Geography
The Kingdom of Kongo's origins can be traced back to the 14th century to a small number of communities situated north of the Malebo Pool in the Congo River. This location was not only strategic because of the easy access to thousands of miles of navigable rivers and streams for transportation and trade, but also because of the abundance of iron and copper ore, fertile soil, and fish in the region. By the 15th century these small communities formed a loose federation that found its centralization under the rule of one king called the Mwene Kongo by the Kongo people and the Manikongo by the Portuguese. At its height Kongo reached from the Atlantic Ocean to the west to the Kwango River to the east and from the Congo River in the north to the Kwanza River in the south. The Kingdom expanded over territory which encompassed modern day northern Angola, a large part of the modern Democratic Republic, part of the Republic of Congo, and the southern most portion of what is now known as Gabon.
Early History
The Kingdom of Kongo was in existence from around 1390 to 1891, reaching its height during the 16th century rule of King Alfonso (1505-1543). The first king of the Kingdom of Kongo was Lunkeni lua Nimi. According to oral traditions recorded by the mid 17th century Italian Giovanni Cavazzi da Montecuccolo, Lunkeni lua Nimi founded the Kingdom of Kongo after conquering the Kingdom of the Mwene Kabunga and transferring the capital to the inland mountain the Mwene Kabunga kingdom had resided on. This capital was called Mbanza Kongo. Decades later Portuguese Explorer Diogo Cão would send men to this capital, and would eventually follow, setting up trade relations between the two nations. The rulers that succeeded Lukeni lua Nimi all claimed to descend from his line of lineage called a kanda. These rulers were known as the Kilukeni and the Kilukeni kanda would rule until nearly 1570. The heavily concentrated population around the capital of Mbanza Kongo and surrounding villages allowed for the Kingdom to become heavily centralized. By the later half of the 16th century Kongo’s population was close to half a million people in it’s central region. The concentration of Kongo created a structure of easily accessible resources including soldiers and surplus foods. In turn, the king experienced great power under this system of centralization.
Initial Contact with the Portuguese
In 1482 Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão sailed up the uncharted Congo River from the coast of present-day Ghana. This venture was the first European expedition to sub-Saharan Africa. On his journey up the Congo River, Cão and his men encountered the Soyo people. It became clear from this encounter that the territory that the Soyo inhabited was part of a larger kingdom. Diogo Cão sent some of his men to the capital city 150 miles inland that the Soyo had described to them. His men arrived in the capital of Mbanza Kongo and returned with tales of the great ruling king or Manikongo, Nzinga Nkuwu, and his elaborate court. Following King João II and the Portuguese crown’s tradition of leaving behind a few Portuguese men in every newly discovered territory, when Cão departed from Kongo in 1485 he left behind a few men to build relations with the local people and push forward into the interior of the country. In order to maintain his men’s safety Cão took a group of four noble Kongo men back with him to Portugal. This was genesis of the intercultural exchange between the Portuguese and the Kongo People. The Kongo nobles Cão brought back to Portugal would return to Kongo with education in the Portuguese language and Roman Catholicism, while the Portuguese men Cão left behind had begun to set up trade connections with the Manikongo, learning the customs of the Kongo people. Both of these experiences would shift not only the landscape of the Kingdom of Kongo but of the entire Atlantic world as the Kingdom of Kongo would eventually become integral to the trans Atlantic slave trade and descendants of this region would soon be forcibly dispersed to far stretches of the Atlantic world. An early confrontation in this area that would come much earlier than the height of the slave trade would be the issue of religion and evangelism, a reoccurring theme in indigenous and european interactions across the Atlantic, which I will discuss in next week's post.