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In 1622 Queen Nzinga went to Luanda to negociate peace treaties with the Portuguese. De Sousa, the governor, refused to give her a seat and instead offered her a mat. Refusing to be humiliated in front of him, Nzinga had a servant kneel down for her so that she could sit on his back.
Many today applaud Nzinga for her action and the way she asserted her status, but in order to do so she had to literally objectify and put down another human being. A Black African at that. She refused to be made inferior at the expense of her maid servant. And no one talks about him. He was objectified, dehumanised and invisibilised.
