Over the last several decades, a number of historians have written articles about Angola’s most famous precolonial ruler, Njinga of Ndongo and Matamba, who lived from 1582 to 1663.75 Njinga struggled to maintain the independence of Ndongo against Portuguese aggression and became the dominant African player in the politics of Angola from 1624 until her death in 1663. Most studies of Njinga have centered on Ndongo’s political culture and how Njinga fit into it. In general the question they have sought to answer is whether as a female Njinga was a legitimate ruler when she became the head of Ndongo following her brother’s death in 1624. John Thornton and Joseph Miller, two outstanding scholars of early Central African history, have taken different sides on the issue of Njinga’s legitimacy.
Linda M. Heywood (Wed,) studied this question.