Angola: Kongo, Mbundu and Lunda kingdoms (1614-1700)

Updated October 2005

The expansion of the Portuguese settlement in Luanda led to conflicts over land between them and the Kongo in the period after the death of Alvaro II in 1614. Although the Portuguese captured many slaves in the war that followed, the trading network into the interior was disrupted. The Kongo themselves, disillusioned with the Portuguese, became increasingly inward looking and xenophobic (Library of Congress 1989a).

Internal disaffection within the Kongo state led to conflicts over succession at the centre and an inability of the central authority to assert its authority of the component parts of the kingdom at the periphery. Local rulers were able to usurp control over trade, which had previously been the prerogative of the Kongo king, resulting in declining revenues for the central government. In this way the Kongo kingdom began its long, slow disintegration (Library of Congress 1989a, Accord 2004).

From 1560 onwards conflict between the Portuguese and the Ndongo kingdom progressively escalated; many Mbundu migrated east to escape the conflict, establishing the Matamba and Kasanje polities. The sister of the Ndongo ruler Ngoli Bbondi, the extremely able Nzinga, headed a diplomatic initiative to resolve the conflict and stabilize relations between the two powers. Her effort bore fruit for Portuguese recognition was granted to the Ndongo in 1621 and aid was given to Ndongo to repel Lunda incursions (Library of Congress 1989c, 1989d, 1989e, Wikipedia 2005).

In 1624 Nzinga usurped the throne and, unable to secure Portuguese recognition of her position, found herself at war with Portugal. Driven from Ndongo by the Portuguese, she fled east where she subjugated the Matamba kingdom. From this base she assembled a coalition of states in 1635, which included Matamba, Ndongo, Kongo, Kassanje, Dembos and Kissamas, with which she was able to keep the Portuguese at bay (Library of Congress 1996a, 1989e).

The Portuguese (now subordinate to the Spanish crown) were embroiled in European conflicts, and Luanda was occupied by the Dutch in 1641. Nzinga, accordingly, formed an alliance with the Dutch and invaded Portuguese dependency of Ndongo. In 1648 the Brazilians, alarmed by the cut off of the flow of slaves from Angola, recaptured Luanda from the Dutch. Nzinga retreated once more to Matamba from where she continued to thwart Portuguese efforts at penetrating the interior (Wikipedia 2005, Library of Congress 1989d).

The Ndongo, unhappy with Portugal's failure to reward their loyalty, rebelled and allied themselves with Nzinga. In 1659, with both sides wearied by years of war, Nzinga made peace with Portugal and attempted to rebuild her war ravaged kingdom. On her death in 1663 the alliances she had built fell apart and in 1671 the Portuguese besieged, captured and fortified Pungu-a-Ndondong, the capital of the Ndongo. They killed the king and installed a vassal on the throne in his place (Library of Congress 1989c, Wikipedia 2005).

The Kongo king, Garcia II, had allied himself with the Dutch alongside Nzinga against the Portuguese. After her death, and the disintegration of the anti-Portuguese coalition, the Portuguese moved decisively against the Kongo. They defeated the army of Anthony, Garcia's successor, at the Battle of Mbwila in 1665 and reduced the Kongo to vassalage, installing a Portuguese puppet on the throne (Library of Congress 1989c).

Matamba, the Mbundu kingdom to the east of Ndongo, managed to ward off the Portuguese a little longer. Taking advantage of a struggle for succession to the throne in Matamba after Nzinga's death, the Portuguese successfully installed their candidate Kanini as king. In 1680 Kanini, taking advantage of a succession crisis in Kasanje, invaded and occupied it. This expansion of the Matamba polity alarmed the Portuguese and they sent a military expedition to curb Kanini's power. Kanini defeated the invaders but was not able to exploit his victory, for he died shortly thereafter (Library of Congress 1989d).

Kanini's successor made a treaty with the Portuguese which restricted her military ambitions in the east and bound her to trade exclusively with Portugal. The Portuguese, for their part, wished to eliminate the Matamba and the Kasanje as go-betweens in the slave trade with the growing Lunda Empire. Unhappily for the Mbundu polities the Lunda had much the same ambition (Library of Congress 1989e).

The Lundu state, which emerged around 1600, was founded by a member of the Luba royal family, and expanded rapidly through the 17th century. The Lunda political structure facilitated the incorporation of subjugated people into the polity, which enabled a high degree of stability, even when undergoing rapid growth (Library of Congress 1993). The economic power of the kingdom was founded on trade, initially in salt and copper, later in ivory and still later in slaves (Library of Congress 1993).

References

ACCORD 2004 "Chronology" Accord 15, [www] http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/angola/chronology.php [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 1989a, "Kongo Kingdom" IN Country Study: Angola [www] http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ao0014) [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 1989b, "Ndongo Kingdom" IN Country Study: Angola [www] http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ao0015) [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 1989c, "The Defeat of Kongo and Ndongo" IN Country Study: Angola [www] http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ao0016) [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 1989d, "Matamba and Kasanje Kingdoms" IN Country Study: Angola [www] http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ao0017) [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 1989e, "Lunda and Chokwe Kingdoms" IN Country Study: Angola [www] http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ao0018) [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 1993, "Rulers and Ruled" IN Country Study: Zaire [www] http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+zr0018) [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).

WIKIPEDIA 2005, "Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba", [www] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nzinga_of_Ndongo_and_Matamba [opens new window] (accessed 10 Mar 2010).