She soon after sent an embassage to the Pope, requesting more missionaries among her people. The Pontiff's answer was publicly read in the church, where Zhinga appeared with a numerous and brilliant train. At a festival in honor of this occasion she and the ladies of her court performed a mimic battle, in the dress and armor of Amazons. Though more than eighty years old, this remarkable woman displayed as much strength, agility, and skill, as she could have done at twenty-five. She died in 1663, aged eighty-two. Arrayed in royal robes, ornamented with precious stones, with a bow and arrow
in her hand, the body was shown to her sorrowing subjects. It was then, according to her wish, clothed in the Capuchin habit, with crucifix and rosary.[AH]
[AH] See Biographie Universelle.
The commandant of a Portuguese fort, who expected the arrival of an African envoy, ordered splendid preparations, that he might be dazzled with the idea of European wealth. When the negro entered the richly-ornamented saloon, he was not invited to sit down. Like Zhinga, he made a signal to an attendant, who knelt upon the floor, and thus furnished him a seat. The commandant asked, "Is thy king as powerful as the King of Portugal?" The colored envoy replied: "My king has a hundred servants like the king of Portugal; a thousand like thee; and but one like myself." As he said this, he indignantly left the room.
Michaud, the elder, says that in different places on the Persian Gulf, he has seen negroes as heads of great commercial houses, receiving orders and expediting vessels to various parts of India. Their intelligence in business is well known on the Levant.
The Czar Peter of Russia, during his travels became acquainted with Annibal, an African negro, who was intelligent and well educated. Peter the Great, true to his generous system of rewarding merit wherever he found it, made Annibal Lieutenant-General and Director of the Russian Artillery. He was decorated with the riband of the order of St. Alexander Nenski. His son, a mulatto, was Lieutenant-General of Artillery, and said to be a man of talent. St. Pierre and La Harpe were acquainted with him.
Job Ben Solomon, was the son of the Mohammedan king of Bunda, on the Gambia. He was taken in 1730, and sold in Maryland. By a train of singular adventures he was conveyed to England, where his intelligence and dignified manners gained him many friends; among whom was Sir Hans Sloane, for whom he translated several Arabic manuscripts. After being received with distinction at the Court of St. James, the African Company became interested in his fate, and carried him back to Bunda, in the year 1734. His uncle embracing him, said, "During sixty years, you are the first slave I have ever seen return from the American isles." At his father's death, Solomon became king, and was much beloved in his states.
The son of the King of Congo, and several of the young people of rank were sent to the Portuguese universities, in the time of King Immanuel. Some of them were distinguished scholars, and several of them promoted to the priesthood.
In 1765, a negro in England was ordained by Doctor Keppell, bishop of Exeter. In Prevot's General History of Voyages, there is an account of a black bishop who studied at Rome.
Antonio Perrura Reboucas, who is at the present time Deputy from Bahia, in the Cortes of Brazil, is a distinguished lawyer, and a good man. He is learned in political economy and has written ably upon the currency of Brazil. I have heard intelligent white men from that country speak of him in terms of high respect and admiration.