St John, Caribbean Breffu was an Akwamu leader of the 1733 slave insurrection on St. John (then known as St. Jan) in Danish West Indies. She committed suicide with 23 other rebels to evade capture as the rebellion weakened in 1734. “one of the leaders of the rebellion, Baeffu, whom none of us knew, and …
Bai Bureh
Sierra Leone Bai Bureh (February 15, 1840 – August 24, 1908) was a Sierra Leonean ruler, military strategist, and Muslim cleric, who led the Temne and Loko uprising against British rule in 1898 in Northern Sierra Leone.
Queen Nanny of the Maroons
Jamaica Queen Nanny, Granny Nanny or Nanny of the Maroons ONH (c. 1686 – c. 1733), was an 18th-century leader of the Jamaican Maroons. She led a community of formerly enslaved Africans called the Windward Maroons. In the early 18th century, under the leadership of Nanny, the Windward Maroons fought a guerrilla war over many …
Priestess Sarraounia Mangou
Niger Sarraounia Mangou was a chief/priestess of the animist Azna subgroup of the Hausa, who fought French colonial troops of the Voulet–Chanoine Mission at the Battle of Lougou (in present-day Niger) in 1899. She is the subject of the 1986 film Sarraounia based on the novel of the same name by Nigerian writer Abdoulaye Mamani. …
Aba Women’s Protest
Nigeria The Women’s War, or Aba Women’s Protest (Igbo: Ogu Umunwanyi; Ibibio: Ekong Iban), was a period of unrest in colonial Nigeria over November 1929. The protests broke out when thousands of Igbo women from the Bende District, Umuahia and other places in eastern Nigeria traveled to the town of Oloko to protest against the …
Chief Morosi
Lesotho Morosi (or Moorosi; died 20 November 1879) was a Baphuthi chief in the wild southern part of Basutoland. He led a revolt against the Cape Colony government in 1879, in defence of his independence south of the Orange River. The British refused to help the Cape Government.
Kaipkire
Namibia Kaipkire was a female warrior of the Herero people of Southern Africa in the 18th century. Kaipkire led resistance forces against British slave traders, and is celebrated among the Herero people. She is known in Namibia as a “legendary woman of resistance against the slave trade. It is said Queen Kaipkire also led the …
Aline Sitoe Diatta
Senegal Aline Sitoe Diatta (also Aline Sitow Diatta or Alyn Sytoe Jata; 1920 – 22 May 1944) was a Senegalese heroine of the opposition to the French colonial empire, and a strong young female symbol of resistance and liberty. A Jola leader of a local religious group living in the village of Kabrousse, Basse Casamance, …
Maria N’koi
Congo Maria N’koi is a Congolese rebel and healer known for having launched a “therapeutic insurgency” against the colonial administration of the Belgian Congo in 1915, opposing taxation and forced labor. Maria N’Koi (of the leopard) was named for a leopard she was said to have killed in her youth, and is also still associated …
Yaa Asantewaa
Ghana Yaa Asantewaa I (born 17 October 1840 – 17 October 1921) was the Warrior Queen Mother of Ejisu in the Ashanti Empire – now part of modern-day Ghana – appointed by her brother Nana Akwasi Afrane Opese, the Edwesuhene, or ruler, of Edwesu. In 1900 she led the Ashanti war known as the War …