14 Most powerful Women in African history

Ahabi Ugbabe

AHABI Ugbabe was a prostitute who became the only female king in colonial Nigeria in the mid 1920s. I was born at Enoggera, Zeki Present-day, eastern Nigeria around a year, 1880. When she was 13. She traveled to England and in search of work, but couldn't get one. In the process, she resorted to become an autonomous sex worker and used it to her advantage, learning to speak diverse languages. In addition to Her Igbo tongue, she could also speak English and Pidgin English.

 With the money she made from prostitution, she had to venture into business, which solidified her as a successful foreigner in Ghana.

 She traded in palm oil and horses and was one of the most influential horse traders then. I have you gladly returned home as a polyglots. she was the only one in her village who could communicate with the British colonialist playing the mediator or spokesperson role between the white man and her people.

  And from exile in 1918, the British appointed Ahabi as a warrant chief, the only woman in colonial Nigeria to be appointed.But As expected, the male chiefs resisted her appointment, especially as she was a woman. But the colonial Masters were on her side.

  For a woman to be king was not strange to The Gullah people, as they had once had a woman as king around 1400's.

She was made King but had became autocratic and with time many of the people became sick and tired of her rule. 

They also condemned her sacrilegious ways when she refused to consult with the chiefs, received bribes and took other men's wives by force. However, she remained king till she died in 1948.

 She performed her own funeral rites in 1946, two years before her death.

Nzinga Mbande

 Angola's queen and Zynga is one of Africa's most celebrated women rulers who resisted European colonialization and Zynga and Bande waged a war against the Portuguese in Angola for four decades, from the 20s to the 16th, 16th, and Zynga capacity as a negotiator and military strategist remains unchallenged.

 She was directly responsible for reducing the Portuguese colony in Luanda, Present-day, Angola, to a few square miles. Zynga had three main policy objectives. One, she wanted to stop the conflict between the Portuguese and her people, which destroyed the plaza of Luanda, too. She wanted to obtain the diplomatic recognition granted to Congo from the Portuguese. And three, she wanted Luanda and Europeans to develop a daily and profitable trading relationship in the 16 thirties and forties.

She forged an alliance with Dutch slave traders and used her wealth to consolidate her position. The queen also overcame traditional Umbanda resistance to women in politics, employed and bande runaway slaves and others as mercenaries against local resistance where necessary.

After continuous war against the Portuguese, she concluded a treaty with them that largely fulfilled her initial goals and her policy continued successfully until her death

Nzinga had been able to dominate Kambalda politics for 40 years through her clever manipulations of the Portuguese.

 She was a monarch who was able to inspire people to resist the Europeans. Also, she had exceptional energy, and her position as a warrior and an anti colonialist is an excellent example of African women's dedication to self-reliance and survival values. Nzinga died a Catholic at about 81 years. 


Mashiba









 In 960 B.C, the nation that is now called Ethiopia was then represented by a queen in some books, called Mashiba. She's better known to the world as the Queen of Sheba. Makeover, according to Legend, is a mysterious and majestic Queen of Sheba and the beloved of King Solomon of Judea.
 However, according to the Old Testament of the Holy Bible, she is portrayed as a chaste and unnamed queen of the Land of Sheba, who heard of the great wisdom of King Solomon of Israel and journeyed there with gift of spices, gold, precious stone and beautiful wood, and to test him with hard questions. The Queen was awed by Suleiman's great wisdom and wealth and pronounced a blessing on Suleyman's D'Haiti. Suleyman reciprocated with gifts and everything she desired as a queen returned to her country.

 Macveagh was quite rich as she brought 4.5 tons of gold with her to Suleyman, a sign of great power and wealth. MacVeagh was a beautiful, powerful black woman and out of love, converted to Judaism. It was reported that she and Suleiman both had a son, Malik, the first who would become the first emperor of Ethiopia and establish a Solomonic dynasty.


  Yargoje







Yargoje Of Zamfara ( Present-day northwest Nigeria), reigned for 40 years from 1310 to 1350.

She expanded and relocated the capital of the kingdom  to a more strategically defendable area at Koombana. Jagow was the first daughter of Dacca, the fifth king of Zamfara.

She was not only queen, she was also head of the Bullecourt, which was a priest lambic mode of worship in part of how the land. During her reign, there were female chiefs appointed for the first time in the kingdom.

 The Queen surrounded herself with such female chiefs who were not known before the time of her reign. Interestingly, her reign was long and peaceful. In fact, it was a prosperous era. 




Queen Pokou







She was an Ashanti ruler of the Bahraini people in the first half of the 18th century, presents certain problems because her life was chronicled primarily through oral history in recent years. However, scholars have combined African oral tradition with written European accounts to flesh out the details of the life of Buku with remarkable results at a time of Boksburg between seventeen hundred and seventeen twenty, Jaishankar Kingdom was still intact. She was born into royalty, the needs of the powerful. Or, say Trudel, the daughter of a Yakutia boy who was either sister or niece of the King. Since succession to the Ashanti's throne was matrilineal, a mother's identity was more important than the father's, and the identity of Boca's father was not recorded. She herself was important to the succession since the Royal Air was a child of the king's sister or his niece.
When a new male heir succeeded to the throne, the Queen Mother shed pa with her son. In 1718, Osei Tutu was ambushed and killed and Poveda Ashanti passbooks brother Darkon. And during his reign, which lasted for almost two decades, who chose her husband according to the privilege of her rank? Much to her regret, however, since she was in line to produce the next heir to the throne, she did not become pregnant.

One day, when the Khan and his army were away at war from the Ashanti capital in Kumasi and the Army troops occupied a town, all the royal princesses were killed except Buku, who arranged for the townspeople to escape, prepared to die at her post if necessary. She was instead taken hostage. And when Darkon returned to his empty capital, he was furious. Darkon appointed a warrior Tanel to lead the forces in freeing the royal princess and following the rescue channel was married to her. This marriage resulted in the birth of a baby boy ensuring an heir to the gold in Ashanti throne.

 Eventually, Pooka decided to leave Kumasi and found a new kingdom and invited Ashanti families who also wanted to leave to join her. They headed westward toward Camiel River, passing through into mineable jungle, where, according to tradition, they fought.

Hunted giants and and giant snakes, sometimes they cross Savannah's filled with belligerent elephant and serpents, seemed always to lay in wait no matter what the terrain. After many months to reach the banks of the River, they're faced with a challenge. with no shallow water places  to cross through, Pokou and her followers decided that a sacrifice must be made to the river's spirit. 
She decided that nothing less than her son would please a river spirit and threw her only child into the waters of the commune. It was for this event that migrating Ashanti became known as the Bali in memory of Pokou son.