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

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 1989d).

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 1989e).

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 1989f).

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

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).

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 1989d, "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 1989e, "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 1989f, "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).