Lets talk African History: The Kongo Kingdom

[Bawon Samedi]

This thread was inspired by @MansaMusa "Lets Talk Afro-Geopolitics" threads, but unlike his ones which are based on modern day African politics/events, these types will be focused pre-colonial African history that are not always touched base upon. Especially since certain people here like to claim we only focus on Ancient Egypt.

Anyways, I made this threads some years ago, but on another site. I feel that not only is the Kongo Kingdom underrated when it comes to African history, but Bantu people as a whole are underrated as far as their achievements goes. To me they're like the Slavs of Africa, like the Slavic people, people ignore Bantus and their history including even Africanist themselves... And when they don't they mostly focus on the Zulus.

Also, the Kongo Kingdom to me is underrated, because the people of that area not only resisted slavery more so than their Western African counterparts to a point where slavers stopped taking slaves from that area, but I hear that they willingly took trips to Brazil and Portugal as freemen, but also resisted the Portuguese for some time.

Anyways....

Kongolese Treasurers

17th century painting of the dutch painter Albert Eckhout showing two emissaries of the Kingdom of Kongo in Brazil holding the two main sources of wealth in west africa, an ivory tusk and a jewel box.


Kongolese Nobleman

17th century painting of the dutch painter Albert Eckhout showing the nobleman Don Miguel de Castro from the Kingdom of Kongo during a commercial trip to the portuguese colony of Brazil.

Kongolese King

Illustration showing the king Afonso I of Kongo, ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo in the first half of the 16th century. Afonso is best known for his vigorous attempt to convert Kongo to a Catholic country, by establishing the Roman Catholic Church in Kongo, providing for its financing from tax revenues, and creating schools. By 1516 there were over 1000 students in the royal school, and other schools were located in the provinces, eventually resulting in the development of a fully literate noble class.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

M'banza-Kongo

M'banza-Kongo was once the home of the Manikongo, the ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo, which at its peak reached from southern Africa's Atlantic coast to the Nkisi River.

The earliest documented kings referred to their city in their correspondence as "the city of Congo" (cidade de Congo), and the name of the city as São Salvador appears for the first time in the letters of Álvaro I (1568–1587) and was carried on by his successors. The name was changed back to "City of Kongo" (Mbanza Kongo) after Angolan independence in 1975.


When the Portuguese arrived in Kongo, Mbanza Kongo was already a large town, perhaps the largest in sub-equatorial Africa, and an early visitor of 1491 compared it in size to the Portuguese town of Évora. During the reign of Afonso I, stone buildings were added, including a palace and several churches. The town grew substantially as the kingdom of Kongo expanded and grew, and an ecclesiastical statement of the 1630s related that 4,000-5,000 baptisms were performed in the city and its immediate hinterland (presumably the valleys that surround it), which is consistent with an overall population of 100,000 people. Of these, perhaps 30,000 lived on the mountain and the remainder in the valleys around the city. Among its important buildings were some twelve churches, including São Salvador, as well as private chapels and oratories and an impressive two-story royal palace, the only such building in all of Kongo, according to the visitor Giovanni Francesco da Roma (1648).

The city was sacked several times during the civil wars that followed the battle of Mbwila (or Ulanga) in 1665, and was abandoned in 1678. It was reoccupied in 1705 by Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita's followers and restored as Kongo's capital by King Pedro IV of Kongo in 1709. It was never again depopulated though its population fluctuated substantially during the eighteenth and nineteenth century.

M'banza Kongo is known for the ruins of its 16th century cathedral (built in 1549).

The capital of the Kingdom of Kongo

 

[Bawon Samedi]

@Tommy Knocks

You're part Central African descent mind informing us more?

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Illustration of the ruler of Loango, from Dapper's Description of Africa (1668)

Earliest human settlement, in what is now the DRC, stretches back some 10,000 years. The earliest settlers were in all likelihood short statured hunter-gathers, now known (though controversially so) as pygmies. Some 1300 years ago these Stone Age peoples were followed by Bantu and Nilotic speaking hunter-gatherer groups, who settled initially in the northern savannah areas. In time the new-comers adopted or developed the cultivation of tropical crops, cattle husbandry and iron working technology which enabled them to subdue and displace the original pygmy populations, gradually driving them into the mountains and the thicker parts of the rain forest.

In the Congo area a number of extensive and complex trading states emerged in the savannah; the Kongo kingdom, the Luba Empire, the Lunda kingdom, the Zande kingdoms, and the kingdom of Kuba. While chiefdoms did emerge within the rainforests, they never rivaled the savannah states for size and complexity.

The Kingdom of Kongo (1400– 1914)
The first of these, the Kongo kingdom, was founded by invaders from the north east who settled south of the Congo River in the late 1300s and grew to encompass the north of modern Angola and the western areas of the DRC (Library of Congress 1993)

 

[Bawon Samedi]

@Akan @Yehuda @EastCoastNaga

 

[MajorVitaman]

Earliest human settlement, in what is now the DRC, stretches back some 10,000 years. The earliest settlers were in all likelihood short statured hunter-gathers, now known (though controversially so) as pygmies. Some 1300 years ago these Stone Age peoples were followed by Bantu and Nilotic speaking hunter-gatherer groups, who settled initially in the northern savannah areas. In time the new-comers adopted or developed the cultivation of tropical crops, cattle husbandry and iron working technology which enabled them to subdue and displace the original pygmy populations, gradually driving them into the mountains and the thicker parts of the rain forest.

In the Congo area a number of extensive and complex trading states emerged in the savannah; the Kongo kingdom, the Luba Empire, the Lunda kingdom, the Zande kingdoms, and the kingdom of Kuba. While chiefdoms did emerge within the rainforests, they never rivaled the savannah states for size and complexity.

The Kingdom of Kongo (1400– 1914)
The first of these, the Kongo kingdom, was founded by invaders from the north east who settled south of the Congo River in the late 1300s and grew to encompass the north of modern Angola and the western areas of the DRC (Library of Congress 1993)

Do you think the arrival 1,300 years ago has anything to do with the Arabic invasion from the east?

& look at that city mane.

My Capoeira Mestre always speaks of the importance of the people from Angola and their influence on the martial art.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Do you think the arrival 1,300 years ago has anything to do with the Arabic invasion from the east?

& look at that city mane.

What do you mean Arabic invasion?

My Capoeira Mestre always speaks of the importance of the people from Angola and their influence on the martial art.

You pratice Capoeira??? Interesting. And glad he is acknowledging the strong and obvious Angolan/Central African roots of that martial arts. I've encountered many (white)Brazilians that tried to erase the strong African roots of it.


Is your instructor Brazilian?

 

[Poitier]

@Tommy Knocks

You're part Central African descent mind informing us more?

He gone.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

He gone.

I seen him on here recently in that thread about black school students vs Mexican school students in Cali.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Foundation of the Kingdom

The first king of the Kingdom of Kongo Dya Ntotila was Lukeni lua Nimi (circa 1280-1320).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, became the founder of Kongo when he conquered the kingdom of the Mwene Kabunga (or Mwene Mpangala), which lay upon a mountain to his south. He transferred his rule to this mountain, the Mongo dia Kongo or "mountain of Kongo", and made Mbanza Kongo, the town there, his capital. Two centuries later the Mwene Kabunga's descendants still symbolically challenged the conquest in an annual celebration. The rulers that followed Lukeni all claimed some form of relation to his kanda or lineage and were known as the Kilukeni. The Kilukeni kanda or "house" as recorded in Portuguese documents would rule Kongo unopposed until 1567.

After the death of Nimi a Lukeni, his brother, Mbokani Mavinga, took over the throne and ruled until approximately 1367. He had two wives and nine children. His rule saw an expansion of the Kingdom of Kongo to include the neighbouring state of Loango and other areas now encompassed by the current Republic of Congo.

The Mwene Kongos often gave the governorships to members of their family or its clients. 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).

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 square kilometer. 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 close to 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 one out of every five inhabitants in the Kingdom (according to baptismal statistics compiled by Jesuit priests). 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 a highly developed state at the center 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 (or in Kikongo Mumbwadi or "the Seven", were particularly famous for the production of cloth.

The Luba state coalesced some 100 years after the Kongo and to the east of it, in the upper reaches of the Lualaba River, around lakes Upemba and Kisale. The Lunda kingdom emerged 15th century through the unification of its composite chiefdoms in the south west on the patterns laid down by their Luba neighbours. In the sixteenth century its territory was overrun by the expanding Luba empire, and, unable to resist the invaders, some of the Lunda migrated to Angola where they founded new states.

The kingdom of Kuba was founded to the north of the Kasai River, and of its tributary the Sankura, by invaders from the west in about 1600. The complex forest-river-savannah ecology of its territory enabled it to develop into a vigorous trading state that was able to maintain its integrity until it fell to the advance of Belgian colonial expansion (Giblin 1999)

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Continued...

Capuchin Missionary Celebrating Mass, Sogno, Kingdom of Kongo.
In the late fifteenth century Portuguese explorers established contact with the Kongo kingdom, and traders and missionaries followed on their heels. Initial friendly relations between the Kongo and the Portuguese soured as a result of Portuguese rapacity and especially their insatiable demand for slaves. In later years the expansion of the Portuguese coastal enclaves brought control over land as a new focus of conflict (Library of Congress 1989, 1993, Columbia Encyclopedia 2001).

Catholic Priest Burning Idol House, Sogno, Kingdom of Kongo.
In the early 1600s, weakened by conflicts with the Portuguese and other neighbours, internal struggles for power and the ravages of the slave trade, the kingdom progressively disintegrated. Over time it lost control over its constituent parts and the trade routes that had been the source of its wealth and power. By 1700 the kingdom was a spent force (Library of Congress 1993).

The Lunda experienced a resurgence of their fortunes with the establishment of the Zembe kingdom in Katanga and northern Zambia in about 1740. The state's wealth and expansion was fueled by trade in slaves and ivory with the Portuguese on the coast. In the mid-nineteenth century the kingdom came close to collapse as it fended off penetration by Swahili slave traders from the east. The kingdom was saved by cooperation with the British South African Company, only to be partitioned between the Belgians and the British (Gordon 2004).

 

[MajorVitaman]

What do you mean Arabic invasion?




You pratice Capoeira??? Interesting. And glad he is acknowledging the strong and obvious Angolan/Central African roots of that martial arts. I've encountered many (white)Brazilians that tried to erase the strong African roots of it.


Is your instructor Brazilian?

No he's AA, but his Mestre is Curtis Pierre who wrote this book.



He focuses on the African origins & encourages us to do a lot of research.

And you said...

Some 1300 years ago these Stone Age peoples were followed by Bantu and Nilotic speaking hunter-gatherer groups, who settled initially in the northern savannah areas. In time the new-comers adopted or developed the cultivation of tropical crops

I'm asking do you think the Arabic invasion that came during the same time period from the north-east had anything to do with the Bantu people coming to the region?

Spoiler

 

[Samori Toure]

My only question about the Kingdom of Kongo has always been if it has any connection to the Kingdoms that were in Uganda. Other that than that the Kingdom was quite impressive.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

No he's AA, but his Mestre is Curtis Pierre who wrote this book.



He focuses on the African origins & encourages us to do a lot of research.

Interesting.

And you said...

I'm asking do you think the Arabic invasion that came during the same time period from the north-east had anything to do with the Bantu people coming to the region?

Spoiler

People including so-called African scholars need to get this, besides Northwest Africa/the Maghreb there was never any successful Arab military invasion of Africa. Africans were never this weak feeble people who were always getting conquered throughout history and it pisses me off that some so called African scholars promote this. Outside of Northwest Africa, the only attempted one was that of the Sudan and it was called the Dongola wars(maybe @Misreeya can inform us more) and trust me in that war the Arabs got their asses kicked badly. That was the only attempted Arab military "invasion" outside of Northwest Africa.

Any Arab slavery was due to c00nish Muslim Africans trading other Africans to the Arabs. Again outside of Northwest Africa there was NEVR any other occupied Arab area of Africa.

But more importantly even if there were Arab invasions it has NOTHING, NADA, ZERO to do with the origins of Bantu people migrating to modern day Angola. The origins of Bantu people in Angola and the DRC traces their roots back to the Bantu Migration which most believe was from Southeast Nigeria and Cameroon, those two areas having zero Arab influence even till this day.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Renaissance Lisbon was home to the highest percentage of blacks in Europe at the time, ranging in status from slaves to knights.

This reality is reflected in an unusual painting made by an unknown artist, probably from the Netherlands, of the Lisbon waterfront in the late 16th century, where blacks and whites from a variety of social strata co-exist in a public square.


^^^Were most likely from the Kingdom of Kongo being that Kongolese often traveled to Portugal and their close relationship at the time.