Aqualtune Ezgondidu Mahamud da Silva Santos ( fl. 1665) was a

Kongo Congo or The Congo may refer to either of two countries that border the Congo River in central Africa: * Democratic Republic of the Congo, the larger country to the southeast, capital Kinshasa, formerly known as Zaire, sometimes referred to a ...

princess who was the daughter of an unidentified

Manikongo The Manikongo, or Mwene Kongo, was the title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo, a kingdom that existed from the 14th to the 19th centuries and consisted of land in present-day Angola, Gabon, the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republ ...

. According to the tradition, she was the mother of

Ganga Zumba Nganga Nzumbi () was the first leader of the massive runaway slave settlement of Quilombo dos Palmares, or Angola Janga, in the present-day state of Alagoas, Brazil. Zumba was enslaved and escaped bondage on a sugar plantation and eventually ro ...

and the maternal grandmother of

Zumbi Zumbi (1655 – November 20, 1695), also known as Zumbi dos Palmares (), was a Brazilian quilombola leader, being one of the pioneers of resistance to slavery of Africans by the Portuguese in colonial Brazil. He was also the last of the kings ...

. In 1665, Aqualtune led a force of ten thousand Kongo men and women in the

Battle of Mbwila Battle of Mbwila (also the Battle of Ambuila, Battle of Mbuila, or Battle of Ulanga) was a battle that occurred on 29 October 1665 in which Portuguese forces defeated the forces of the Kingdom of Kongo and decapitated king António I of Kongo ...

, where she was captured in defeat. She was then transported to the Port of

Recife That it may shine on all ( Matthew 5:15) , image_map = Brazil Pernambuco Recife location map.svg , mapsize = 250px , map_caption = Location in the state of Pernambuco , pushpin_map = Brazil#South A ...

, a warehouse and sugar mill. She was purchased as a breeding slave, and was later sold to a mill in

Porto Calvo Porto Calvo is a municipality in Alagoas, Brazil. Its population was 27,249 in 2020 and its area is 260 km².IBGE The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics ( pt, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística; IBGE) is the ag ...

, already pregnant. She then escaped her enslavement, reaching the Palmares

quilombo A ''quilombo'' (; from the Kimbundu word , ) is a Brazilian hinterland settlement founded by people of African origin, and others sometimes called Carabali. Most of the inhabitants of quilombos, called quilombolas, were maroons, a term for e ...

. She then became the leader of the Subupuira quilombo, which was northeast of the capital of the Palmares. She had two sons, Ganga Zumba and Gana Zona, who both took on leadership roles in the Palmares. Zumbi was the child of her daughter Sabina. Her fate and later life is unknown, dying a mysterious death in 1675.

References

{{Africa-royal-stub African women in war Date of birth unknown 17th-century deaths Kongolese royalty 17th century in Brazil Brazilian slaves Afro-Brazilian people 17th-century women rulers Women in 17th-century warfare