The Kingdom of Kongo was a kingdom located in central Africa in present-day northern Angola, the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo as well as the southernmost part of Gabon.
At its greatest extent it reached from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Kwango River in the east, and from the Congo River in the north to the Kwanza River in the south. The kingdom consisted of several core provinces ruled by the Manikongo, the Portuguese version of the Kongo title Mwene Kongo, meaning “lord or ruler of the Kongo kingdom”, but its sphere of influence extended to neighbouring kingdoms, such as Ngoyo, Kakongo, Loango, Ndongo and Matamba, the latter two located in what is Angola today.
“The iron never takes advice from the hammer.” Congolese proverb
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.
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.
Contact with Portugal and Christianization
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 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. He until his death around 1509 and was succeeded by his son Afonso Mvemba a Nzinga.
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