Kingdom of Kongo

The Kingdom of Kongo was a centralized Central African state founded around the late 14th century, centered in present-day northern Angola and western Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Manikongo: The title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo. The manikongo headed the kingdom’s political and diplomatic order.
Bakongo: A Bantu-speaking people of west-central Africa whose communities include the historic population of Kongo. Kongo’s political community grew from Bakongo societies and shared institutions.
Atlantic slave trade: The transoceanic trade in enslaved Africans, principally from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. Kongo’s rulers sought to control a trade that increasingly destabilized the kingdom.
Kimpa Vita: A Kongolese religious leader who preached a locally rooted Christian movement in the early eighteenth century. Her movement sought to reunify Kongo amid civil war and contested authority.
Mbanza Kongo: The historic capital of the Kingdom of Kongo, known today as Mbanza Kongo in Angola. The capital anchored royal government and court life.
Bantu expansion: The spread of Bantu languages and populations across much of sub-Saharan Africa over several millennia. The kingdom’s language and population belonged to the wider Bantu-speaking world.
Christianity in the Kingdom of Kongo: The adoption and adaptation of Catholic Christianity in Kongo after contact with Portugal in the late fifteenth century. Christianity became part of royal legitimacy, diplomacy, and local religious life.
António I of Kongo: A seventeenth-century manikongo killed at the Battle of Mbwila in 1665. His death became a turning point in Kongo’s struggle with Portugal.
Kongo provinces: The territories governed by provincial authorities within the Kingdom of Kongo. Provincial rulers administered regions while owing allegiance to the king.
Kingdom of Loango: A Central African kingdom north of Kongo, along the Atlantic coast, prominent from the fifteenth century onward. Loango was a neighboring kingdom with related regional networks and political traditions.

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