Wonder Woman of the Week: Aqualtune
- Mar 30, 2022
- 2 min read
This week's Wonder Woman might be one of the most- if not the most- fascinating stories of human resilience. Born a princes, and raised to become a queen; this week's Wonder Woman led soldiers in battle against colonial oppressors who captured her and sold her into slavery before she escaped into the jungle and started a new kingdom for escaped slaves ready to launch a renewed wave of resistance against European colonization. Aqualtune was born sometime in the 17th Century in what is today the Democratic Republic of the Congo to a local king whose name has been lost to history. What is known about her upbringing it that it must of included learning how to fight and how to lead warriors in battle, because- in 1665- that's exactly what she did. Aqualtune led an army of ten thousand warriors against the Portuguese; but her forces lost the battle, and the Portuguese captured the warrior princess in battle.
The Portuguese had absolutely no respect for the captured warrior, and- instead of ransoming her or using her as a bargaining chip for pacifying her kingdom- the Portuguese sold her to become a "breeding slave" in modern-day Brazil, which is as brutal and inhumane as it sounds. Upon her arrival in Brazil, Aqualtune had to work in sugar mills, warehouses, and as a breeding slave; but the enslaved warrior princess had no intention to submit to her colonial oppressors. Instead, she and her two children managed to escape into the jungle where she founded a colony for fellow escaped slaves. Aqualtune must have been a skilled politician as well because she organized what would become one of the most successful maroon (or escaped slave) colonies in Brazilian history which included teaching her sons the arts of diplomacy and war- especially her son Ganga Zumba who would continue her mother's legacy and become one of the most famous and successful anti-colonial, escaped slave freedom fighters in Brazilian history.
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