D. Queen Nzinga
Queen Nzinga (also known as as Njinga Mbande) was ruler of the Ndongo and Matamba kingdoms of the Mbundu people in southwest Africa, in the region that would be referred to as Angola by Portuguese colonizers. The Portuguese had pressed into southern Africa with their slave ships after being challenged by the French and the British in regions where they had been conducting slave trade. Nzinga initially made some concessions to accommodate the Portuguese -- such as her conversion to Christianity. But the more that the Portuguese pressed for slave trade in the kingdoms she now controlled, the more she opposed them. She formed alliances with other kingdoms and engaged in battle against the Portuguese for thirty years, beginning in 1627. The Portuguese made many attempts to capture or kill Queen Nzinga, but they never succeeded in doing so. She lived to the age of 80, dying of natural causes in 1663.
