Moremi was married to Oranyan (Oramiyan), the heir to the king of Ife and son of the founding father of the Yoruba people, Oduduwa. During Moremi’s reign as queen, Ile-Ife faced the prolonged issue of Ìgbo raiders dressed in raffia leaves, disrupting and looting its markets, and people.
The most important source for the early history of Zazzau is composed from an oral tradition. Queen Amina is said to have been warrior and ruler of Zazzau, a Hausa city-state which dominated the trans-Saharan trade after the collapse of the Songhai empire in what is now Northern Nigeria.
Queen Nzinga Mbandi became Queen of the Mbundu people in in 1624. In her lifetime she ruled over Ndongo and Matamba and remains an icon in Angola today.
Queen Makeda, as she is known in Ethiopia, is said to have lived in the 10th century B.C. She traveled to Jerusalem to witness the fabled wisdom of King Solomon and test his knowledge with questions and riddles. Some sources state that she was part of the dynasty founded by Za Besi Angabo in 1370 B.C and ruled the Axumite kingdom for more than 50 years.
Queen Amani remains one of the most famous Meroitic queens because of her role in leading the Kushite army against the Romans in a war that lasted three years. This war is largely responsible for halting Rome’s southward expansion in Africa.