Kingdom of Kongo

Oral traditions about the early history of the country were set in writing for the first time in the late 16th century. Especially detailed versions were recorded in the mid-17th century, which include those written by the Italian Capuchin missionary Giovanni Cavazzi da Montecuccolo. Traditions about the foundation changed over time, depending on historical circumstances.

Modern research into oral tradition, including recording them in writing began in the 1910s with Mpetelo Boka and Lievan Sakala Boku writing in KiKongo, and extended by Redemptorist missionaries like Jean Cuvelier and Joséph de Munck. In 1934, Cuvelier published a KiKongo language summary of these traditions in Nkutama a mvila za makanda. Although Cuvelier and other scholars contended that these traditions applied to the earliest period of Kongo's history, it is more likely that they relate primarily to local traditions of clans (makanda) and especially to the period following 1750.

By the 13th century there were three main federations of states in the western Congo Basin. In the east were the Seven Kingdoms of Kongo dia Nlaza, considered to be the oldest and most powerful, which likely included Nsundi, Mbata, Mpangu, and possibly Kundi and Okanga. South of these was Mpemba. It included various kingdoms such as Mpemba Kasi and Vunda. To its west across the Congo River was a confederation of three small states; Vungu (its leader), Kakongo, and Ngoyo.

According to Kongo tradition in the seventeenth century, the kingdom's origin was in Vungu, which had extended its authority across the Congo to Mpemba Kasi, which was itself the northernmost territory of 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 centre. 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. 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.

The Kingdom of Kongo was founded around 1390 through the political marriage between the two KiKongo speaking peoples; Nima a Nzima, ruler of the Mpemba Kasi and Vungu, and Lukeni lua Nsanze ("Luqueni Luansanze"), daughter of Nsaku lau, the ruler of the neighbouring Mbata Kingdom. At some point around 1375, Nimi a Nzima started this alliance with Nsaku lau. This marital 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.

Nimi a Nzima and Lukeni lua Nsanze's son, Lukeni lua Nimi (circa 1380–1420), began the expansion that would found the Kingdom of Kongo. Lukeni lua Nimi 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 and the site of a 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.

After the death of Lukeni lua Nimi, the rulers that followed Lukeni claimed relation to his kanda (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.

The 16th-century tradition said that the former kingdoms "in ancient times had separate kings, but now all are subjects and tributaries of the king of Congo." Tradition noted that in each case the governorship was given to members of the royal family or other noble families. 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. As this centralisation increased, the allied provinces gradually lost influence until their powers were only symbolic, manifested in Mbata, once a co-kingdom, and by 1620 simply known by the title "Grandfather of the King of Kongo" (Nkaka'ndi a Mwene Kongo).

The kingdom of the Kongo's early campaigns of expansion brought new populations under the kingdom's control and produced many war captives. Starting in the 14th century (and reaching its height in the 17th century), the kings of the Kongo forcibly relocated captured peoples to the royal capital at M'banza-Kongo. The resulting high concentration of population around M'banza-Kongo and its outskirts played a critical role in the centralisation 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 travellers described M'banza-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 kilometres. 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.

The concentration of population, economic activity, and political power in M'banza-Kongo strengthened the Kongolese monarchy and allowed for a centralised government. Captives taken in war were enslaved and integrated into the local population, producing a food and labour surplus, while rural regions of the kingdom paid taxes in the form of goods the capital could not produce itself. A class of urban nobility developed in the capital, and their demand for positions at court and consumer goods fuelled the kingdom's economy. Rural development was intentionally discouraged by the Kongolese king, ensuring the capital remained the economic and political centre of the kingdom. This concentration allowed resources, soldiers and surplus foodstuffs to be readily available at the request of the king and made the king overwhelmingly powerful when compared to any potential rival.

In 1483, the Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão reached the coast of the Kongo Kingdom. 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. 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. The mission returned with Cão, who was accompanied with Catholic priests and soldiers in 1491, baptising Nzinga a Nkuwu, who took the Christian name of João I in honour of Portugal's king at the time, João II. Moreover, the king's principal nobles. starting with the ruler of Soyo, the coastal province, were baptised as well.

However, one of the key obstacles in this conversion was the issue of monogamy. While Catholic writers saw Kongolese resistance to this as grounded in lust and sin, the reasons for resistance were in fact, fundamental to Kongolese social structure. Ann Hilton notes that polygamy was deeply embedded in the system of state formation through marriage and household alliances of the kanda. Thus, tampering with polygamy threatened to de-stabilise the social and political world of Kongo. Therefore, upon the death of João I in 1506, a conflict arose between conservatives who preferred the Kongolese faith and the Catholic bloc led by Afonso I. After Afonso's triumph against his half brother, Mpanzu a Kitima, in 1509, Catholicism became the state cult for the ruling Mwissikongo.

According to Afonso's own account, he was able to win the battle thanks to the intervention of a heavenly vision of the cross of 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.

Upon his ascension as king in 1509, 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, which 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). Some European clergy denounced these mixed traditions without being able to root them out.

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.

Slavery had existed since the Kingdom of Kongo's founding, as during its early wars of expansion the nascent kingdom had taken many captives. Kongo's tradition of forcibly transferring peoples captured in wars to the royal capital was key to the power of the Kongolese king, and it was the same mechanism of enslavement and transfer of population that made Kongo an efficient exporter of slaves. Kongolese laws and cultural traditions protected freeborn Kongolese from enslavement, and so most of the enslaved population were war captives. Convicted Kongolese criminals could also be forced into slavery, and were initially protected from sale outside the kingdom. The export of female slaves was also prohibited. Afonso's early letters show evidence of domestic slave markets.

As relations between Kongo and Portugal grew in the early 16th century, trade between the kingdoms also increased. Most of the trade was in palm cloth, copper, and ivory, with increasing numbers of slaves.

The kingdom's army consisted of a mass levy of archers, drawn from the general male population, and a smaller corps of heavy infantry, who fought with swords and carried shields for protection. Portuguese documents typically referred to heavy infantry, considered nobles, as fidalgos in documents. The bearing of a shield was also important, as Portuguese documents usually called the heavy infantry as adargueiros (shield bearers). The shields of the heavy infantry extended from the knees unto the neck of the soldier; this force lacked armour. Most shield bearers bore a "scimitar-shaped longsword" as described by military historian Wayne Lee. Shield bearers were limited by number and approximately 1000 were deployed in most Kongo armies. Some archers, especially those in eastern Kongo, used poison arrows. There is weak evidence to suggest revenue assignments paid and supported them. A large number, perhaps as many as 20,000, stayed in the capital. Smaller contingents lived in the major provinces under the command of provincial rulers. Kongo imported European arms such as swords into the military. In 1583, soldiers of the Mbamba province were armed with longswords similar to that of the Slavonians. Portuguese emissary Duarte Lopez believed this sword "could cut a slave in two."

After 1600, civil war became far more common than inter-state warfare. The government instituted a draft for the entire population during wartime, with a limited number actually serving. Many who did not carry arms instead carried baggage and supplies. Thousands of women supported armies on the move. Administrators expected soldiers to have two weeks' worth of food upon reporting for campaign duty. Logistical difficulties probably limited both the size of armies and their capacity to operate for extended periods. Some Portuguese sources suggested that the king of Kongo fielded armies as large as 70,000 soldiers for a 1665 Battle of Mbwila; it is unlikely that armies larger than 20–30,000 troops could be raised for military campaigns.

Troops were mobilised and reviewed on Saint James' Day, 25 July, when taxes were also collected. Subjects celebrated this day in honour of Saint James and Afonso I, whose miraculous victory over his brother in 1509 was the principal significance of the holiday in the Kongo.

When the Portuguese arrived in Kongo they were immediately added as a mercenary force, probably under their own commander, and used special-purpose weapons, like crossbows and muskets, to add force to the normal Kongo order of battle. Their initial impact was muted; Afonso complained in a letter of 1514 that they had not been very effective in a war he waged against Munza, a Mbundu rebel, the year before. By the 1580s, however, a musketeer corps, which was locally raised from resident Portuguese and their Kongo-mestiço (mixed race) offspring, was a regular part of the main Kongo army in the capital. Provincial armies had some musketeers; for example, they served against the Portuguese invading army in 1622. Three hundred and sixty musketeers served in the Kongo army against the Portuguese at the Battle of Mbwila. Kongolese forces became accustomed to firearms in the 18th century. Primary sources about the battle between regent of King Pedro V and José I in 1781 indicated that José's 30,000 soldiers were armed with "musket and ball." Artillery was used to an extent in the 18th century. According to the historian John Thornton, a Kongolese unit that faced Portuguese forces in 1790 sometimes employed artillery.

In 1509, Afonso I built holes containing an iron each in defence of M'banza-Kongo where they were dug to fortify and surround the city. Its main purpose was to attract the opponent's forces to the central public square of the city where most of the army was assembled. Rival and brother of Afonso I ("Mpanzu a Kitima"), succumbed to this anti-personnel trap during a campaign against Afonso. Sources from the early 16th century document about Central African naval vessels carved from a single log which could carry 150 people. In the 16th century, Kongo was recorded to be able to deploy 800 of such naval vessels. In 1525, one of such boats cooperated with a Portuguese vessel to capture a French ship off the coast of Soyo. The Kongolese vessel played the role of capturing and attacking the shore party from a longboat.

Battle of Mbanda Kasi (or Mbandi Kasi)

Battle of Mbidizi River

Battle of Kitombo

The vata village, referred to as libata in Kongo documents and by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, served as Kongo's basic social unit after the family. Nkuluntu, or mocolunto to the Portuguese, chiefs headed the villages. The one to two hundred citizens per village migrated about every ten years to accommodate soil exhaustion. Communal land-ownership and collective farms produced harvests divided by families according to the number of people per household. The nkuluntu received special premium from the harvest before the division.

Villages were grouped in wene, small states, led by awene (plural of mwene) or mani to the Portuguese. Awene lived in mbanza, larger villages or small towns of somewhere between 1,000 and 5,000 citizens. Higher nobility typically chose these leaders. The king also appointed lower-level officials to serve, typically for three-year terms, by assisting him in patronage.

Various provinces made up Kongo's higher administrative divisions, with some of the larger and more complex states, such as Mbamba, divided into varying numbers of sub-provinces, which the administration further subdivided. The king appointed the Mwene Mbamba, the Duke of Mbamba after the 1590s. The king technically had the power to dismiss the Mwene Mbamba; the complex political situation limited the king's exercise of his power. When the administration gave out European-style titles, large districts like Mbamba and Nsundi typically became Duchies. The administration made smaller ones, such as Mpemba, Mpangu, or a host of territories north of the capital), Marquisates. Soyo, a complex province on the coast, became a "County," as did Nkusu, a smaller and less complex state east of the capital.

Hereditary families controlled a few provinces, most notably the Duchy of Mbata and the County of Nkusu, through their positions as officers appointed by the king. In the case of Mbata, the kingdom's origin as an alliance produced this power, exercised by the Nsaku Lau, the ruler of the Mbata Kingdom. In the seventeenth century, political manoeuvring also caused some provinces, notably Soyo, and occasionally Mbamba, to be held for very long terms by the same person. Provincial governments still paid income to the crown and their rulers reported to the capital to give account.

The kingdom of Kongo was made up of a large number of provinces. Various sources list from six to fifteen as the principal ones. Duarte Lopes' description, based on his experience there in the late sixteenth century, identified six provinces as the most important. These were Nsundi in the northeast, Mpangu in the centre, Mbata in the southeast, Soyo in the southwest, and two southern provinces of Mbamba and Mpemba.

The king of Kongo also held several kingdoms in at least nominal vassalage. These included the kingdoms of Kakongo, Ngoyo, and Vungu to the north of Kongo. The royal titles, first elaborated by Afonso in 1512, styled the ruler as "King of Kongo and Lord of the Mbundus" and later titles listed a number of other counties over which he also ruled as "king". The Mbundu kingdoms included Ndongo (sometimes erroneously mentioned as "Angola"), Kisama, and Matamba. All of these kingdoms were south of Kongo and much farther from the king's cultural influence than the northern kingdoms. Still later eastern kingdoms such as Kongo dia Nlaza were named in the ruler's titles as well.

The kingdom of Kongo was governed in concert by the Mwene Kongo and the royal council known as the ne mbanda-mbanda, roughly translates as "the top of the top". It was composed of twelve members 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.

These four, non-electing posts, were composed of the Mwene Lumbo (lord of the palace/major-domo), Mfila Ntu (most trusted councillor/prime minister), Mwene Vangu-Vangu (lord of deeds or actions/high judge particularly in adultery cases), and Mwene Bampa (treasurer). These four are all appointed by the king and have a great influence on the day-to-day operations of the court.

Another four councillors worked to elect the king as well as man important posts. The electors are composed of the Mwene Vunda (lord of Vunda, a small territory north of the capital with mostly religious obligations who leads the electors,) the Mwene Mbata (lord of Mbata province directly east of the capital and run by the Nsaka Lau kanda, which provides the king's Great Wife), Mwene Soyo (lord of Soyo province west of the capital and historically the wealthiest province due to it being the only port and having access to salt), and a fourth elector, likely the Mwene Mbamba (lord of Mbamba province south of the capital and captain-general of the armies).

The council contained four women with great influence on the council. They were led by the Mwene Nzimba Mpungu, a queen-mother, usually being the king's paternal aunt. The next most powerful woman was the Mwene Mbanda, the king's Great Wife, chosen from the Nsaku Lau kanda. The other two posts were given to the next most important women in the kingdom being widowed queens dowager or the matriarchs of former ruling kandas.

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. 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, and 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 standardised units such as a funda (1,000 big shells), lufuku (10,000 big shells) and a kofo (20,000 big shells).

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).

A major cornerstone of the economic and social centre of the people of the Kongo was 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 standardisations. Areas set aside for the display of merchandise (mbangu) were separated by type, such as an area for blacksmithing equipment, one for slaves, etc. Besides being a commercial centre, 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.

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 labour force through a collection of tolls to ensure revenue for the capital. Communication and transport were key to commerce. There existed 'royal routes' where trails wider than an ordinary path were built and maintained, with trails cleared to ensure access; where a river needed to be crossed, a two-meter wide vine bridge was created, the maintenance of which were responsible by a system of regional authority.

The people of the Kongo are divided into many subgroups including the Yombe, Beembe, Sundi, and others, which share a common language, KiKongo. These groups have many cultural similarities, including that they all produce a huge range of sculptural art. The most notable feature of this region's figurative style is the relative naturalism of the representation of both humans and animals. "The musculature of face and body is carefully rendered, and great attention is paid to items of personal adornment and scarification. Much of the region's art was produced for social and political leaders such as the Kongo king."

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 labourers on 1 June 1491. 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 5–6 m (15–20 ft) as it was 0.76 m (2 ft 6 in) and 1 m (3 ft). 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. 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.

The central Bantu groups which comprised most of the Kongo kingdom passed on status through matrilineal succession. 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, 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.