How did Queen Nzinga protect her people from
being enslaved by the Portuguese?

Queen Nzinga (Nzinga Mbande), the monarch of the Mbundu people, was a resilient leader who fought against the Portuguese and their expanding slave trade in Central Africa.

During the late 16th Century, the French and the English threatened the Portuguese near monopoly on the sources of slaves along the West African coast, forcing it to seek new areas for exploitation.  By 1580 they had already established a trading relationship with Afonso I in the nearby Kongo Kingdom. They then turned to Angola, south of the Kongo.

The Portuguese established a fort and settlement at Luanda in 1617, encroaching on Mbundu land.  In 1622 they invited Ngola (King) Mbande to attend a peace conference there to end the hostilities with the Mbundu.  Mbande sent his sister Nzinga to represent him in a meeting with Portuguese Governor Joao Corria de Sousa.  Nzinga was aware of her diplomatically awkward position. She knew of events in the Kongo which had led to Portuguese domination of the nominally independent nation.  She also recognized, however, that to refuse to trade with the Portuguese would remove a potential ally and the major source of guns for her own state.

In the first of a series of meetings Nzinga sought to establish her equality with the representative of the Portugal crown.  Noting that the only chair in the room belonged to Governor Corria, she immediately motioned to one of her assistants who fell on her hands and knees and served as a chair for Nzinga for the rest of the meeting.

Despite that display, Nzinga made accommodations with the Portuguese.  She converted to Christianity and adopted the name Dona Anna de Souza. She was baptized in honor of the governor’s wife who also became her godmother.  Shortly afterwards Nzinga urged a reluctant Ngola Mbande to order the conversion of his people to Christianity.