Here you will find warrior queens, dynastic queens, martyr queens. Queens who live in seclusion, and queens who were sought out, far and wide, for their wise counsel. Queens who fought for their sons to rule. Queens who consolidated power in their own names. Here are queens whose lands were eaten away by colonial incursion and queens who played competing colonial powers against each other to ensure their own survival. A Queen who threw missionaries off a tower when they refused to leave her island.

What links all these queens is how Akpan has had to tease their stories from the margins of traditional, Western history. As she explains in her concluding notes, WHEN WE RULED is not a straightforward biography of twelve African queens because such a book cannot be written. Some of these women exist only in the folktales they have left behind, nation founding traditions that elide the Western lines between history and legend. Some of them can only be seen in the stories of their sons and husbands, or reflected back in colonial letters that refer to them as stubborn and troublesome. For some their story is well known but filtered through the biases and assumptions of those who ruled after. Akpan is honest that her interpretation of these women may not be anymore accurate in its assumptions. She encourages readers to think critically and deconstruct WHEN WE RULED as we would any other academic source.

Akpan traveled to the modern day African countries where these queens had their seats of power, examining not just the physical artifacts dating to their reigns but also speaking firsthand to indigenous scholars, collecting common knowledge from the everyday people she runs into, and in some cases, tracking down descendants of the monarchs! The travelogue elements of WHEN WE RULED interested me the most. Akpan does an admirable job sketching the architecture, historic and modern, of the places she visits, and recording her feelings as she is confronted with the good and bad she uncovers. She's a great interviewer. She draws people out, giving them space to share. Some of the most interesting information is found in the discussions she had with others.

All in all, I highly recommend this for anyone interested in African history. I believe it is an accessible read even for complete beginners to to the topic, but it doesn't hold your hand. WHEN WE RULED expects you to pay attention to what is being said.

I usually don't read a lot of nonfiction books but this was a great collection of stories about Black women who ruled different parts of Africa throughout the ages. I liked how the information was presented and it inspired me to do my own further research.

African women rulers through the ages. A vivid exploration of the lives of twelve women who have ruled parts of Africa over the centuries from warriors to Rain Queens. They include a Princess forced to sacrifice her baby son, an Ethiopian ruler who fell in love with a girl who nursed him when he was ill and made her his queen. These examples are set within the wider history of Africa from slavery to apartheid and beyond. An enlightening read.