This story begins 400 years ago in a kingdom named Mtamba . There once lived a beautiful young African princess named Nzinga. Her Mother and father were the King and Queen of a country called Angola. Nzinga’s father was a fearless warrior. Nzinga loved her father very much and wanted to be just like him. Day after day, little Princess Nzinga would sit upon her father’s knee and listen to him while he talked about looking after the country. Young Nzinga loved to hear her father discuss politics and she would even watch him while he battled in war to protect his country.  ​

 

As Nzinga grew up, her father became more and more proud of the beautiful young lady that she had grown into. The princess had become strong and fearless like her father. Sadly one day her father (the king) died, Princess Nzinga was devastated but knew that she needed to be strong because she would now be Queen.  

 

During this time, heartless soldiers from Portugal had invaded Queen Nzinga’s wonderful kingdom, the soldiers had captured many of Nzinga’s people including her family and friends. The Portuguese soldiers believed that the people of Matamba did not deserve to be free and decided to sell them as slaves.

 

With all of the awful things that had happened to her country Nzinga was extremely saddened but she decided that she was going to fight back! Luckily Nzinga remembered many skills of how to fight from when she was a little princess watching her father battle in wars. Like her father, Nzinga would now become a bold leader and brave warrior.  Queen Nzinga formed a formidable army of the strongest worriers from her land and side by side they fought the war against the Portuguese for their freedom. The terrible battle lasted over 30 years.

 

When Nzinga had begun the battle against the Portuguese for the freedom of Matamba’s people she was a young woman but the years had passed and she had now grown old and weary and one day, she could no longer fight.  Nzinga became so tired of fighting, that 30 long years after the battle had begun, she made peace with Portugal.  Nzinga died peacefully as a very old woman.

 

 Although the wonderful warrior Nzinga died many, many years ago,a statue of her still stands in the village where she once lived to this very day. Her statue reminds the people of Matamba of the courageous and fearless queen who loved her kingdom so much that she fought for their freedom until she could fight no more.