Items related to Narcissus of Matamba
One Brave woman's fight against slavery.
Narcissus of Matamba is the assumed name of the Angolan Princess Kifunji Mbandi in a story occurring in turbulent colonial South America between 1625 and 1711.
Narcissus is the bloodline grand daughter of a dead Angolan warrior queen who legend has will rise from the dead to live again in her grand daughter Kifunji (Narcissus) and drive the hated Portuguese and their slave trading evil out of her country, Angola.
To ensure the legend does not come true, the Portuguese in Angola kidnap Narcissus and slave boat her to Brazil. They presume that she will die during the voyage, but she does not.
In Brazil, a sugar cane baron who is destined to become the governor of Rio de Janeiro buys her as a slave. Narcissus becomes his spy and the mother of his son. In his service, she takes part in the expedition that discovers the El Dorado goldfields and the riches from them, which manage to save Portugal from bankruptcy.
As the slave trade increases to millions of Angolans taken each year and the King of Portugal taxes most of the gold from the Brazilians, the governor now finds Narcissus to be a political embarrassment and declares her an enemy of the state. His plan to deport her and have her murdered at sea fails and Narcissus escapes into San Paulo town.
The resentment, over the kings gold tax, grows year by year between the Paulistas and the Portuguese until it finally flares into a war to decide who will own the goldfields the Portuguese monarchy or the Brazilian people.
Narcissus funds, arms, and forms her own mounted cavalry unit there by becoming a Brazilian freedom fighter. She wages total war, giving no quarter and asking none, earning herself the name Black Mamba in salutation to her battlefield ability.
The Brazilians lose the war and possession of their goldfields, and although Narcissus is never defeated in battle, she is the one and the only Brazilian commander who is asked by the Portuguese to make peace with them and then to swear to never wage war against them again. The other Brazilian commanders having ceased hostilities voluntarily hold Narcissus in the highest regard. Narcissus, they declare, is their best general.
In the finality of the peace accord Narcissus gains Brazilian citizenship and her complete freedom to live anywhere she wishes in South America.
During her struggle, she endured the deaths of her son and her only friend, and lived through the years of a loveless marriage of necessity. Through all this, she never ever bows down in the face of adversity. She survived the hell of a slave boat voyage, was wounded in one of two fierce battles, was wounded in an assassination attempt on her life, and through it all Narcissus always believed that one day she would be free.
Narcissus fulfills both her foretold destiny as an Angolan warrior princess and realizes her slave's dream of eventually living in complete freedom.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherOutskirts Press
- Publication date2007
- ISBN 10 1432704699
- ISBN 13 9781432704698
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages316
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