Despite the odds, These African Women Leaders Thrived On Uneven Playgrounds
Though the modern-day woman faces difficulties in leadership due to institutional misogyny, female African leaders, history has demonstrated, were as prevalent as male leaders and that women and the female political principle were essential to the operation of pre-colonial African communities.
This, nonetheless, would be contested and challenged during the colonial period, leading to the systematic displacement of women from positions of power and authority they had previously held.
Research shows that colonialism profoundly impacted women's rights and roles in African societies. To bring about a transition to a more prosperous, capitalist economic framework, colonialists imposed their own gender roles on an already complex society.
However, women's engagement in resistance movements, such as the Aba Women Riot, was sparked by their inherent ignorance of the full scope of women's roles in society and the economy based on the reality that there was an inextricable link between women and Africa's economic well-being.
The colonists' lack of diplomacy in infiltrating the land and economy caused a lot of controversy between the women and their subsequent policies since women's roles were more deeply rooted in society than the Europeans had anticipated. Women held prominent roles in a variety of societal institutions, from the workforce to the marketplace to the home.
Therefore, every colonial policy was disruptive to their way of life. When the women rebelled against European meddling, the colonists responded by redefining women's societal roles and relegating them to a realm consistent with European cultural standards. The colonists' initial motivation for their measures was purely economic, but the women's defiance and resistance prompted them to respond by broadening the scope of their regulations.
Of course, that wasn't the whole story…
When the kingdom was brimming with capable men, it was simply inconceivable that a woman would sit on the throne. It was simply not European standard, and even that was contested. While many women who opposed Westernisation were imprisoned or re-educated in the 'proper' role they should play in society, some women took matters into their own hands and fought colonialism to the bitter end.
While the struggle for gender equality should not be lost, we must also accept that it will continue for decades to come, since the governments of various nations have paid lip service to fighting gender inequality while constructing bottlenecks for the 'weaker sex' in political and economic spheres over the years.
Therefore, it is essential to celebrate the victories that have been won and keep one's feet firmly planted in the realization that nothing is ever genuinely given to anyone if they do not strive for it.
It is also vital to pinpoint the source of the problem without vilifying and resulting to sexist notions and to note that the existence of disparity does not necessarily imply that all women are victims and that opportunities are nonexistent if they dare to dream and overcome their limitations.
Below is a list of women who held influential roles in ancient African communities, and who, despite their widespread influence, have received little or no mainstream attention. While these women had their flaws, they are remembered as personalities who left a lasting impression on their communities. Their narratives inspire women to forsake the victim card and place more emphasis on what they can accomplish for themselves and their communities. Despite the uneven playground, these women chose to flourish in vast spaces.
The first on our list is Queen Nzinga Mbande Of Ndongo (1583-1663)
While she could have given in to the expectations of both the Portuguese and her own people, accepted her fate as a victim, and remained mired in poverty, instead she decided to confront the Portuguese head-on.
Throughout her reign, the Mbundu people and other tribe rulers opposed Nzinga of Matamba, the seventeenth-century African monarch most famous for her animosity toward the Portuguese in Angola. Given that she was a woman, she was ineligible for many of the political positions open to men in the Mbundu kingdom, and her background in the community of the Mbundu king's royal court made her an outcast in the lineage politics of the majority of the Mbundu states.
Despite these setbacks, she dominated Mbundu politics and diplomacy until her death in 1663 by deftly manipulating the aliens existing on the Mbundu frontiers, including Imbangala warrior bands, the Portuguese, and the Dutch. Nzinga's death marked the triumph of the domestic forces aligned against her, who drove out her favored heirs from the Matamba throne and erased any mention of her from the state's oral traditions.
The absence of direct evidence for these hypotheses doesn't diminish their likelihood when considered alongside ethnographic and oral historical information gathered in 1969–1970. – Joseph C. Miller (1975). Nzinga of Matamba in a new perspective. The Journal of African History, 16, pp 201-216.
The second on our list is Queen Ndate Yalla of Senegal (1810 – 1860)
During her reign, Queen Ndate Yalla Mbodj, a true 'Linguere,' fashioned the women's army into one of the most formidable forces. The local griots with 'Halam,' 'Ritti,' or other instruments used in oral historical accounts best enliven the tale of this Senegambia queen in their oral heritage. Her female army was reminiscent of Behanzin's courageous women's army, the "Amazon" women army of Benin. She later went into exile in Ndimb (northern Waalo), and passed away in Dagana, where a statue honoring her stands.
Queen Ndate Yalla Mbodj, also known as the Linguere, ruled the Waalo kingdom in the northwest of modern-day Senegal and Gambia from 1810 until her death in 1860. Oral historians have documented the reign of sixty or more kings and queens in this country; the last of these rulers, Ndate, was the one to confront the unchained monster personified by General Louis Faidherbe. She also gave birth to the legendary Senegalese anti-colonialist Sidya Leon Diop, popularly known as Sidya Ndate Yalla Diop. As a leader in the fight against French colonization and the Moors, she deserves to be called a hero.
The third on our list is Queen Amina of Zazzau Kingdom – Africa’s Warrior Princess (1533-1610)
Princess Amina decided to learn the art of battle from the Zazzau military, despite the fact that Bakwa's rule was characterized by stability and prosperity. She held many military posts for her brother King Karama. This led to her becoming the de facto head of the Zazzau horsemen. As a result of her many military victories, she received countless honors, amassed substantial fortune, and gained even more influence. Princess Amina's brother Karama died in 1576, after ruling Zazzau for ten years, and by then she had grown into a powerful fighter, earning the respect of the Zazzau army and becoming the undisputed ruler of Zazzau.
Queen Amina is the first monarch of a predominantly male society. By enlarging the Hausa homeland in North Africa, she secured her place in history. Amina joined the Zazzau cavalry and rose to the rank of captain. She was named ruler in 1576 and died in 1610 while fighting for her country.
It was only a matter of months after becoming queen that Amina, a veteran of the Calvary, led her first military charge. Following her coronation as queen, Amina amassed a force of 20,000 warriors and annexed many non-Hausa nations. Throughout the rest of her 34-year rule, she waged war and expanded her empire until it was the largest in recorded history. The purpose of her several wars was to secure vassal status among neighboring kingdoms and provide unimpeded trading routes for her merchants. Gold, slaves, and new harvests all helped to strengthen her kingdom's economy and military might in this way. Amina supplied her soldiers metal helmets and chain mail because her people were skilled metalworkers. As garrisons, she constructed walled forts to hold the territory she had just won in each campaign. As time went on, settlements were built up inside these fortifications. There are a few of these forts that are still standing, and she is also credited with spreading the use of earthen city walls, which became a hallmark of all Hausa city-states. Many of the walls, now often referred to as "ganuwar Amina" or "Amina's Walls," are still standing.
The Nupe and Kwararafa states fell under Queen Amina's dominion, and she eventually consolidated her control over the entire region extending from Zazzau to the Niger and Benue rivers. All evidence suggests that she eventually came to govern most of what is now known as Hausaland and beyond, including the entire region known as Kasashen Bauchi, before the so-called Gwandarawa Hausas of Kano arrived in the middle 1600s.
In contemporary parlance, the central belt of Nigeria is known as Kasashen Bauchi. The city-states of Zazzau's central Hausaland neighbors included Rano, Kano, Daura, Gobir, and Katsina, among others. According to the Kano Chronicle, a crucial work of Hausa history, "every community paid her tribute. She received forty eunuchs and ten thousand kolas from the Sarkin Nupe [i.e. king of Nupe]. Her reign saw the introduction of many Western essentials to Hausaland. – E. J. Arnett, ‘A Hausa Chronicle’ Journal Of The Royal African Society,
Vol. 9, No. 34 (Jan. 1910), PP. 161-167
The fourth on our list is Queen Kandake Amanirenas of the Kingdom of Kush
(Egypt, c. 40 BC - c. 10 BC)
Amanirenas, Kandake of the Kingdom of Kush, successfully repelled a Roman invasion, a feat few male commanders of her era could accomplish.
Amanirenas, also known as the Nubian Queen Who Fought Back Caesar's Army, led an army of 30,000 to repel the Romans who had pushed from Egypt to attack the ancient Kingdom of Kush (modern-day Sudan). Because of their expansion into the fertile Nubia region below Egypt, the Romans subjected the citizens of Mero, the Kush capital, to oppressive taxation.
During the Roman army's brief retreat for a battle in Arabia, Amanirenas skillfully gathered her forces. Aswan, Philae, and Elephantine, which had been occupied by the Romans, fell under her control. The Romans were captured and held as slaves by the Kush soldiers before they withdrew to El-Dakkeh, the site of the first battles of the four-year Meroitic-Roman war.
For both the Nubians and the Romans, the Meroitic-Roman war was a watershed moment in history. Although the Roman army won in the end, it did so only after Rome made concessions to the Meroitic Kingdom that undermined its political and economic power and affirmed the legitimacy of Meroitic rule.
Amanirenas' military success against the Romans was unprecedented, although her position as Kandake, or female ruler, was common in the region at the time. For much of the more than three thousand years that three Kushite kingdoms (the Kerma, Napata, and Mero) governed the Middle Nile Valley of Nubia, women served as rulers. Amanirenas's successors, Amanishaketo and Amanitore, continued her powerful heritage of Roman resistance in lower Nubia. Amanirenas' victories over Roman armies ensured that she would be remembered as one of the few historical persons who fought Roman domination, even if the Kingdoms of Kush would eventually fall and be overrun by the Roman Empire.
It is important to note that while these women are exemplary figures in the art of "going for what you want", we must recognise that they made necessary sacrifices, just like everyone else, to attain the feat they are being acknowledged for.