Foundation

Before the founding of Kongo, the region it would eventually control was under the control of several minor kingdoms, according to a tradition recorded in the mid-1580s. It named several former kingdoms, which were included in Kongo: Nsundi, Mpangu, and Mbata, along the Inkisi on the east; and Wandu south of them. Then Mpemba in the center, and Soyo and Mbamba on the seacoast south of the Congo River.^[20][21]

According to Kongo tradition in the seventeenth century, the kingdom's origin was in Vungu, a small polity which lay north of the Congo River, and which had extended its authority across the Congo to Mpemba Kasi, which was itself the northernmost territory of a larger kingdom called Mpemba whose capital was located about 150 miles south. A dynasty of rulers from this small polity built up its rule along the Kwilu Valley, or what was called Nsi a Kwilu and its elite are buried near its center. Traditions from the 17th century allude to this sacred burial ground. According to the missionary Girolamo da Montesarchio, an Italian Capuchin who visited the area from 1650 to 1652, the site was so holy that looking upon it was deadly.^[17] These rocks may be the rugged uplands of Lovo where there is extensive cave and rock art that dates from at least the fifteenth century.^[22][23]

At some point around 1375, Nimi a Nzima, ruler of Mpemba Kasi and Vungu, made an alliance with Nsaku Lau, the ruler of the neighboring Mbata Kingdom. Nimi a Nzima married Lukeni lua Nsanze (Luqueni Luansanze in the text), Nsaku Lau's daughter.^[17][24] This alliance guaranteed that each of the two allies would help ensure the succession of its ally's lineage in the other's territory. Mbata in turn was a former province of the Seven Kingdoms of Kongo dia Nlaza whose capital lay farther east along the current border of Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo. Mbata may have been the senior partner in the original alliance, as he had the title of "Nkaka andi a Mwene Kongo," or grandfather of the king of Kongo.^[25]

Nimi a Nzima and Lukeni lua Nsanze's son Lukeni lua Nimi^[17] (circa 1380–1420) began the expansion that would found the Kingdom of Kongo. The name Nimi a Lukeni appeared in later oral traditions and some modern historians, notably Jean Cuvelier, popularized it. Lukeni lua Nimi, or Nimi a Lukeni, led expansion southward into lands ruled by Mpemba. He established a new base on the mountain Mongo dia Kongo and made alliances with the Mwene Mpangala, ruler of a market town then loyal to Mpemba and also with the Mwene Kabunga whose lands lay west of there of uncertain loyalty but the site of a famous shrine. Two centuries later the Mwene Kabunga's descendants still symbolically challenged the conquest in an annual celebration. He furthered this with a second more important alliance with Vunda, another of Mpemba's subordinate rulers. To cement this alliance, as with the one with Mbata, Lukeni lua Nimi allowed him to be an elector to the kingdom.^[26]

After the death of Nimi a Lukeni, the rulers that followed Lukeni claimed relation to his kanda, or lineage, and were known as the Kilukeni. The Kilukeni Kanda — or "house", as it was recorded in Portuguese language documents written in Kongo — ruled Kongo unopposed until 1567.^[27]

Early expansion

The 16th-century tradition contended that the former kingdoms "in ancient times had separate kings, but now all are subjects and tributaries of the king of Congo."^[20] Tradition noted that in each case the governorship was given to members of the royal family or other noble families.^[20] Governors who served terms determined by the king had the right to appoint their own clients to lower positions, down to villages who had their own locally chosen leadership.^[28] As this centralization increased, the allied provinces gradually lost influence until their powers were only symbolic, manifested in Mbata, once a co-kingdom, but by 1620 simply known by the title "Grandfather of the King of Kongo" (Nkaka'ndi a Mwene Kongo).^[17][29]

The high concentration of population around Mbanza Kongo and its outskirts played a critical role in the centralization of Kongo. The capital was a densely settled area in an otherwise sparsely populated region where rural population densities probably did not exceed 5 persons per km². Early Portuguese travelers described Mbanza Kongo as a large city, the size of the Portuguese town of Évora as it was in 1491. By the end of the sixteenth century, Kongo's population was probably over half a million people in a core region of some 130,000 square kilometers. By the early seventeenth century the city and its hinterland had a population of around 100,000, or nearly one out of every six inhabitants in the Kingdom (according to baptismal statistics compiled by a Jesuit priest in 1623), while the kingdom as a whole numbered some 780,000.^[30] This concentration allowed resources, soldiers and surplus foodstuffs to be readily available at the request of the king. This made the king overwhelmingly powerful and caused the kingdom to become highly centralized.

By the time of the first recorded contact with the Europeans, the Kingdom of Kongo was sited at the centre of an extensive trading network. Apart from natural resources and ivory, the country manufactured and traded copperware, ferrous metal goods, raffia cloth, and pottery. The Kongo people spoke in the Kikongo language. The eastern regions, especially that part known as the Seven Kingdoms of Kongo dia Nlaza, were particularly famous for the production of cloth.

Contact with Portugal and Christianization

Main article: Catholic Church in Kongo

João I Nzinga a Nkuwu

In 1483, the Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão reached the coast of the Kongo Kingdom.^[31] Cão left some of his men in Kongo and took Kongo nobles to Portugal. He returned to Kongo with the Kongo nobles in 1485; such commissioning, hiring, or even kidnapping of local Africans to use as local ambassadors, especially for newly contacted areas, was by then an already established practice.^[32] At that point the ruling king, Nzinga a Nkuwu, decided he would become Christian and sent another, large mission headed by Kala ka Mfusu, the noble who had earlier gone to Portugal as a hostage. They remained in Europe for nearly four years, studying Christianity and learning reading and writing.^[33] The mission returned with Cão along with Roman Catholic priests and soldiers in 1491, baptizing Nzinga a Nkuwu as well as his principal nobles, starting with the ruler of Soyo, the coastal province. Nzinga a Nkuwu took the Christian name of João I in honor of Portugal's king at the time, João II.^[34]

João I ruled until his death around 1509 and was succeeded by his son Afonso Mvemba a Nzinga. He faced a serious challenge from a half brother, Mpanzu a Kitima. The king overcame his brother in a battle waged at Mbanza Kongo. According to Afonso's own account, sent to Portugal in 1506, he was able to win the battle thanks to the intervention of a heavenly vision of the cross Saint James and the Virgin Mary. Inspired by these events, he subsequently designed a coat of arms for Kongo that was used by all following kings on official documents, royal paraphernalia and the like until 1860.^[35] While King João I later reverted to his traditional beliefs, Afonso I established Christianity as the state religion of his kingdom.^[34]

Banner of King Afonso I

King Afonso I worked to create a viable version of the Catholic Church in Kongo, providing for its income from royal assets and taxation that provided salaries for its workers. With advisers from Portugal such as Rui d'Aguiar, the Portuguese royal chaplain sent to assist Kongo's religious development, Afonso created a syncretic version of Christianity that would remain a part of its culture for the rest of the kingdom's independent existence. King Afonso himself studied hard at this task. Rui d'Aguiar once said Afonso I knew more of the church's tenets than he did.

The Kongo church was always short of ordained clergy and made up for it by the employment of a strong laity. Kongolese school teachers or mestres (Kikongo alongi a aleke) were the anchor of this system. Recruited from the nobility and trained in the kingdom's schools, they provided religious instruction and services to others building upon Kongo's growing Christian population. At the same time, they permitted the growth of syncretic forms of Christianity which incorporated older religious ideas with Christian ones. Examples of this are the introduction of KiKongo words to translate Christian concepts. The KiKongo words ukisi (an abstract word meaning charm, but used to mean "holy") and nkanda (meaning book) were merged so that the Christian Bible became known as the nkanda ukisi (holy book). The church became known as the nzo a ukisi (holy house). While some European clergy often denounced these mixed traditions, they were never able to root them out.^[36]

An image depicting Portuguese encounter with Kongo royal family

Part of the establishment of this church was the creation of a strong priesthood and to this end, Afonso's son Henrique was sent to Europe to be educated. Henrique became an ordained priest and in 1518 was named as titular bishop of Utica (a North African diocese recently reclaimed from the Muslims). He returned to Kongo in the early 1520s to run Kongo's new church. He died in 1531.^[37]

Royal rivalries

A common characteristic of political life in the kingdom of Kongo was fierce competition over succession to the throne. Afonso's own contest for the throne was intense, and he had to fight a major battle with his half brother, and probably against lesser enemies in the early years of his reign. Afonso described his ascent to the throne, representing it as specifically a war by pagans against the Christian ruler. But this was probably more propaganda on his part, and succession struggles were probably normal even in the early years of the kingdom.

A great deal is known about how such struggles took place from the contest that followed Afonso's death in late 1542 or early 1543. This is in large part due to a detailed inquest conducted by royal officials in 1550, which survives in the Portuguese archives. In this inquest, one can see that factions formed behind prominent men, such as Afonso I's son, Pedro Nkanga a Mvemba and Diogo Nkumbi a Mpudi, his grandson who ultimately overthrew Pedro in 1545. Although the factions placed themselves in the idiom of kinship (using the Portuguese term geração or lineage, probably kanda in Kikongo) they were not formed strictly along heredity lines since close kin were often in separate factions. The players included nobles holding appointive titles to provincial governorships, members of the royal council and also officials in the now well-developed Church hierarchy.

King Diogo I skillfully replaced or outmaneuvered his entrenched competitors after he was crowned in 1545. He faced a major conspiracy led by Pedro I, who had taken refuge in a church, and whom Diogo in respect of the Church's rule of asylum allowed to remain in the church. However, Diogo did conduct an inquiry into the plot, the text of which was sent to Portugal in 1552 which shows the way in which plotters hoped to overthrow the king by enticing his supporters to abandon him.^[41]

King Diogo's successor, Afonso II was killed by the Portuguese days after his succession, and an uprising occurred which killed the Portuguese candidate, allowing King Bernardo I of Kongo to be enthroned. However, King Bernardo I was killed by the "Jaga" Yaka, invasion in 1567. And was replaced by Henrique I who was also killed while fighting in the east, leaving the government in the hands of his stepson Álvaro Nimi a Lukeni lua Mvemba. He was crowned Álvaro I, "by common consent," according Duarte Lopes, Kongo's ambassador to Rome.

Kongo under the House of Kwilu

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Álvaro I was not directly descended from a previous king, and so his seizure of the throne in the midst of the crisis caused by the Jaga invasion marked the beginning of a new royal line, the House of Kwilu. There were certainly factions that opposed him, though it is not known specifically who they were. Álvaro's rule began in war with the Jagas, who may have been external invaders or rebels from within the country, either peasants or nobles from rival factions fighting against the profound changes and instability introduced by European trading and slaving. As the Jagas drove him from the capital to refuge on an island in the Congo River, Alvaro appealed to Portugal for aid, and was sent an expedition under Francisco de Gouveia Sottomaior governor of São Tomé. As a part of the same process, Álvaro agreed to allow the Portuguese to establish a colony in Luanda, the source of the nzimbu shell money used by the kingdom.^[42]: 218 In addition, Kongo provided the Portuguese with support in their war against the Kingdom of Ndongo in 1579.^[43] The kingdom of Ndongo was located inland east of Luanda and although claimed in Kongo's royal titles as early as 1535, was probably never under a firm Kongo administration.

Álvaro also worked hard to westernize Kongo, gradually introducing European style titles for his nobles, so that the Mwene Nsundi became the Duke of Nsundi; the Mwene Mbamba became the Duke of Mbamba. The Mwene Mpemba became Marquis of Mpemba, and the Mwene Soyo became Count of Soyo. In 1607, he and his son Álvaro II Nimi a Nkanga (crowned in 1587) bestowed orders of chivalry called the Order of Christ.^[44] The capital was also renamed São Salvador or "Holy Savior" in Portuguese during this period. In 1596, Álvaro's emissaries to Rome persuaded the Pope to recognize São Salvador as the cathedral of a new diocese which would include Kongo and the Portuguese territory in Angola. However, the king of Portugal won the right to nominate the bishops to this see, which became a source of tension between the two countries.

Portuguese bishops in the kingdom were often favourable to European interests in a time when relations between Kongo and Angola were tense. They refused to appoint priests, forcing Kongo to rely more and more heavily on the laity. Documents of the time show that lay teachers (called mestres in Portuguese-language documents) were paid salaries and appointed by the crown, and at times Kongo kings withheld income and services to the bishops and their supporters (a tactic called "country excommunication"). Controlling revenue was vital for Kongo's kings since even Jesuit missionaries were paid salaries from the royal exchequer.

At the same time as this ecclesiastical problem developed, the governors of Angola began to extend their campaigns into areas that Kongo regarded as firmly under its sovereignty. This included the region around Nambu a Ngongo, which Governor João Furtado attacked in the mid-1590s. Other campaigns in the vicinity led to denunciations by the rulers of Kongo against these violations of their sovereignty.^[45]

Kongo under the House of Nsundi

Tensions between Portugal and Kongo increased further as the governors of Portuguese Angola became more aggressive. Luis Mendes de Vasconcelos, who arrived as governor in 1617, used mercenary African groups called Imbangala to make a devastating war on Ndongo, and then to raid and pillage some southern Kongo provinces. He was particularly interested in the province of Kasanze, a marshy region that lay just north of Luanda. Many slaves being deported through Luanda fled into this region and were often granted sanctuary, and for this reason, Mendes de Vasconcelos decided that a determined action was needed to stop it. The next governor of Angola, João Correia de Sousa, used the Imbangala to launch a full-scale invasion of southern Kongo in 1622, following the death of Álvaro III. Correia de Sousa claimed he had the right to choose the king of Kongo. He was also upset that the Kongolese electors chose Pedro II, a former Duke of Mbamba. Pedro II was originally from the duchy of Nsundi, hence the name of the royal house he created, the House of Nsundi. Correia de Sousa also contended that Pedro II had sheltered runaway slaves from Angola during the latter's governorship of Mbamba.

Factionalism and return of the House of Kwilu

The end of the first quarter of the 17th century saw a new flare-up in Kongo's political struggle. At the heart of the conflict were two noble houses fighting over the kingship. On one side of the conflict was the House of Kwilu, which counted most of the kings named Álvaro. They were ousted by the opposing House of Nsundi, when Pedro II was placed on the throne by powerful local forces in São Salvador, probably as a compromise when Álvaro III died without an heir old enough to rule.

As the reigning power, the House of Nsundi worked earnestly to place partisans in king-making positions throughout the empire. Either Pedro II or Garcia I managed to secure Soyo in the hands of Count Paulo, who held it and supported the House of Nsundi from about 1625 until 1641. Meanwhile, Manuel Jordão, a partisan of the House of Kwilu, managed to force Garcia I to flee and placed Ambrósio I of the House of Kwilu on the throne.

King Ambrósio either could not or did not remove Paulo from Soyo, though he did eventually remove Jordão. After a rule marked by rumors of war mobilizations and other disruptions, a great riot at the capital resulted in the death of the king by a mob. Ambrosio was replaced with Alvaro IV by the Duke of Mbamba, Daniel da Silva. King Alvaro IV was only eleven at the time and easily manipulated. In 1632, Daniel da Silva marched on the capital in order to "rescue his nephew from his enemies". At the time, he was under the protection of the Count of Soyo, Paulo, Alvaro Nimi a Lukeni a Nzenze a Ntumba and his brother Garcia II Nkanga a Lukeni. After a dramatic battle in Soyo, the young king was successfully restored only to be later poisoned by Alvaro V, a Kimpanzu.

Kongo under the House of Kinlaza

After waging a second war against his cousins, Nimi a Lukeni and Nkanga a Lukeni, Alvaro V was killed, and replaced by Alvaro VI in 1636, initiating the House of Kinlaza's rule over Kongo. Following his death in 1641, Alvaro VI's brother took over, and was crowned Garcia II. The former House of Nsundi was consolidated with their House of Kwilu rivals as the Kimpanzu lineage of the dead Alvaro V.

Garcia II took the throne on the eve of several crises. One of his rivals, Daniel da Silva (who probably received the patronage of the Daniel da Silva who was killed by Garcia II while defending Alvaro IV), managed to secure the County of Soyo and used it as a base against Garcia II for the whole of his reign. As a result, Garcia II was prevented from completely consolidating his authority. Another problem facing King Garcia II was a rebellion in the Dembos region, which also threatened his authority. Lastly, there was the agreement made by Pedro II in 1622, promising Kongo's support to the Dutch in an offensive to oust Portugal from Luanda.

Battle of Mbwila

The Kingdom of Kongo in 1648

Portugal began pressing claims over southern vassals of Kongo, especially the country of Mbwila, following Portuguese restoration at Luanda. Mbwila, a nominal vassal of Kongo, had also signed a treaty of vassalage with Portugal in 1619. It divided its loyalty between the Colony of Angola and Kongo in the intervening period. Though the Portuguese often attacked Mbwila, they never brought it under their authority.

Kongo began working towards a Spanish alliance, especially following António I's succession as king in 1661. Although it is not clear what diplomatic activities he engaged in with Spain itself, the Portuguese clearly believed that he hoped to repeat the Dutch invasion, this time with the assistance of Spain. António sent emissaries to the Dembos region and to Matamba and Mbwila, attempting to form a new anti-Portuguese alliance. The Portuguese had been troubled, moreover, by Kongo support of runaway slaves, who flocked to southern Kongo throughout the 1650s. At the same time, the Portuguese were advancing their own agenda for Mbwila, which they claimed as a vassal. In 1665, both sides invaded Mbwila, and their rival armies met each other at Ulanga, in the valley below Mbanza Mbwila, capital of the district.

At the Battle of Mbwila in 1665, the Portuguese forces from Angola had their first victory against the kingdom of Kongo since 1622. They defeated the forces under António I killing him and many of his courtiers as well as the Luso-African Capuchin priest Manuel Roboredo (also known by his cloister name of Francisco de São Salvador), who had attempted to prevent this final war.

Kongo Civil War

In the aftermath of the battle, there was no clear succession. The country was divided between rival claimants to the throne. The two factions, Kimpanzu and Kinlaza, hardened, and partitioned the country between them. Pretenders would ascend to the throne, and then be ousted. The period was marked by an increase in BaKongo slaves being sold across the Atlantic, the weakening of the Kongo monarchy and the strengthening of Soyo.

During this chaos, Kongo was being increasingly manipulated by Soyo. In an act of desperation, the central authority in Kongo called on Luanda to attack Soyo in return for various concessions. The Portuguese invaded the county of Soyo in 1670. They met with no more success than Garcia II, being roundly defeated by Soyo's forces at the Battle of Kitombo on 18 October 1670. The kingdom of Kongo was to remain completely independent, though still embroiled in civil war, thanks to the very force (Portuguese colonials) it had fought so long to destroy. This Portuguese defeat was resounding enough to end all Portuguese ambitions in Kongo's sphere of influence, until the end of the nineteenth century.

The battles between the Kimpanzu and Kinlaza continued plunging the kingdom into a chaos not known in centuries. The fighting between the two lineages led to the sack of São Salvador in 1678. Ironically, the capital built by the pact of Mpemba and Mbata was burned to the ground, not by the Portuguese or rival African nations but by its very heirs. The city and hinterland around Mbanza Kongo became depopulated. The population dispersed into the mountain top fortresses of the rival kings. These were the Mountain of Kibangu east of the capital and the fortress of the Águas Rosadas, a line founded in the 1680s from descendants of Kinlaza and Kimpanzu, the region of Mbula, or Lemba where a line founded by the Kinlaza pretender, Pedro III ruled; and Lovota, a district in southern Soyo that sheltered a Kimpanzu lineage whose head was D Suzanna de Nóbrega. Finally, D Ana Afonso de Leão founded her own center on the Mbidizi River at Nkondo and guided her junior kinsmen to reclaim the country, even as she sought to reconcile the hostile factions.

In the interim, however, tens of thousands fleeing the conflict or caught up in the battles were sold as slaves to European slave traders every year. One human stream led north to Loango, whose merchants, known as Vili (Mubires in the period) carried them primarily to merchants bound for North America and the Caribbean, and others were taken south to Luanda, where they were sold to Portuguese merchants bound for Brazil. By the end of the seventeenth century, several long wars and interventions by the now independent Counts of Soyo (who restyled themselves as Grand Princes) had brought an end to Kongo's golden age.

Fragmentation

As the 17th-century drew to a close several places once part of Kongo became de facto independent. This included areas such as Nsonso.^[48]

18th and 19th centuries

Kongo in 1770

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Kongo artists began making crucifixes and other religious objects that depicted Jesus as an African. Such objects produced by many workshops over a long period (given their variety) reflect that emerging belief that Kongo was a central part of the Christian world, and fundamental to its history. A story of the eighteenth century was that the partially ruined cathedral of São Salvador, originally constructed for the Jesuits in 1549 and eventually elevated to cathedral status, was actually built overnight by angels. It was called affectionately, Nkulumbimbi. Pope John Paul II would eventually say mass at this cathedral in 1992.

Manuel II of Kongo succeeded Pedro IV in 1718. Manuel II ruled over a restored and restive kingdom until his death in 1743. However, Soyo's provincial status in the kingdom, nominal for years, limited Manuel's power. Nsundi on the north had also more or less become independent, although still claiming to be part of the larger kingdom and more or less permanently ruled by a Kimpanzu family. Even within the remaining portions of the kingdom, there were still powerful and violent rivalries. At least one major war took place in the 1730s in the province of Mbamba. Pedro IV's successor, Garcia IV Nkanga a Mvandu, ruled from 1743 to 1752. Pedro IV's restoration required his successor's membership in a branch of the Kinlaza faction resident in Matadi that had sworn loyalty to Pedro IV in 1716. Other Kinlaza branches had developed in the north, at Lemba and Matari, and in the south along the Mbidizi River in lands that had been ruled by D. Ana Afonso de Leão. De Leão's lands came to be called the "Lands of the Queen".

The system of alternating succession broke down in 1764, when Álvaro XI, a Kinlaza, drove out the usurping Kimpanzu king Pedro V (the first to bear this title) and took over the throne. Pedro and his successor in Luvata maintained a separate court at Sembo, and never acknowledged the usurpation. A regent of Pedro's successor claimed the throne in the early 1780s and pressed his claims against a José I, a Kinlaza from the Mbidizi Valley branch of the royal family. José won the showdown, fought at São Salvador in 1781, a massive battle involving 30,000 soldiers on José's side alone. To show his contempt for his defeated rival, José refused to allow the soldiers of the other faction to receive Christian burial. José's power was limited, as he had no sway over the lands controlled by the Kinlaza faction of Lemba and Matari, even though they were technically of the same family, and he did not follow up his victory to extend his authority over the Kimpanzu lands around Luvota. At the same time, the lands around Mount Kibangu, Pedro IV's original base, was controlled—as it had been for the whole eighteenth century—by members of the Água Rosada family, who claimed descent from both the Kimpanzu and Kinlaza.

José ruled until 1785, when he handed power over to his brother Afonso V (1785–87). Afonso's brief reign ended in his sudden death, rumored to be by poisoning. A confused struggle broke out following Afonso's death. By 1794, the throne ended up in the hands of Henrique I, a man of uncertain factional origin, who arranged for three parties to divide the succession. Garcia V abrogated the arrangement, proclaiming himself king in 1805. He ruled until 1830. André II, who followed Garcia V, appeared to have restored the older rotational claims, as he was from the northern branch of the Kinlaza, whose capital had moved from Matadi to Manga. Andre ruled until 1842 when Henrique II, from the southern (Mbidizi Valley) branch of the same family, overthrew him. Henrique II developed his power in the same manner as other entrepreneurial nobles, by founding villages of slaves or followers and drawing strength from them.

Andre, however, did not accept his fate and withdrew with his followers to Mbanza Mputo, a village just beyond the edge of São Salvador, where he and his descendants kept up their claims. King Henrique III, who came to power after overthrowing André II, ruled Kongo from 1842 until his death in 1857.^[49] While Aleixo de Água Rosada (brother of king Henrique III) ordered a Dembo chief Nambwa Ngôngo not to pay a new Portuguese tax in 1841. His capture and imprisonment by the Portuguese took place some time after he Ordered Nambwa Ngôngo.^[50][51]

Rise of entrepreneurial nobles

In the 1750s and beyond, a new class of nobles emerged in Kongo. While they belonged to the less category of nobles, they lived by banditry and captured people to found new villages under their control. They took advantage of the lack of control that higher nobles had over their territories to construct fortified locations. One of the more famous of these nobles is only known by the sobriquet Mbwa Lau (Mad Dog) who, along with several other nobles, founded a fortified settlement not far from the capital. A Portuguese missionary priest raveled with an order from the bishop demanding that Kongo nobles cease selling slaves to merchants from Loango (called Vilis) because they would be selling Catholics to Protestants, as the trade of Loango included English and Dutch merchants. Mbwa Lau abused the priest and threatened to kill him. The weak documentary record does not record the rise of these nobles in detail, although modern traditions of the more successful may allow their reconstruction.

Even members of the higher nobility founded their own villages of captured people or persuaded the commoners to join them for protection. The kings, who no longer operated as the heads of a responsible bureaucracy, might appoint them as Dukes or Marquis, but they only ever controlled the lands they ruled themselves. While the entrepreneurial nobles sought local political and economic power, they also sold slaves into the slave trade, and it was largely their small scale wars and captures of other people that fed the growing trade from the country to the New World. The most destructive part of Kongo's long involvement in the slave trade probably occurred in this period.

In 1839, the Portuguese government, acting on British pressure, abolished the slave trade south of the equator which had so damaged Central Africa. Human trafficking continued until well into the 1920s, first as an illegal slave trade, then as contract labor. A commodity trade replaced the slave trade, at first focused on ivory and wax, but gradually grew to include peanuts and rubber. This trade revolutionized the economies and eventually the politics of the whole of Central Africa. In place of the slave trade, largely under the control of state authorities, thousands, and eventually hundreds of thousands, of commoners began carrying goods from inland to coastal ports. These people managed to share in the wealth of the new trade, and as a result, commercially connected people constructed new villages and challenged the authorities.^[17][52]

During this period, as the slave trade ended, long-distance trade became more prominent, and entrepreneurial nobles became more stable founding markets and protecting trade. They founded new, makanda, nominally clans descended from common ancestors that were as much trading associations as family units. These clans founded strings of villages connected by fictional kinship along the trade routes, from Boma or the coast of Soyo to São Salvador and then on into the interior. A new oral tradition about the founder of the kingdom, often held to be Afonso I, described the kingdom as originating when the king caused the clans to disperse in all directions. The histories of these clans, typically describing the travels of their founder and his followers from an origin point to their final villages, replaced the history of the kingdom itself in many areas.^[17]

Despite violent rivalries and the fracturing of the kingdom, it continued to exist independently well into the 19th century. Álvaro Ndongo, a Kimpanzu, claimed the throne on behalf of the Kinlaza faction of Matari, ignoring the existence of Andre's group at Mbanza Puto, calling himself Álvaro XIII; while Pedro Lelo claimed the throne on behalf of the Mbidizi Valley faction of the Kinlaza, from a base at Bembe. Pedro ultimately won a long military struggle thanks to soliciting Portuguese aid, and with their help his soldiers defeated Álvaro in 1859. Like André II, Álvaro XIII did not accept defeat and established his own base at Nkunga, not far from São Salvador. The Portuguese support which had put Pedro Lelo on the throne had a price, for when he was crowned Pedro V (he was actually the second king named Pedro V; the first one ruled in the late 1770s) he had also sworn a treaty of vassalage to Portugal. Portugal thus gained nominal authority over Kongo when Pedro gained control of it in 1859, and even constructed a fort in São Salvador to house a garrison. In the same year prince Nicolas protested vassalage of Kongo by publishing a letter in the newspaper Jornal do Commércio in Lisbon, on 1 December.^[53][50]

Pedro VII and Isabel, titular King and Queen of Kongo, pictured in 1934.

In 1866, citing excessive costs, the Portuguese government withdrew its garrison. Pedro was able to continue reigning over Kongo, although he faced increasing rivalry from clan-based trading magnates who drained his authority from much of the country. The most dangerous of these was Garcia Mbwaka Matu of the town of Makuta. This town had been founded by a man named Kuvo, one of the entrepreneurial nobles, his successors including Garcia made a great deal of controlling markets in the new trading regime. Though this was a great challenge in the 1870s, after Garcia's death in 1880 Makuta became less problematic.^[54]

At the Conference of Berlin of 1884–1885, European powers divided most of Central Africa between them. Portugal claimed the lion's share of what remained of independent Kongo; however, Portugal was not then in a position to make "effective occupation". King Pedro V continued to rule until his death in 1891, and was able to use the Portuguese to strengthen his control. In 1888 he voluntarily reaffirmed Kongo's position as a Portuguese vassal state. After a revolt against the Portuguese in 1914, Portugal declared the abolition of the kingdom of Kongo, of which the ruler at that time was Manuel III of Kongo, ending native rule and replacing it with direct colonial rule. However, according to the Almanach de Bruxelles a series of titular kings kept on using the title until at least until 1964, when a dispute over the succession began.

Other battles

• Battle of Mbanda Kasi (or Mbandi Kasi)
• Battle of Mbidizi River
• Battle of Kitombo

Royal Council

The kingdom of Kongo was governed in concert by the Mwene Kongo and the royal council^[64] known as the ne mbanda-mbanda,^[65] roughly translates as "the top of the top". It was composed of twelve members^[65] divided into three groups. One group were bureaucrats, another who were electors and a last of matrons. Senior officials chose the Mwene Kongo or king who served for life following their choice. Electors varied over time, and there was probably never a completely fixed list; rather, senior officials who exercised power did so. Many kings tried to choose their successor, not always successfully. One of the central problems of Kongo history was the succession of power, and as a result, the country was disturbed by many rebellions and revolts.

Currency

The universal currency in Kongo and the surrounding region of Central Africa was the shell of Olivella nana; a sea snail known locally as nzimbu.^[69][70] One hundred nzimbu could purchase a hen; 300 a garden hoe and 2,000 a goat. Slaves, which were always a part of Kongo's economy, were also bought in nzimbu. A female slave could be purchased (or sold) for 20,000 nzimbu and a male slave for 30,000. The slave trade had increased in volume after contact with Portugal.

Nzimbu shells were collected from the island of Luanda and kept as a royal monopoly. The smaller shells were filtered out so that only the large shells entered the marketplace as currency. Kongo would not trade for gold or silver, but nzimbu shells, often put in pots in special increments, could buy anything. Kongo's "money pots" held increments of 40, 100, 250, 400, and 500. For especially large purchases, there were standardized units such as a funda (1,000 big shells), Lufuku (10,000 big shells) and a kofo (20,000 big shells).^[71]

The Kongo administration regarded their land as renda, revenue assignments. The Kongo government exacted a monetary head tax for each villager, which may well have been paid in kind as well, forming the basis for the kingdom's finances. The king granted titles and income, based on this head tax. Holders reported annually to the court of their superior for evaluation and renewal.

Provincial governors paid a portion of the tax returns from their provinces to the king. Dutch visitors to Kongo in the 1640s reported this income as twenty million nzimbu shells. In addition, the crown collected its own special taxes and levies, including tolls on the substantial trade that passed through the kingdom, especially the lucrative cloth trade between the great cloth-producing region of the "Seven Kingdoms of Kongo dia Nlaza", the eastern regions (also called "Momboares"), "The Seven" in Kikongo, and the coast, especially the Portuguese colony of Luanda.

Crown revenues supported the church, paid by revenue assignments based on royal income. For example, Pedro II (1622–1624) detailed the finances of his royal chapel by specifying that revenues from various estates and provincial incomes would support it. Baptismal and burial fees also supported local churches.

When King Garcia II gave up the island of Luanda and its royal fisheries to the Portuguese in 1651, he switched the kingdom's currency to raffia cloth. The cloth was "napkin-sized" and called mpusu. In the 17th century, 100 mpusu could buy one slave implying a value greater than that of the nzimbu currency. Raffia cloth was also called Lubongo (singular : Lubongo, Libongo, plural : Mbongo).^{[72][73][74][75]}

Marketplace

A major cornerstone of the economic and social center of the people of the Kongo is situated in the market (nzandu). This was an area that was reserved for peace and commerce, the chief authority ensured security here by placing the area in neutral territory that was defended against possible attack. They also provided the freedom to trade as well as the implementation of price standardizations. Areas set aside for the display of merchandise (mbangu) was separated by type, such as an area for blacksmithing equipment, one for slaves etc. Besides being a commercial center it was also a place where political and matrimonial negotiations were carried out, a place for the dissemination of news, an execution area for criminals and where rituals of sorcerers were made.^[76]

The connections of these marketplaces were linked by several roads (rich caravans had armed protection from bandits (mpanzulungu) who raided travellers in the late 15th century). These routes were maintained by a compulsory labor force through a collection of tolls to ensure revenue for the capital.^[76]

Architecture

The first stone and mortar building in the capital of M'banza-Kongo was a church built by Portuguese craftsmen with the aid of Kongo laborers on 1 June 1491.^[78] During the reign of Afonso I in the early 16th century, several stone buildings were constructed in the Kongo capital. For instance, he constructed a stone wall around the royal quarter and a quarter assigned to the Portuguese. The wall stood at a height of 15–20 feet as it was 2 feet 6 inches and 3 feet thick. Afonso also built stone churches and a stone palace starting from 1509. According to scholar Rathbone, the king successfully developed a cadre of Kongolese who could construct and repair stone buildings.^[79] At the peak of the capital in the mid 17th century, the city contained stone cathedrals, chapels as well as a Jesuit college and its streets were named. Houses of both the poor and rich were besieged by a fence to serve as a border to the neighbor's house.^[79]

Matrilineal organization

The central Bantu groups which comprised most of the Kongo kingdom passed on status through matrilineal succession.^[80] Furthermore, women in the group of kingdoms that at various times were provinces in the Kongo kingdom could have important roles in rulership and war. For example, Queen Nzinga, or Njinga, who ruled parts of the kingdom in Ndongo and Matamba provinces in the 17th century, was an effective ruler and war leader. In fact, she became a thorn in the side of the Portuguese to the degree that their correspondence at times was mainly about how to foil her. Nevertheless, the only thing that ended her efforts against them was her death in 1663 at an advanced age.^[81]

Primary sources

Secondary literature

• Bouveignes, Olivier de Les anciens rois du Congo, Namur: Grands Lacs, 1948.
• David Birmingham, Trade and Conquest in Angola. Oxford and London: Oxford University Press, 1966.
• Cécile Fromont, The Art of Conversion: Christian Visual Culture in the Kingdom of Kongo. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014.
• Cécile Fromont, Images on a Mission in Early Modern Kongo and Angola. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2022.
• Ann Hilton, The Kingdom of Kongo Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.
• Karl Edvard Laman,The Kongo. 4 vols. 1954–68.
• Graziano Saccardo, Congo e Angola con la storia dell'antica missione dei Cappuccini 3 vols., Venice, 1982–83.
• John K. Thornton, The Kingdom of Kongo: Civil War and Transition, 1641–1718.
• John K. Thornton The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1683–1706 Cambridge University Press, 1998.
• John K. Thornton. "The Origins and Early History of the Kingdom of Kongo," International Journal of African Historical Studies 34/1 (2001): 89–120.
• Jan Vansina, Kingdoms of the Savanna, Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press, 1966.
• Phyllis M. Martin, Power, Cloth and Currency on the Loango Coast, University of Wisconsin Press, 1986.
• E. Dartevelle, Les Nzimbu, monnaie du royaume du Congo, Bruxelles, 1953.
• Douglas L. Wheeler, Nineteenth-Century African Protest in Angola: Prince Nicolas of Kongo (1830?–1860), Boston University African Studies Center, 1968.
• David Birmingham, A Short History of Modern Angola, Oxford University Press, 2016.
• Patrício Batsîkama, A Catedral de São Salvador de Angola: História e Memória de um Lugar Mítico, Universidade Fernando Pessoa Porto, 2011.
• Lussunzi Vita Mbala, La société Kongo face à la colonisation portugaise 1885–1961, Paari éditeur, 2021.
• Jelmer Vos, Empire, patronage and a revolt in the kingdom of Kongo, Old Dominion University, 2017.
• Patrício Batsîkama Mampuya Cipriano, Nação, nacionalidade e nacionalismo em Angola, Universidade Fernando Pessoa Porto, 2015.
• Thornton, John Kelly (1999). Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500–1800. Psychology Press. ISBN 9781857283921.
• Ronald H. Chilcote, Protest and resistance in Angola and Brazil: Comparative studies, University of California Press, 1972.
• Jelmer Vos, Kongo in the Age of Empire, 1860–1913: The Breakdown of a Moral Order, University of Wisconsin Press, 2015.
• Martin Yandesa Mavuzi, Histoire et numismatique des monnaies du Congo du XVe siècle à nos jours ou Les monnaies du Congo – L’histoire et la numismatique, Weyrich Edition, 2015.
• Afonso's letters are all published, along with most of the documents relating to his reign, in:

António Brásio, Monumenta Missionaria Africana (1st series, 15 volumes, Lisbon: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1952–88), vols. 1, 2 and 4.