Women in African History

Luiza Mahin, born at the beginning of the nineteenth century, was an Afro-Brazilian freedom fighter. A natural leader, Mahin became involved in revolts and uprisings of slaves in the Brazilian province of Bahia. A street vendor by profession, she used her business as a distributory cell for messages and leaflets in the resistance struggle. She played a central role in the significant “Revolta dos Males” (1835) and “Sabina” (1837-1838) slave rebellions.

As a celebrated Malagasy woman politician of the twentieth century, Gisèle Rabesahala (1929-2011) devoted her life to her country’s independence, human rights and the freedom of peoples. The first Malagasy woman to be elected as a municipal councillor (1956) and political party leader (1958), and to be appointed minister (1977), she is regarded as a pioneer in Malagasy politics.

In May 1802, while a few months pregnant, the Mulatto Solitude took part in the Guadeloupian uprisings against the reinstatement of Lacrosse, who had been appointed Captain-General of Guadeloupe by Napoleon Bonaparte and expelled in October 1801 following a coup by the army’s officers of colour. After her arrest, Solitude was imprisoned and subsequently tortured, possibly to death, a day after giving birth. Solitude symbolizes all Caribbean women and mothers who fought for equality and freedom from slavery.

Queen Nanny was an eighteenth-century leader, warrior and spiritual advisor. Born in 1686 in present-day Ghana, Western Africa, she was sent as a slave to Jamaica, where she became leader of the Maroons, a group of runaway Jamaican slaves. She is believed to have led attacks against British troops and freed hundreds of slaves. She was also known as a powerful Obeah practitioner of folk magic and religion.

The Kahina was born in the early seventh century and died around the end of the seventh century in modern day Algeria. She is believed to have been queen, religious and military leader of the Djéraoua, a powerful Berber tribe of Jewish origin. She led an indigenous resistance to the expansion of the Arabian empire in Numidia, northwest Africa, known today as Algeria.

Huda Shaarawi (1879–1947) was a pioneer Egyptian feminist leader and nationalist. She helped to organize Mubarrat Muhammad Ali, a women's social service organization, in 1909, and the Intellectual Association of Egyptian Women in 1914. Her feminist activism was complemented by her involvement in Egypt’s nationalist struggle. She established the Egyptian Feminist Union in 1923, was founding president of the Arab Feminist Union, and spoke widely on women’s issues and concerns throughout the Arab world and Europe.

Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana (1863–1898) was a female spiritualist leader from Mashonaland, Zimbabwe, and a key leader in the First Chimurenga, or ‘the war of liberation’, against British colonial settlers in 1896–1897. She was considered to be the female incarnation of the oracle spirit Nehanda. After being captured by the British, she predicted that her spirit would lead the second Chimurenga against the British, which eventually culminated in the independence of present-day Zimbabwe.

Zenzi Miriam Makeba (1932-2008) was a South African singer and a world-renowned symbol of the fight against apartheid. After beginning her music career in her home country, she goes into exile in the United States where she gains wide recognition. Following her marriage to the activist Stokely Carmichael, she is once again exiled – this time to Guinea where she embarks upon an African and international career. Her talent and her militant engagements make her an icon in the defence of human rights.

Awa Keita (1912 - 1980) was an award winning Malian independence activist and writer. Born in Bamako, she was admitted into Bamako's first girls' school in 1923. She later obtained a diploma in midwifery. She was a member of the African Democratic Rally (RDA). In 1959 she became a Member of Parliament, the first woman in French-speaking Africa to be elected to the assembly governing her country.

Yennega, an emblematic figure in Burkina Faso, was the mother of Ouedraogo, the founder of the dynasties of the Moose chieftains. She is thought to have lived between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Weary of the warrior role in which she had been cast by her father, the King of Gambaga, she ran away and met a solitary hunter. A legendary figure in West Africa, Yennega is the epitome of the female warrior, a free and independently minded woman.

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (1900–1978) was a leading activist during Nigerian women’s anti-colonial struggles. She founded the Abeokuta Women’s Union, one of the most impressive women’s organizations of the twentieth century (with a membership estimated to have reached up to 20,000 women), which fought to protect and further the rights of women.

Elite troops of women soldiers contributed to the military power of the Kingdom of Dahomey in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Admired in their country and feared by their adversaries, these formidable warriors never fled from danger. The troops were dissolved following the fall of Behanzin (Gbêhanzin), the last King of Dahomey, during French colonial expansion at the end of the nineteenth century.

Njinga Mbandi (1581–1663), Queen of Ndongo and Matamba, defined much of the history of seventeenth-century Angola. A deft diplomat, skilful negotiator and formidable tactician, Njinga resisted Portugal’s colonial designs tenaciously until her death in 1663.

Taytu Betul (c.1851–1918) was a formidable queen and empress of Ethiopia. An astute diplomat, she proved to be a key figure in thwarting Italian imperialist designs on Ethiopia. Later, she and her husband Emperor Menelik II, led a huge army to battle at Adwa, where they won one of the most important victories of any African army against European colonialist aggression.

Wangari Maathai (1940–2011) was a Kenyan scholar and environmental activist. She founded the pioneering Green Belt Movement in 1977, which encourages people, particularly women, to plant trees to combat environmental degradation. Her holistic approach eventually led her to link environmental responsibility to political struggles of governance, human rights and peace. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.

Sojourner Truth (c.1797-1883) was a leading activist, speaker and teacher at the forefront of the African-American struggle for civil rights. Resolutely non-sectarian, she acted as a bridge between issues such as women’s rights, abolition, and religious freedom. Her astute exploitation of her reputation, through photography and print, helped her to become one of the most well-known orators of the nineteenth century.

To educate, campaign and write in order to raise women’s awareness and promote their rights: such was Mariama Ba’s credo throughout her life. She belonged to the first generation of Senegalese women who attended French school during the interwar period. She was as much a pioneer in the domain of literature, as she was in the women’s movement. The impact of her first novel in and beyond Senegal, in which she denounced polygamy and confronted the problems of the caste-system, testifies to her emblematic status.

Ntebogang Ratshosa (1882-1979) was regent of the BaNgwaketse, one of eight ethnic groups in current Botswana, for a period of four years (1924-1928). Daughter of King Bathoen I and Queen Gogoangwe, she governed the realm at the request of her dying mother, as the heir and future king, Bothoen II, was still a minor. Assisted by six counsellors, she restored stability to a kingdom made fragile by the succession of three kings in seven years. With the support of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, of which she was a member, Ratshosa developed a number of infrastructure projects (aqueduct, hospitals).

A descendant of the Merina of Madagascar royal family, Fatima Soudi bint Abderremane (1836-1878), or Djoumbe Fatima, was only 5 years old when she succeeded her father to the throne. As queen (djombe) of Mwali, the smallest island of the Comoros archipelago, she had to grapple with the power struggle between France and the Sultanate of Zanzibar. In 1851, she broke off relations with the French authorities, who had organized her crowning two years earlier, to marry the cousin of the Sultan of Zanzibar. She abdicated in 1867 in favour of her son, who was assassinated in 1869, and was placed back on the throne by the French in 1871.

Queen Ngalifourou (1864-1956) was known for her mystical powers and political influence. Born as Ngassé, she took the name Ngalifourou in 1892 when she became queen of the Téké of Mbé (a town located 150 kilometers from Brazzaville) upon the death of her husband, King Iloo I. She cooperated extensively with the French. In 1923, the explorer Pierre de Savorgnan de Brazza gave her a sword as a sign of respect. Ngalifourou also received the Legion of Honour Medal for having asked her subjects to fight alongside the French during the Second World War.

The march on Grand Bassam, 1949 In December 1949, at the prison of Grand Bassam, 500 Ivorian women protested the incarceration of their husbands and brothers, militants of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (RDA), a federation of anticolonial African political parties. On the 22nd of December, organised in small groups so as to elude the watchful colonial administration, the women left Abidjan and set off on foot for Grand Bassam. On the 24th of December, as they were making their way towards the prison, they were stopped and beaten by French soldiers. Forty protestors were injured and four were prosecuted without any of their loved ones being released.

Ilen Embet (c.1801-1851) was one of the most emancipated women of the 19th century highland region of Marab Mallash (a border area between Eritrea and Ethiopia). Given in marriage to Ayte Selomon, who reigned over the region of the Asmara highlands, she entered politics to avenge her husband’s military defeats, she herself leading the men into battle. After forging an alliance with the sovereign of Tigray (today a region of Ethiopia), she was named Governor of the Asmara region. In the late 1840s, she stepped down to become a nun.

Anyentyuwe, called Fando or Jane Harrington (c. 1858- 1904), was a Gabonese catechist. She was the key informant in the works of Doctor Robert Hamill Nassau. Born into an affluent family of the Mpongwe ethnic group living in Libreville, she was educated at the American-run Protestant mission school of Baraka, where she later became a teacher in 1880. She was dismissed in late 1881 after she reported being raped. There followed a very difficult period, which ended in 1889 when she was hired to be the caretaker of widower R.H. Nassau’s daughter. For the next ten years, she would help Nassau to document the local culture. Their friendship was heavily criticised.

Rose Ziba Chibambo (1928-2016) was an anticolonial Malawian militant. In the 1950s, she created the Nyasaland Women’s League with the aim of supporting women’s issues and raising their awareness of political issues. She was arrested for her activities in 1959 and imprisoned for a year. Upon Malawi’s independence in 1964, she was elected Member of Parliament and appointed junior minister. After an internal crisis within the Banda government, she was dismissed and forced into exile. She and her husband fled to Zambia, where they lived for thirty years.

Sayyida Al-Hurra (c. 1485-c.1552), whose first name is unknown, means ‘Noble Lady’. Daughter of Ali ibn Rashid, emir of the town of Chefchaouen (northwest of current Morocco), she became the governor of the town of Tétouan, located in the same region, upon the death of her husband, Prince Ali al-Mandri. Her exile as a child from the Kingdom of Grenada, recaptured by the Spanish, deeply affected her and she would later lead expeditions against the Portuguese settled in Ceuta. In 1541, she married the Sultan of Morocco, Ahmed al-Wattassi, who contrary to custom, made the journey to Tétouan to ask for her hand in marriage.

Radha Poonoosamy, born Padayachee, was a political activist and feminist (1924-2008). Born in Durban (South Africa) to an Indian family, she fought against apartheid during her years at the University of Natal, and became a member of the African National Congress (ANC) executive committee. After marrying physician Valaydon Poonoosamy, she settled in Mauritius in 1952. Naturalized, she campaigned within the Labour Party and in 1975 became the country’s first female minister. Elected Member of Parliament that same year, she helped passed laws against gender discrimination.

Nicknamed ‘the Diva of the desert’, Dimi mint Abba (1958-2011) was a Mauritanian singer. Born in Tidjikdja, she grew up in a family of Iggawin (‘griots’). Her father, Sidaty Ould Abba, wrote Mauritania’s national anthem. At the age of 18, Dimi mint Abba won first prize in the Mauritanian Radio competition thanks to her talents as a performer and musician. She represented her country in a number of international festivals.

Bertina Lopes was a world-renowned Mozambican painter and sculptor. Born in 1935 in Lourenço Marques (Maputo) of a Portuguese father and African mother, she studied fine arts in Lisbon before returning to Mozambique in 1953, where she taught drawing for 9 years. In 1962, after a period of study in Portugal, she fled Salazar’s dictatorship and colonial policy, going into exile in Italy, where she lived up until her death, in 2012. Her work, figurative and then abstract, was influenced by the Mozambican poets, José Craveirinha and Noémia de Sousa.

Richardene Kloppers (1926-2014) was the first black primary school teacher in Namibia. Born into a modest, working-class family in Keetmanshoop, her schooling at the Roman Catholic Mission School in Tseiblaagte was in the Nama language up until grade six. After obtaining her teaching degree in South Africa, she returned to Namibia where, in the early 1950s, in Old Location, a black African neighbourhood in the capital city Windhoek, she opened the first multiracial school, declared illegal by the apartheid administration.

Sarraounia Mangou was the queen of Lougou, the capital of the Anza kingdom (today southwest Niger) at the end of the 19th century. ‘Sarraounia’ means ‘queen’ in the Hausa language and is the hereditary title given to a political and religious leader (animist). Sarraounia is recognized within oral tradition for having resisted both attempts by the Peuls of the Sokoto Empire (today northern Nigeria) to Islamise her people and the military advances of the French Voulet-Chanoine mission in 1899. The story of Sarraouina’s life was popularised by Abdoulaye Mamani’s eponymous novel, published in 1980.

Jeanne-Marie Ruth-Rolland (1937-1995) was, in 1993, the first female African to run in a presidential election. Born to a French father and Nzakara mother, she began her career in 1956 as a supervisor for the French education system in the colony of Ubangi-Shari (today the Central African Republic). She became a social worker in 1964, and then a minister in 1979. She was also the president of the Central African Red Cross, where she devoted much time to street children, earning the nickname ‘Aunt Ruth’. Highly critical of President Kolingba, she was imprisoned multiple times between 1986 and 1991.

Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita Nsimba (c. 1684-1706) was a prophetess, founder of Anthonyism, a Christian movement based on the adoration of Saint Anthony of Padua. Born into a noble Kongo family, as an adolescent she became a nganga marinda (an intermediary between the world men and the world of spirits). In 1704, she claimed to have seen Saint Anthony, appeared in the form of a black African, and announced that God would punish the inhabitants of the Kongo Kingdom if they failed to reunite. She preached a Christianity that was both hostile to European missionaries and blended with Kongo cultural symbolism. Condemned as heretical, she was burned at the stake in 1706.

Alda do Espirito Santo (1926-2010) was the first female African author in Portuguese, and a well-known figure in Sao Tome and Prinicipe’s fight for independence. From a middle-class family – her mother was a teacher and her father a post office official – she attended secondary school in Portugal in the 1950s, where she met other young anticolonial African militants. She is the author of the lyrics of the Sao Tome and Principe’s national anthem, and was variously government minister, Member of Parliament, and President of the National Assembly between 1980 and 1991.

Danielle de St Jorre (1941-1997), maiden name d’Offray, was a diplomat and minister in the Seychelles. Holding a doctorate in linguistics from the University of York (UK), she fought for the recognition of Seychellois Creole as the country’s first official language and created Creole week in 1982. From 1983 to 1989, she was an ambassador of the Seychelles in different countries, before being appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, a post she held up until her death. She advocated for environmental protection, particularly of oceans and island environments.

Mana Sitti Habib Jamaladdin, nicknamed Dada Masiti, ‘grandmother Masiti’ (c. 1810-1919), was a Muslim poet and scholar. Born in Brava (southern Somalia) of an Ashraf family (descendants of Mohammed), she was kidnapped as a child and held in slavery for 10 years in Zanzibar, for reasons that vary depending on the account. After having escaped and upon her return to Brava, she devoted herself to study of the Koran. Her poems in local Brava vernacular contributed to the reviving of the Qadiriyya Sufi order, faced with colonial intrusion and Islamic reformism.

Joséphine Bakhita (c. 1869-1947) was a former Sudanese slave turned nun and canonized by the Catholic Church in 2000. Born in the Darfur region into a Muslim family of affluent farmers, she was taken by slave traders at the age of nine. This trauma caused her to forget her first name, and she was thus given the name Bakhita (‘lucky’ in Arabic). In 1883, the consul of Italy in Khartoum bought her, bringing her to Italy the next year. Emancipated in 1889, she decided to become a nun and entered a noviciate in 1896, later becoming Sister Josephine.

Labotsibeni Mdluli (c. 1858-1925), nicknamed Gwamile for her strong determination, was queen mother (1894-1899) and then regent (1899-1921) of Swaziland. After growing up in the royal court, under the tutelage of Queen Mother Thandile, she married King Mbandzeni in 1874. In accordance with the Swazi system, she wielded true authority, which she used to defend Swazi rights and territory from Boer and British intrusions. She ensured, through the education system she established, that girls and boys could learn the language of the colonisers.

Bibi Titi Mohamed (1926-2000) was one of the leaders of the Tanzanian nationalist movement. Born into a Muslim, merchant family, she entered politics in 1955, becoming the first female member of the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), an independent party led by Julius Nyerere. As a singer and a musician in the community dancing groups (ngoma) of Dar es Salaam, she helped to recruit more than six thousand women for the TANU. From 1962 to 1967, she was the president of the national organisation of women’s groups, Umoja waa Wananawake wa Tanzania, before falling into political disgrace.

Rose Lokissim (1953-1886) was a Chadian solider and opponent of Hissène Habré. She was one of the first elite female soldiers in Chad and began fighting against the dictatorship in 1982. Imprisoned in 1984, she was tortured for eight months. During her incarceration, she managed to record and smuggle out the names of prisoners and accounts of abuses committed by the political police. The latter, however, intercepted her documents and she was, for this reason, executed on May 15th, 1986.

Aïcha al-Manubyyia, or Lella Manoubia, (c. 1180-1257) was a Sufi saint of the Shadhili order. Born in Manouba, near Tunis, to a modest family, she received a Koranic education as a child. She dedicated her adolescence to mediation and prayer, and then studied Islamic jurisprudence alongside Abou Hassan ash-Shadhili who granted her the status of ‘pole of poles’, the highest title of the Sufi hierarchy, which led her to be in charge of men. Her study alongside of men together with her refusal to marry, led to her reputation often being attacked.