Maria de Fonseca

Msiri's favourite wife, Maria de Fonseca, daughter of a Portuguese-Angolan trader.

Maria de Fonseca was the great wife of Msiri, the powerful warrior-king of Katanga, at the time when the Stairs Expedition arrived in 1891 to take possession of the territory for the Belgian King Leopold II, with or without Msiri's consent.

Msiri typically cemented alliances with trading partners by marriage. Maria was the daughter of mixed Portuguese-African parents from Angola, and was also the sister of Coimbra, the first trader to supply him with gunpowder from the west coast, the key to Msiri's power.

Captain Stairs rejected the idea of the ambush in favour of an ultimatum, and this led to a confrontation in which Captain Omer Bodson shot Msiri dead, and was himself fatally shot. Maria and Coimbra appear to have come to terms with this development, and took part in talks with Stairs on the acceptance by Msiri's successor of Leopold's sovereignty over Katanga. Coimbra returned to Angola but Maria remained in Katanga as she enjoyed her position at the king's court.