LEGACY – Nadia Beugré
Forgotten heroines from Africa and the black diaspora
Anne ZINGHA, queen of Matamba (Angola)
Raised since her childhood by her father, who she was following like a shadow, Anne Zingha learns
to « react » like a statesman. She used to be a skilled strategist with a fery temperament and an
uncontested charm. Thanks to her skills in the knowledge of the poisoned arrow, she has been
nicknamed « the queen who’s arrow always fnds its goal ». After her father’s death in 1617, Anne’s
older brother became king. He became a tyrannical king, who ruled with violence what was left of
the Matamba kingdom, surrounded by the Portuguese colonists. Over a barrel, with a decimated
army, the king asked his sister Zingha to try a negotiation in Luanda, capital of the occupied Angola.
Cheered by her people all along her route, Zingha was fnally received by Don Joao, the Portuguese
Vice-Roy. Sitting on his throne, the Vice-Roy invited her to sit in front of him on a cushion. She
ordered one of her slaves to pur herself in a crowling position so that she Zingha could have a seat at
the same high as her the one of the Vice-Roy. Thus showed that her coming had nothing to do with
submission. Determinate negotiator, she obtained the move back of the Portuguese troops out of the
borders of Matamba Kingdom and the sovereign power of the king was recognized. At the end of the
negotiations, Zingha left to Don Joao her slave with those words : “The ambassador of a strong king
should not use something twice. This girl served me as a seat once, she’s not mine anymore.”
When she got 30, Zingha gave birth to her frst son. Scared by the possibility that the child could one
day try to get the power, the king drawn the baby in the boiling water. To be sure that Zingha would
not have other children, he sterilized his sister with a burning brand.
In 1624, when she realized her brother was not able anymore to handle the needs of the kingdom, and
eager of revenge, Zingha imprisoned her brother and stabbed his son. That’s how she became queen of Matamba Kingdom. Until her death, she remained
worthy and honorable and she never betrayed the cause of her people, defending the kingdom with courage and strength.
Tassin Hangbe, the short-lived queen of Dahomey (now Bénin)
Nicknamed the “shameless Queen,” Hangbe, also known as Queen Ahangbe, occupied the throne of Dahomey for a very short time early in the 18th century.
When her father, the second sovereign of the kingdom, died, she was ofcially mandated to share power with her identical twin brother Akaba, although she
herself had no real political power.
She gave birth to a son, and her scandalous lifestyle shocked those at court. People gossiped about her life of pleasure, the wild parties at her palace. She was
also known for her outspoken manner and her extravagance. However she was soon brought back to reality: shortly before a major battle took place, her
brother was struck down by a terrible illness. The war chiefs decided to say nothing about his death, so as not to demoralize their troops, asking the Princess to
take his place. She accepted immediately and turned out to be a true warrior, an Amazon, courageous, galvanizing her men, not at all frightened by the brutality
of the fghting. Her victory allowed her to maintain her position as Regent until her son came of age.
People continued gossiping about her, and she remained somewhat unpopular with the nobles, in fact there was a conspiracy to get her to abdicate -- and they
murdered her son. The queen hid her sorrow until the following Royal Council, which was held in public. She stood up, forcing the drummers to stop playing
the tam-tams, and ordering a servant to bring her a basin of water. She lifted the hem of her pagne, splashing her private parts with water, screaming, cursing at
everyone there, saying something terrible would soon happen in Dahomey. She then announced her abdication, over the booing of the crowd. This gesture is a
tradition in certain regions of Africa, performed by women when they feel a great danger threatens their society (cf. the Adjanou dance by the women of
Bassam). There are those in Bénin who claim that this Queen never existed, that she is part of a legend invented in
order to justify the raising of the Amazon army.
The Amazons of Dahomey (now Bénin)
There are many versions of the stories about the origins and beginnings of this army of incredible, formidable
women who overpowered the colonists when they arrived in Dahomey. Some say they date back to the founding of
the kingdom, its frst King having chosen certain talented female elephant hunters to be part of his personal guard.
Others say that they came later, at the beginning of the 18th century, when the country’s armies had been thinned
out.
First recruited among the strongest slaves, the process continued in the 19th century with residents of the kingdom. And some women enlisted voluntarily,
whereas others were forcibly inducted when their husbands or fathers would complain to the King about their behavior. At frst they were all virgins, reserved
only for the pleasure of the King, later they were authorized to marry chiefs or other dignitaries. If one of them became pregnant, she would leave the army to
raise the child until it could walk, then she would leave the child with the women of her family and return to the army. One of their war chants: “We are men,
not women. Those who return from war without having conquered must die. If we retreat, our lives are at the mercy of the King. We must conquer whatever
city we are ordered to attack, otherwise we must bury ourselves in its ruins.” Pitiless, extremely organized, they would decapitate their enemies, killing a
number of French soldiers. In the end, with reinforcements from the Foreign Legion, and with superior weaponry such as machine guns, a cavalry and a marine
infantry, the French were victorious over them. The Légionnaires would later write about the courage and daring of the Amazons.
In 1894, after their country was annexed, they were further humiliated by being exhibited at the Jardin d'Acclimatation in Paris, in an exhibition of “savages”
meant to illustrate the “inferior races” of the French Empire.
Abla POKOU, queen of the Baoulé people (Ghana/ Ivory Coast)
Early in the 18th century, Abla (Princess) Pokou was born, in the shadow of the famous Ossei Tutu, King of the Ashanti
(Ghana), an unstable confederation of multiple ethnic groups. When he was ambushed and killed, Pokou’s older brother, a
rather less charismatic individual, succeeded to the throne. Over the 30 years of his reign, he managed to maintain the
country, more or less, but when he died in 1749 a ferce rivalry for the throne broke out between another of Pokou’s brothers
and a very powerful distant uncle, causing much unrest in the country.
As soon as Pokou saw her brother murdered, she understood that her entire clan was going to be wiped out. She decided to
fee, carrying her son on her back, relentlessly pursed by her uncle’s army on the Ivory Coast route, in an exodus channeling
the fight of Moses and the Israelites out of Egypt. Over the course of this long and difcult journey, she had to face a raging
river, the Comoé. Legend says that her soothsayer told her she would have to sacrifce that which was most precious to her in order to cross the river. She
realized she would have to sacrifce her son, calming the waters and saving her people (some versions of the legend speak of a specifc African tree which bent
over to serve as a bridge over the waters, or the hippopotamuses which lined up so that she could cross over on their backs).The word Baoulé which designates
the descendants of the people she was leading leads back to that sacrifce of her only son, after which she said, “Ba ouli,” which means “the child is dead.”
The mulatto known as Solitude (Guadeloupe)
Born around 1772, Solitude is the mulatto daughter of an African slave who was raped by a sailor on the boat deporting
her to the Antilles.
She experienced the abolition of slavery in 1794, but in 1802 Napoléon Bonaparte re-established slavery in Guadeloupe.
Solitude was both appalled and quite courageous, rallying behind Louis Delgrès, a mutinous infantry colonel who was
also of mixed race, and fghting at his side for freedom.
She survived the battle of May 8, 1802 but was taken prisoner. Pregnant, she was hanged on November 29 that same year,
the day after she gave birth, at the age of 30. Her child, literally taken from her breast, became the property of a slave
master.
The sacrifce of the women of Nder (capital of Walo, Sénégal)
One Tuesday in November 1819, these women: servants, peasants, aristocrats, young and old, came together, armed with nothing except their bravery, to
confront their enemy, the Moorish slave masters determined to capture them – since the men of their villages were away working. In their celebratory songs in
homage to these exceptional women the griots, the African storytellers, tell us that on that day, wearing clothing belonging to their husbands, fathers or
brothers, they killed more than 300 Moors. But it was hardly a level playing feld, and the women of Walo were sure they had lost. Then a single voice rang out,
the voice of Mbarka Dia, a confdant of the Queen :
“Women of Nder! Proud daughters of Walo! Stand tall, tie your pagnes tightly! Let us prepare to die! Would you prefer that our grandchildren and their
children hear that you left the village as captives? Or that you were brave, unto death! We will die as free women, we will not live as slaves. Those that agree
follow me into the big hut where we have the Council of Sages. We will all go inside and then we will set it on fre, only the smoke from our ashes will remain
for our enemies. Since there is no other way out, let us die with dignity, women of Walo!” And they all did it except for one woman who was pregnant, left
behind so she could tell others the sad tale.
And today, that little village of Walo is abandoned, nature is slowly covering it up, like memory.
Harriet Tubman, the “Moses of America” (USA)
Harriet Tubman (born around 1822 in Maryland, died March 10, 1913 in New York State) was an African
American freedom fghter, known as the black Moses, Grandmother Moses, or the Moses of the black people.
She was an escaped slave and worked as a farm laborer, lumberjack, laundry woman, nurse and cook. She
became an abolitionist and fought against slavery and racism. She collected intelligence, organized
volunteers for escapes, ran the escapes themselves, nursed the escapees, did Evangelical preaching and
raised money.
Between 1850 and 1860, she made 19 trips with slaves she guided into abolitionist areas.
In 1863, during the Civil War, she went to South Carolina and joined the Union Army, setting up a
commando of black troops to free slaves still being held on plantations. In one ofensive, 756 of them were
freed. She was awarded a medal by Queen Victoria in London, never had any children of her own, and
devoted her entire life to others.
The march of the women of Bassam (former capital of the Ivory Coast)
In Ivory Coast, the Victory Bridge in Grand-Bassam symbolizes the women’s March of December 24, 1949. It was a movement organized by a handful of women
from Abidjan to free their husbands, who had been jailed for their political opinions. Some of the women walked there from Abidjan, traveling more than 40
kilometers on foot, others joined them, trying to reach the civil prison. They were violently pushed back on the bridge linking the French quarter to the rest of
the city. Though they were not able to free their husbands, the women were at least morally victorious for having dared to confront heavily armed soldiers and
colonists with their bare hands. Which is how the bridge came to be called the Victory Bridge. It is a steel bridge 150 meters long and 10 meters wide, crossing
the Ouladine Lagoon.
Excerpts from The women’s march to Grand-Bassam by Henriette Diabaté
December 22: March to Grand-Bassam and demonstrations in front of the Courthouse.
In the morning, the women met at the bus station in Abidjan. Many were able to board
vehicles. However the large number of women gathering began raising suspicions. The
police were alerted, and they began stopping drivers heading toward Bassam who were
transporting more than 3 women at a time. Then they stopped all the cars. So the women
set of on foot: “We have decided to go to Bassam.
Let us raise our voices in the songs of Adjanou which motivate us, armed with our sticks
and clubs.” Marie Koré (shown, opposite page) was at the head of the Bété group. It was
not about doing a triumphant march as one might imagine, but a painfully slow advance
in the sand, in no particular order, through the coconut groves or along the beach.
Toward 11 AM, 150 – 200 women were gathered outside the Courthouse of Grand-Bassam,
asking for an audience with the principal Prosecutor of the Republic in order to demand
that their brothers and husbands be freed. The Prosecutor refused to see them. Around
noon, the Administrative Mayor, backed up by the police and the gendarmes, began
dispersing the crowd, pushing them back to the African quarter, known as the Imperial.
December 23: Waiting and disappointment
Early that morning, “500 women, arriving in small groups began lining up along the sides
of the lagoon.” During that time, “the whites kept coming and going, patrolling in their
jeeps.” The day was a failure, nothing happened. But there was a strategy in place for the
night: “We decided, since this is why we all came, to go to the prison, but we needed the cover of darkness so as not to be seen by the guards.”
December 24, the “great day.” The march on the prison
Around 5:00 AM, the women separated into two groups to facilitate their movements, one group following the sea shore, the other, led by Marie Koré, moving
up the main street. The commissioner, who had somehow been warned, called in the troops who began pursuing the women in their jeeps. To escape being
seen, the women crawled or walked bent over. Marie Koré and some other women were found and driven back with great difculty: after the bridge the women
lay down in the street, where most of the demonstrators were. The number of women was estimated at 500 or 600 early on, but more and more women kept
arriving. Some women crossed the bridge by picking up bundles carried by people from Bassam, pretending to be merchants taking their products to the
market; others who were more daring tried taking of all their clothes: by being nude they forced the police to look away; and others managed to get across in
canoes. Very few of them were able to join the group waiting at the prison.
The women on the other side of the bridge tried to force their way through, refusing to obey the police ordering them to leave. “Those who were safely out of
reach danced in the street, naked, yelling insults, throwing bottles, rocks, coconuts and mud.” Finally the military intervened. “They turned on the pumps,
pushing the women back some 200 meters. The fre pumps drew water from the lagoon, a horrible liquid mixed with mud and shards of broken bottles.” Many
of the women were wounded, their pagnes shredded; others were driven into muddy, debris-flled trenches.
In spite of this they continued to resist, pushing toward the bridge: Marie Koré shouting: “My Bété, Baoulé and Dioula sisters, women from all over, do not be
afraid! We cannot be stopped by these dirty streams of water, because someone who has come to rescue her husband, her brother or her son must not retreat in
the face of something so small.” She managed to force her way through with other demonstrators, but then slipped and fell. Her pagne came undone and her
daughter Denise, whom she had been carrying on her back, also fell. As soon as the child was detached from her mother, a soldier standing near Marie hit her
on the left hip with the butt of his rife. She sat up, throwing an arm behind her and hitting the soldier, who fell. She held his arms to immobilize him while
young Denise hit him over and over with the rife, which she had picked up. Eventually the soldier freed himself, calling for backup and saying that “this
woman and her daughter dared to hit me.”
Marie was beaten savagely by a number of soldiers and dragged to the police station.” She was tried on February 1, 1950 and sentenced to two months in prison.
Still unable to disperse the crowd, the 40 gendarmes and the 20 circle guards began throwing tear gas grenades into the crowd. In spite of certain police reports
which said the grenades didn’t work, a Baoulé woman was gassed in the face, eventually she went blind; many women were covered in blisters. And this is how
the women’s march on Grand-Bassam and its prison ended: jail time for some, a retreat in disgrace for others, these Amazons returning to Abidjan, by taxi, on
foot, like debris from the Great Army.