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The Kingdom of Kongo (Kongo: Kongo Dya Ntotila [6] [7] [8] or Wene wa Kongo; [9] Portuguese: Reino do Congo) was a kingdom in Central Africa. It was located in present-day northern Angola , the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo , [ 10 ] southern Gabon and the Republic of the Congo . [ 11 ]
Portuguese governors continued to express concern that trade, especially the slave trade, that might pass through Luanda and pay taxes to Portugal were instead being diverted through the Lukala gap and Mbwila's territory, to Kongo and from there to Dutch, French and English merchants who operated on the coast north of Kongo.
The earliest history of Kakongo is unknown, and oral traditions collected in the region in the 19th and 20th centuries do not do much to elucidate. [2] In its present state, archaeology can only attest that the region was already in the Iron Age by the 5th century BC, and that complex societies were emerging in the general vicinity by the early centuries CE.
Pedro II set up camp at Mbana Kasi and wrote numerous letters of protest to Rome and the king of Spain (then also the ruler of Portugal). As a result of these letters and protests by Portuguese merchants in Kongo and Angola, João Correia de Sousa was recalled in disgrace, and some 1,200 slaves were eventually returned from Brazil.
Battell went to their country with Portuguese merchants buying their war captives to sell as slaves. At this time the Imbangala were marauders whose primary interest seemed to be pillaging the country, especially to obtain large quantities of palm wine, which they produced by a wasteful method of chopping down trees and tapping their fermented contents over a few months.
In the 17th century, conflicting economic interests led to a military confrontation with the Kongo Kingdom. Portugal defeated the Kongo Kingdom in the Battle of Mbwila on 29 October, 1665, but suffered a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Kitombo when they tried to invade Kongo in 1670. Control of most of the central highlands was achieved in ...
Kongo exported peanuts, ivory and other exotic products to European traders, both Portuguese from Luanda in the colony of Angola, and French, Dutch and English merchants who had been based at Boma, on the Congo River. Pedro managed to win the loyalty of the petty local rulers who controlled that route, and they accepted knighthoods in exchange.
An early slave trade led to the Kingdom of Kongo, where merchants there saw opportunities to export slaves to Dutch and English merchants and avoid taxes and regulations that hindered the market in Portuguese-controlled Luanda. Communities of Vili were reported in São Salvador, Kongo's capital in 1656, where some converted to Christianity.