Some years ago, Nick Cannon expressed his disdain for movies like “Django Unchained” and “12 Years a Slave,” saying he’s uninterested in seeing Black people portrayed as slaves on film. Recognizing that African people’s history started before being enslaved, the actor tweeted that he would like to ascertain Blacks represent kings and queens in movies instead.
“Why don’t they create movies about our African kings & queens? #OurHistory I might like to see a movie about Akhenaton and his beautiful wife, Queen Nefertiti! Or Cetewayo, a king who was a war hero. I’m close to drive to my office immediately and begin the development! New Hollywood Trend, Black king, and queen films! Starring Black people!!”
Below are kings and queens whose extraordinary accomplishments would make great storylines for films.
King Hannibal
King Hannibal is claimed to be the best leader and strategist of all time. Hannibal was born in 247 B.C., during the start of the decline of Carthage, then a maritime power near present-day Tunis in North Africa. The Carthage population was a mixture of Africans and Phoenicians who were great merchants, trading with India, the people of the Mediterranean, and, therefore, the Sicilian Isles.
When he was very young, about 8 or 9, Hannibal accompanied his father Hamilcar during a battle against the Romans. Seventeen years later, in 221 B.C., he succeeded his brother-in-law Hasdrubal and have become supreme commander of the Carthaginian forces.
Hannibal had 80,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry, and 40 African war elephants. He conquered significant portions of Spain and France, and every one of Italy, apart from Rome.
Hannibal marched his army and war elephants through the Alps to surprise and conquer his enemies. In one battle, the Romans, led by general Scipio, put 80,000 men on the sector led by Scipio to defeat Hannibal. When Africanus attacked together with his entire army, Hannibal had so studied the grounds that he arranged his African swordsmen and elephants to trample and slaughter them.
After killing thousands of Roman soldiers in a lengthy battle, Hannibal took his own life instead of surrender when he was overwhelmed by the more massive Roman army.
King Mansa Musa I
King Mansa Musa I (Emperor Moses) was a crucial Malian king, ruling from 1312 to 1337 and expanding the Mali influence over the Niger city-states of Timbuktu, Gao, and Djenne.
Musa ruled the Mali Empire and was estimated to possess been well worth the equivalent of $400 billion in today’s currency, which makes him the richest man to ever walk this earth. The emperor was a master businessman and economist. He gained his wealth through Mali’s supply of gold, salt, and ivory, the primary commodities for many of the planets during that point.
Musa maintained an enormous army that kept the peace and policed the trade routes for his businesses. His troops pushed the borders of Mali from the Atlantic Coast within the west; beyond the cities of Timbuktu and Gao within the east; and from the salt mines of Taghaza within the north to the gold mines of Wangar within the south.
Musa was also a severe influence on the University of Timbuktu, the planet’s first university and, therefore, the primary learning institution for not just Africa but the world. Timbuktu became a gathering place of poets, scholars, and artists of Africa and hence, the Middle East. Even after Mali declined, Timbuktu remained the primary learning center of Africa for several years.
Shaka, king
Shaka, king of the Zulus, was born in 1787, the son of Zulu Chief Senzangakhona and his wife, Nandi. When Shaka was 26, his father died and left the throne to a son, Sijuana. Shaka ambushed and killed Sijuana, taking leadership of the Zulus. He came to power around 1818.
A strong leader and military innovator, Shaka is noted for revolutionizing 19th century Bantu warfare by first grouping regiments by age and training his men to use standardized weapons and unique tactics.
He invented the “assegai,” a short stabbing spear, and marched his regiments in tight formation, using large shields to debar the enemies throwing spears. Over the years, Shaka’s troops earned such a reputation that a lot of enemies would flee at the sight of them.
With cunning and confidence as his tools, Shaka built a little Zulu tribe into a strong nation of quite 1,000,000 people and united all tribes in South Africa against European colonial rule. The Zulu nation continued to use Shaka’s innovations in wars after his death.
Near the top of the 19th century, British exiled King Prempeh from the hinterlands of the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana), to require over. By 1900, still not capture, the British sent a governor to the town of Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti, to demand the Golden Stool, the Ark of the Covenant for the Ashanti people.
The Golden Stool was the supreme symbol of the sovereignty and, therefore, the independence of the Ashanti, nation who inhabited dense rain forests of what’s now the central portion of Ghana. The governor, in no way, understood the sacred significance of the Golden Stool, which, consistent with tradition, contained the soul of the Ashanti.
Nana Yaa Asantewaa was present at the meeting with the governor and chiefs. When the meeting ended, and she or he was alone with the Ashanti chiefs, she said: “Now I even have seen that a number of you fear to fight for our king. If it were within the brave days of old, the times of Osei Tutu, Okomfo Anoyke and Opulu Ware, Ashanti chiefs wouldn’t sit right down to see their king removed without firing an attempt. No man could have dared speak to Ashanti chiefs within the way the governor spoke to you chiefs this morning.”
Nana Yaa Asantewaa’s speech stirred the lads. She said, “If you men won’t proceed, then we the ladies will. I will be able to call upon my fellow women. we’ll fight the white men until the last folks fall within the battlefields.”
The Ashantis, led by Nana Yaa Asantewa, fought very bravely.
King Rameses II
King Rameses II, also mentioned as Ramesses the good, was the third Egyptian pharaoh of the 19th dynasty. He reigned from 1279 B.C. to 1213 B.C. he’s often considered the best, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the Egyptian Empire. His successors and later Egyptians called him the “Great Ancestor.” Rameses II led several military expeditions into the Levant, reasserting Egyptian control over Canaan. He also led expeditions south into Nubia, commemorated in inscriptions at the temples at Beit el-Wali and Gerf Hussein.
At age 14, Ramesses was appointed prince regent by his father Seti I. he’s believed to possess taken the throne in his late teens. He is understood to possess ruled Egypt for 66 years and a couple of months, consistent with Egypt’s contemporary historical records. One account reports he lived to be 99 years old.
Queen Nefertari was the Nubian queen from 1292 to 1225 B.C. one among many great Nubian queens, Nefertari, is heralded because the queen who wed for peace. Her marriage to Rameses II began strictly as a political move, a sharing of power between two leaders. But not only did it grow into one among the best royal relationships in history, but it also brought the hundred-year war between Nubia and Egypt to an end.
Their union led to a truce that lasted over 100 years. Even today, a monument stands in Queen Nefertari’s honor. The temple which Ramesses built for her at Abu Simbel is one of the most important and most beautiful structures ever built to honor a wife.
