a few decades of fighting, things were at a semi

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Speaker 1: stalemate until about sixteen twelve to sixteen twenty two, when

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Speaker 1: the Portuguese brought in the Bengala warriors as mercenaries, and

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Speaker 1: the in Bengala practiced ritual cannibalism. The enslaved boys for troops,

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Speaker 1: they killed kids born in their camps, and they had

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Speaker 1: democratically elected leaders. I mean, except for that last part,

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Speaker 1: they're pretty scary. They were really really terrifying, and with

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Speaker 1: im Bengala help, the Portuguese did manage to finally bring

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Speaker 1: Dongo that kingdom to its knees, and the king Bandi

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Speaker 1: had to flee his own country. Okay, so this is

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Speaker 1: where our lady Zinga finally comes in. So with King

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Speaker 1: Bande on the Lamb, he sent his sister who is

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Speaker 1: in Zinga, as an emissary to the Portuguese in about

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Speaker 1: sixteen twenty one or sixteen twenty two, and she was

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Speaker 1: there for pretty serious negotiations, not only to try to

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Speaker 1: patch things over with the Portuguese, you know, try to

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Speaker 1: get it so her brother could return to his kingdom,

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Speaker 1: but to stave off to African competitors to the in

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Speaker 1: Dongo throne as well. But despite you know, those like

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Speaker 1: really serious needs of hers, she did not come begging

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Speaker 1: to the Portuguese at all. She of course pulled off

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Speaker 1: that servant chair stunt that Dablina described in the beginning,

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Speaker 1: something that was so absolutely shocking to those present that

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Speaker 1: one of them, Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi, depicted it in this

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Speaker 1: really fantastic illustration. You can look this one up and

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Speaker 1: I think just the expressions on everybody's face is really great.

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Speaker 1: And Zinga looks quite comfy and stately on her human chair.

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Speaker 1: The non weight bearing attendants look pretty impressed with their

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Speaker 1: not their queen at this point, but a representative of

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Speaker 1: their king. Some of them are almost smirking a little bit.

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Speaker 1: The governor looks super awkward, his legs are all splayed

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Speaker 1: out while he's sitting on his traditional chair. And meanwhile

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Speaker 1: the servant on the ground looks solid, not like she's

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Speaker 1: suffering under the under the weight or anything. It's a

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Speaker 1: great picture. So what happened after that little snapshot that

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Speaker 1: we see, well, once did and Zinga went to work

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Speaker 1: Portuguese Governor Korea Disoza demanded that all Portuguese war prisoners

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Speaker 1: be released. She demanded that all Mbundu people be returned

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Speaker 1: from slavery in Brazil and exchange. So they were kind

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Speaker 1: of at a stalement, I say. Eventually they settled on

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Speaker 1: releasing Portuguese prisoners in exchange for in Bondi being allowed

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Speaker 1: to remain ruler of an independent kingdom for good measure,

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Speaker 1: and Zinga also converted to Catholicism. Governor Disza acted as

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Speaker 1: her godfather in this case, and she actually took his name,

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Speaker 1: becoming Donna Anna Dissa. She knew it couldn't hurt to

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Speaker 1: become the Portuguese Christian ally exactly. So it sounds like

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Speaker 1: Bondi would be eternally grateful for his sister for working

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Speaker 1: out this fantastic deal. But the two had a bit

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Speaker 1: of a history of bad blood together, and Bondi himself

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Speaker 1: had killed their father as well as possibly different sources

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Speaker 1: say uh and Zinga's infant son, in order to really

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Speaker 1: consolidate his own power. But before her stint as a negotiator,

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Speaker 1: and Zinka had definitely been reduced to having to flee

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Speaker 1: her own kingdom because of her brother, so things weren't

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Speaker 1: great between them. So maybe it's not a huge surprise

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Speaker 1: that in sixteen twenty four Bondi wound up dead under

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Speaker 1: mysterious circumstances. That's the way he seen described everywhere. Not

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Speaker 1: quite clear on how how he met his end, but regardless,

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Speaker 1: and Zinga took control after that, despite some major obstacles

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Speaker 1: against her becoming queen. Just to give you an idea

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Speaker 1: of what those obstacles were, hereditary kingship was not set

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Speaker 1: in stone at the time, and even if it was,

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Speaker 1: Zinka's mother was a slave, so I would have excluded her.

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Speaker 1: That would not have applied to her. And even if

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Speaker 1: that was okay, she was a woman, and that Umbundu

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Speaker 1: specifically did not allow women to rule. So it begins

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Speaker 1: to sound less like a cork of lineage and more

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Speaker 1: were like a coup. With the fact that she did

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Speaker 1: become the leader, and since her position was so unstable,

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Speaker 1: she really desperately needed the support of the Portuguese to

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Speaker 1: maintain it, so she entered into a deal with them

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Speaker 1: that opened up Umbundu areas to Portuguese slavers. She wanted

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Speaker 1: to become a middleman for slaves, not a source. She

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Speaker 1: also welcomed their missionaries into her capital, which strengthened her

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Speaker 1: base there, and she by doing that, she also emphasized

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Speaker 1: that she was a Christian. Ally, she was working definitely,

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Speaker 1: but it wasn't long before she was betrayed by the Portuguese,

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Speaker 1: changing alliances herself, she banded up with the former enemy

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Speaker 1: and Portuguese ally that we talked about before, the in

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Speaker 1: Bungalow warriors, who conveniently enough and unlike her own people,

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Speaker 1: had a tradition of centering power on kinless women. And

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Speaker 1: she also got some support from a pretty unexpected source.

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Speaker 1: Considering that she was still acting as a middleman for

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Speaker 1: slave she sent out a message to escape slaves across

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Speaker 1: the region and even the continent, offering asylum in exchange

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Speaker 1: for loyalty. And so she ultimately transformed herself from a middleman,

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Speaker 1: from a slave provider to a safe haven for these

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Speaker 1: fiercely loyal escape beas. Because you can imagine, if you

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Speaker 1: finally got somebody who would stick up for you, you

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Speaker 1: would ultimately fight for her. So she further undermined the Portuguese,

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Speaker 1: not just by collecting these escaped slaves and turning them

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Speaker 1: into her own warriors, but by placing moles in the

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Speaker 1: Portuguese forces. So she knew that the colonizers relied on

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Speaker 1: black soldiers, and she'd send out her own guys into

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Speaker 1: their ranks. And then these infiltrators would gradually work their

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Speaker 1: way up and begin to cause trouble, you know, stir

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Speaker 1: things up, encourage desertion, and sometimes whole companies of Portuguese

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Speaker 1: soldiers would turn tail and join Zinga, taking of course

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Speaker 1: all of their nice Portuguese equipment and gear and weapons

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Speaker 1: with them. But still, in spite of all this, by

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Speaker 1: about sixteen twenty nine, the Portuguese forced in Zinga to

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Speaker 1: abandon in Dongo. She spread rumors that she died and

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Speaker 1: tried to kind of drop off the map at this point.

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Speaker 1: Then suddenly she popped up again on the outer edges

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Speaker 1: of Umbundu Lands in the Kingdom of Matamba. Matamba had

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Speaker 1: been left desolate in the first round of the Portuguese

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Speaker 1: in Bengala raids from the sixteen twenties and left rulerless

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Speaker 1: unlike Indonga, though Matamba had an ancient tradition of women rulers,

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Speaker 1: and so nin Zinga was able to consolidate her power there,

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Speaker 1: and she again offered sanctuary to runaways and formed a

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Speaker 1: new kind of military, one where kids would leave their

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Speaker 1: families and grow up in militia communes, again a way

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Speaker 1: to inspire this fierce loyalty to her, she'd also this

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Speaker 1: is another good way to get loyalty. She would use

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Speaker 1: her sisters as warriors, and even going to battle herself,

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Speaker 1: dressed in skins and equipped, as we mentioned, with that

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Speaker 1: sword around her neck, an axe and her girdle, and

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Speaker 1: bows and arrows in her hands. So a pretty scary

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Speaker 1: figure in her own right. But her most important initiative

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Speaker 1: in Matamba came in the sixteen thirties when she blocked

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Speaker 1: the main slave trail to the interior, closing down the

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Speaker 1: market in a sense. She still sold some slaves off herself,

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Speaker 1: but she kept more as mercenaries. So this made Batamba

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Speaker 1: a gateway, not a source for slaves. It was the

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Speaker 1: ultimate goal in Dongo from the start, so to control

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Speaker 1: these routes more thoroughly. Though she'd formed confederation, she knew

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Speaker 1: that she couldn't defeat all her neighbors. She need to

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Speaker 1: work with some of them, so she'd partner up with

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Speaker 1: neighbors like Congo den both keep them off, and also

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Speaker 1: started a rebellion in Dongo, which by this point was

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Speaker 1: controlled by a Portuguese puppet, so her enemy. Essentially, she

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Speaker 1: made a new European ally too in the sties. When

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Speaker 1: the Dutch came into the picture, she figured it was

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Speaker 1: a great way to um play another European power off

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Speaker 1: the Portuguese withdrew. This ended up sort of being the

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Speaker 1: apex of Zinga's power, though, and she really worked to

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Speaker 1: make sure everybody knew how strong she was. She also

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Speaker 1: at this point wanted to get around any lingering questions

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Speaker 1: that maybe lying around about whether she was actually fit

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Speaker 1: to serve as a woman, so naturally she declares herself

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Speaker 1: king just avoided the issue entirely that way exactly, And

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Speaker 1: this kingship of hers came complete with a harem of men.

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Speaker 1: She would dress the men in this harem as women

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Speaker 1: and have them sleep in the same quarters as her

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Speaker 1: ladies in waiting, the same female attendants who doubled as

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Speaker 1: her personal bodyguard to further bolster her position as a

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Speaker 1: woman leader, she'd promote other ladies too, powerful positions in

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Speaker 1: the government and the army, and of course this we've

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Speaker 1: already mentioned, her sis serves out there fighting in the

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Speaker 1: army along with her. But her powers still hinged on

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Speaker 1: playing one European power off of another, and when the

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Speaker 1: Dutch left the region in sixteen fifty in Zinga was

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Speaker 1: forced to ally herself with her longtime enemy, the Portuguese.

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Speaker 1: She signed a treaty with them in sixteen fifty six

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Speaker 1: and promised to deliver a quota of slaves, but also

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Speaker 1: got their assurance that she'd be able to maintain her

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Speaker 1: kingdom's independence and end the war with Dongo. To that

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Speaker 1: war that had been going on for so long with

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Speaker 1: the puppet ruler, she re converted to Christianity, and even

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Speaker 1: though she left no heirs, when she died in sixteen

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Speaker 1: sixty three, her general started this dynasty of queens who

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Speaker 1: this is absolutely amazing. They ruled Matomba and in Dongo,

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Speaker 1: which of course did not have that tradition of female

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Speaker 1: rulers for eighty of the one hundred and four years

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Speaker 1: after her death. The last of those women rulers died

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Speaker 1: in seventeen sixty seven. Matta but wasn't integrated into the

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Speaker 1: Portuguese colony of Angola until nineteen o nine, whereas in

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Speaker 1: Dongo was lost to Angola bout the Puppet King's son

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Speaker 1: just a few years after in Zinga's death. So it

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Speaker 1: just goes to show what a strong kingdom she built

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Speaker 1: on her up there. And according to the Met Museum,

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Speaker 1: which has loads of information on the famous servant chair illustration,

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Speaker 1: and Zinga became a sensation in Europe around the same

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Speaker 1: time after the publication of her biography, Zinga Randy Angola. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and apparently it was a pretty salacious biography with a

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Speaker 1: lot of exaggerated facts in it, but it really made

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Speaker 1: her a popular figure. People were interested in learning more

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Speaker 1: about her. I kept on thinking, though, I know, we

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Speaker 1: we don't. We don't like to compare people to Western

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Speaker 1: figures all the time. We've talked about that. I think

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Speaker 1: with Lakshmi Bay wasn't she called the joan of But

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Speaker 1: I also think that sometimes it really helps you give

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Speaker 1: a comparison, It helps make place it in context. It does,

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Speaker 1: And for this once I started reading about and I

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Speaker 1: couldn't help think of two figures. One was Elizabeth first

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Speaker 1: and the other was hat shep Set of Egypt. And

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Speaker 1: she reminded me of Elizabeth because of the obvious struggle

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Speaker 1: she had to overcome about her gender. You know, England

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Speaker 1: was not really cool with a female ruler and that

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Speaker 1: and then objections to her lineage too, you know, her

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Speaker 1: mother was a slave. And then she reminds me of

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth most though, because that that mastering of playing one

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Speaker 1: group off against the other. I mean, it would really

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Speaker 1: take a strong person to be able to do that

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Speaker 1: and not end up losing your kingdom or becoming a

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Speaker 1: puppet ruler yourself. She reminded me of hat Shops that

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Speaker 1: because of her just total decision to avoid the prejudice

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Speaker 1: against queens and rule as a king, I mean, complete

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Speaker 1: with this harem of of men um. So I thought

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Speaker 1: that was strange that one person could remind me of

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Speaker 1: two so very different queens. Yeah, but I think that's

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Speaker 1: it makes in Sinka so unique, is that she reminds

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Speaker 1: you of these two people, but she kind of mixes

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Speaker 1: them both different ads in her own thing, and it's

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Speaker 1: totally different and maybe actually the perfect Halloween costume you

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Speaker 1: saw this on a Halloween costume site, right, Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: was an elaborate costume they had set out for her,

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Speaker 1: So maybe some of y'all that's when for you to consider.

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Speaker 1: All right, well, I guess we'll have to wait to

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Speaker 1: hear from our listeners then and see if they dress

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Speaker 1: that bazar. But speaking of our listeners, it's time to

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Speaker 1: move on to listener mail. First, we have this beautiful

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Speaker 1: sunset picture from Guatemala that Ryan sent us. He says,

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Speaker 1: I hope you got this postcard that I sent from Germany.

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Speaker 1: I'm from California but in a Master's of International Nature

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Speaker 1: conservation program, and he says that right now he's doing

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Speaker 1: research in the mountains of Guatemala. So thank you Ryan

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Speaker 1: for sending us this. It's beautiful. It's a lovely card.

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Speaker 1: We have another postcard from Crispin and Chrispin, your handwriting

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Speaker 1: it's like a font almost, it's pretty amazing. So he

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Speaker 1: wrote to us to say that he loves the podcast

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Speaker 1: and they provide a great deal of entertainment which is

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Speaker 1: in very short supply when living here in the outback

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Speaker 1: of Central Australia. I'm a British guy who decided to

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Speaker 1: abandon the Cubicle and spend a few years traveling around

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Speaker 1: the world. I have dropped my backpack to live and

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Speaker 1: work for three months in the village of Laura. I

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Speaker 1: believe at Iris Rock in April, my time in Australia

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Speaker 1: comes to an end and I will be off to

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Speaker 1: Southeast Asia. So thank you very much. He also suggested

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Speaker 1: that we do an episode on Irish Rock, which would

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Speaker 1: certainly be um, certainly be interesting. We haven't done Australian

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Speaker 1: history since our our ned Kelly Bush Rangers. That's true,

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Speaker 1: we have had a big dump of Australian Oh we

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Speaker 1: had our our Freedom writers too, so this would probably

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Speaker 1: be from much older history than that. So thank you

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Speaker 1: to both of you guys for sending such lovely postcards.

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Speaker 1: And I also want to thank my friend Marie Crystal

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Speaker 1: too for helping us out with these pronunciations. We did

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Speaker 1: our best with the m and ends down. We didn't

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Speaker 1: butcher them too badly. Of course, any mistakes are ours

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Speaker 1: and not herds. But thank you again. I really appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: And if any of you guys want to suggest topics,

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Speaker 1: maybe some more African history, we are getting their February too,

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Speaker 1: and so we'll be covering Black History Month, of course.

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Speaker 1: Uh please email us. We have a new email address.

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Speaker 1: It is History Podcast at Discovery dot com. We've finally

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Speaker 1: switched the main names to our parent company. We're still

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Speaker 1: at missed in History on Twitter and we're still on

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Speaker 1: Facebook too. Those they're both great ways to contact us.

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Speaker 1: And if you want to learn a little bit more

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Speaker 1: about female empowerment, we have a great article called how

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Speaker 1: Feminism Works on our website. You can look that up

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Speaker 1: by visiting our homepage at www dot how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,

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Speaker 1: Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as

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Speaker 1: we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.

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Speaker 1: Row the house. Stuff Works iPhone app has a ride.

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Speaker 1: Download it today on iTunes. M H