Details of the life of Queen Achivanjila, who ruled the Makua people in what is now Mozambique during the late 19th century, have been passed down from generation to generation. The history lacks some details, but it is clear that the queen faced formidable obstacles.
Her kingdom is now known as Niassa, a sparsely populated province in northern Mozambique. She is believed to have ruled from about 1865 until about 1870, when Portugal was the colonial power in her land. She had to negotiate a political path of keeping the Portuguese at bay while convincing her people that she had the upper hand.
Oral tradition states that she came to power after defying her husband, the king, to rescue villagers he had sold as slaves to Dutch traders. Today in Cape Town, South Africa, there is a neighborhood with descendants of slaves rescued by the queen.
She rose to power within a traditional matrilineal structure in which social status and inheritance are passed down through women. As ruler of her kingdom, she had to steer through the patriarchal colonial system favored by the Portuguese and some neighboring kingdoms. She almost certainly had to engage diplomatically with the Portuguese, giving the impression that she was an ally.
She ruled as Christianity and Islam spread in the region, which would have threatened her people’s customs and belief systems. She came to rely on the powerful women in her kingdom, who had access to land, political power and were involved in military affairs. It is largely accepted that Achivanjila expanded trade networks within her kingdom and encouraged the development of relationships with coastal merchants, which guaranteed her people a measure of prosperity. She also was believed to be a skilled military strategist, successfully defending her realm against rival kingdoms.
Her legacy, however, rests with her treatment of slaves, in which she used her knowledge of traditional medicine to help people who were being taken to the coast for the slave trade and saved many from death. She organized an army to protect her borders, which also helped prevent slave raids.
Although largely ceremonial, the title “Queen of Niassa” survives to this day, as one of Africa’s last female-led monarchies. The title’s prestige is such that when Queen Abibi Achivanjila V died in April 2023 at age 96, then-Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi marked her passing with: “We were unable to prevent our revered common friend, the Queen of Niassa, from passing into eternity during Easter celebrations and in the middle of Ramadan.”
Survivors included six children, 32 grandchildren and 46 great-grandchildren. Her successor, Bibi Achivanjila VI, continues the lineage and traditions of her predecessor. Niassa province continued to honor its rich cultural history and monarchy tradition by hosting the first Queen Achivanjila Festival in April 2024.