She built a kingdom in the shadow of an empire. Then, when her enemies came for it, she chose to destroy what she had spent years building rather than let them claim it intact.
The Queen Who Burned Her Own City to Beat an Empire tells the extraordinary story of Njinga of Ndongo and Matamba, the ruler who spent four decades, from the 1620s to the 1660s, resisting Portuguese expansion in what is now Angola. She negotiated with colonial governors as an equal, forged an alliance with the feared Imbangala warriors, outmanoeuvred rival claimants to her throne, and even joined forces with the Dutch when it served her cause.
But Njinga's most remarkable weapon was not an army. It was her refusal to accept the terms her enemies wanted to impose.
From the royal court of Ndongo to years of exile in Matamba, this book follows a ruler who lost territory, rebuilt her power, and returned to the struggle. At the heart of her story stands one unforgettable act of defiance: a queen willing to see her own capital destroyed rather than surrender it to an enemy.
How far would Njinga go to deny an empire its victory?
Enter the story of the queen who survived exile, war, betrayal, and shifting alliances and fought for decades on her own terms.