Dona Francisca Josefa de Moura Meneses, known as Francisca Chiponda (circa 1738 - circa 1825), was a powerful mixed-race African slave owner and slave trader in the Tete area of Portuguese Mozambique who was one of those to finance the first Portuguese expedition from Mozambique to Kazembe (now Zambia) in 1790 and the 1798 attempt to cross Africa from east to west.
Born around 1738, the first of three sisters, descendants of a landowning family, her first husband was João Moreira Pereira, a native of Ovar in Portugal, who had arrived in the colony in 1749, beginning his career as the Captain-General of Rios de Sena and later becoming the Governor-General.
The following year she married José Álvares Pereira, who was to become Governor-General of Rios de Sena a decade later but would die shortly after his appointment.
[2][3][4][5] Chiponda supported the expedition of Governor Francisco José de Lacerda e Almeida, which, in 1798, tried to journey to Angola, providing around 300 of her 2000 slaves for the unsuccessful crossing of Africa.
These lands produced cereals (corn, millet, rice, and wheat) and cotton, as well as vegetables and fruits, either through production organized by Chiponda or through tributes paid by the Africans who occupied them.
By controlling the marriages of her kin, she managed to establish a kinship network with newcomers and with Rios de Sena families, enabling her to expand her alliances and enhance her power until her death, in around 1825.