Kongo, 1600–1660

King since 1587, Álvaro II ruled from São Salvador over provinces whose lords he appointed but could not always command. After a civil war in 1590–91 he had to accept the near-independence of Soyo's count, and he rewarded loyal nobles with the habit of the Order of Christ. Abroad he wanted two things: a church in his own hands, and a pope who would deal with Kongo directly.

The see of São Salvador, created in 1596, was filled by the Portuguese crown under its right of patronage. In July 1604 it named the Dominican António de Santo Estêvão bishop of Angola and Congo. He and Álvaro quarrelled over each other's jurisdiction and over how the tithes were collected. He died in Luanda in 1608, probably in April, in circumstances that suggested poison.

In 1604 Álvaro sent António Manuel ne Vunda, a nobleman of his court, to ask the pope that Kongo's king might name his own bishops and deal with Rome without Portugal in between. About twenty-five set out. Robbed by pirates, he reached Lisbon with nothing and spent years in Portugal and Spain raising money; he reached Rome on 3 January 1608, gravely ill.

Paul V had the ambassador nursed and, since he could not leave his bed, went to him to receive his credentials and his embassy. António Manuel died that night, 5–6 January 1608. The pope had him buried with honours in Santa Maria Maggiore, where a bust of him by Francesco Caporale still stands. The king's petition died with its bearer.

Joan Baptista Vives, a Valencian doctor of law and papal chamberlain who also acted in Rome for Philip III, served as the standing envoy of Kongo's kings at the papal court from 1613 to 1622, under Álvaro II and Álvaro III. When Gregory XV founded the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in 1622 he made Vives one of its prelates, and Vives later gave it his palace.

Miguel da Silva ruled the coastal province of Soyo, with Kongo's port at Mpinda. In 1591 Álvaro II made him count, a title meant to pass to his heirs, and the counts claimed a voice in choosing kings though they could not be chosen themselves. The king had to accept his near-independence.

When Miguel died, about 1610, Álvaro would not let his son Daniel succeed: the king thought him too powerful and too close to the Dutch. Daniel fled to Mbamba, to his kinsman Duke António da Silva, who was strong enough to shelter him against the king. He would wait some thirty years for his father's seat.

In Daniel's place the king put Dom Fernando, a man from outside the da Silva family, who was ruling Soyo by 1612 or 1613. For the moment the crown had its own man in the coastal province; the displaced heir sat in Mbamba with the duke.

António da Silva, of the family that had held Soyo, was given Mbamba after the revolt of 1590 and made its duke in perpetuity in 1598. Strong enough to shelter Daniel against the king, he was also indispensable to him: when Álvaro's chosen heir died in 1610, the king married a son, Álvaro, to the duke's daughter and named the duke executor of his will.

Álvaro II died on 9 August 1614, and for three days real power in the capital lay with the duke. He put the dead king's half-brother Bernardo on the throne. When Bernardo turned on him they fought; the wounded king gave up the crown on the promise of his life, and in 1615 the duke crowned his son-in-law, Álvaro II's son, as Álvaro III.

Against the da Silvas Álvaro III raised a lord of his own choosing, Manuel Jordão, whom he made duke of Nsundi, the great province north-east of the capital, in 1621. Like António da Silva before him, Jordão was soon powerful and nearly independent in his province.

Bernardo II, crowned in 1614 with the backing of other lords as well as the duke, soon tried to shake off the man who had made him king. Beaten and wounded, he stepped down; not trusting the duke's promise of his life, he took sanctuary in the church of Saint Anthony with six or seven companions.

Álvaro III, about twenty, wanted no rival. In August 1615 he entered the church armed, probably with an escort, killed Bernardo and his companions, cut off their heads and left the bodies tied to a pillory for nearly three days; Bernardo's supporters were hunted down across the country. Then he turned on his patron: the duke threatened war in 1616 and invaded Mpemba in 1618.

The quarrel lasted until António da Silva died in 1620. His son took Mbamba; Álvaro III invaded, killed him and gave the duchy to Pedro Afonso, a descendant of Afonso I and no da Silva. The king who owed his crown to the duke had destroyed the duke's line in Mbamba.

Manuel Baptista Soares, a Franciscan named bishop of Angola and Congo in 1609, wrote the account on which the story of Bernardo's death rests. He condemned the breach of sanctuary. Clergy had buried the bodies secretly, which the king and the duke took as hostility, and he tied the killing of Bernardo's followers to that burial. He died in Luanda in April 1620.

Álvaro III favoured the Jesuits, whose college in São Salvador opened about 1620, and in 1619 asked Rome for Capuchins as well, hoping for clergy who did not answer to the bishop in Luanda. The Jesuit Mateus Cardoso edited a Kikongo version of Marcos Jorge's Portuguese catechism, printed at Lisbon in 1624.

Cardoso's preface says the translation was made by Kongo's own teachers in São Salvador, the lay mestres who carried the church where priests were few; it was probably in part the work of one of them, Félix do Espírito Santo. Its word for God, Nzambi a Mpungu, had been the church's word since the sixteenth century.

Álvaro III died on 4 May 1622, leaving only young sons. The electors chose the duke of Mbamba as a compromise and crowned him Pedro II; his house was called Nsundi, after his father's duchy, or Kinkanga. The Jesuits held him up as a model Christian. He gave Mbamba to a new duke, Paulo Afonso.

After Mbumbi, riots against the Portuguese broke out across Kongo. Pedro took the Portuguese he could save into his camp at Mbanda Kasi, which earned him the taunt 'king of the Portuguese', and in January 1623 routed the invaders. His protests to Rome and Madrid, and a merchants' revolt in Luanda, brought the governor down, and more than a thousand captives came home from Brazil.

João Correia de Sousa, governor of Angola from 1621, wanted the captives his predecessor had taken with Imbangala mercenaries. He struck first at Kasanze, a Kongo vassal that sheltered runaway slaves, then accused Pedro of having harboured runaways as duke of Mbamba and sent his army into the province.

His captain-major, Pedro de Sousa Coelho, led some 20,000 Mbundu archers, Portuguese and Imbangala north. After taking Nambu a Ngongo, whose lord fled to the market town of Mbumbi, he marched on it and on 18 December 1622 destroyed the Mbamba levies there. Within weeks his army was routed at Mbanda Kasi; he briefly governed Angola after Correia de Sousa fell.

Paulo Afonso, the new duke of Mbamba, gathered about 3,000 archers and 200 noble swordsmen at Mbumbi. He confessed and took the sacraments before the battle. His men broke the Mbundu archers, but the Imbangala counter-attacked: the duke and some ninety lesser nobles were killed, and the Imbangala ate the bodies of the duke and the marquis who fought beside him.

Cosme, marquis of Mpemba, the province beside Mbamba, joined the duke at Mbumbi with his own forces and died with him there. With both provincial lords dead, the defence of the south fell to the king's own army.

Pedro wrote to the States General proposing that the newly formed West India Company join him against Luanda, Kongo's army attacking by land and a Dutch fleet by sea, with gold, silver and ivory as payment. He died on 13 April 1624, before the fleet came.

Garcia I succeeded his father in April 1624. Pedro had made notables swear that his eldest son would follow him, and a plot to raise another son, Álvaro Afonso, marquis of Mpemba, was found out and sent the marquis fleeing to Soyo. Garcia was more forgiving of the Portuguese, who were now offering peace.

Piet Heyn, the West India Company admiral, arrived off Luanda in 1624 to carry out Pedro's plan. Garcia would not press the attack: as a Catholic, he said, he could not join heretics against a Christian city. The joint assault never came, and Kongo's alliance with the Dutch waited seventeen years.

The senior women of the royal council, many of them partisans of the line of Álvaro I–III, held that Pedro's house had been a stopgap until a prince of the old line came of age. In 1626 they called on Manuel Jordão, duke of Nsundi, to remove Garcia.

Jordão marched his army on São Salvador in March 1626. Garcia fled to Soyo with his wife and grandmother, both of the counts' family, and Jordão crowned Ambrósio, a prince of the old line, in his place. A second duke had now made a king.

Dom Paulo, Pedro II's appointee, had held Soyo since about 1625 and kept it for the house of Nsundi. He took in the fallen king, who died there the same year, on 26 June by one account. Soyo had become a refuge for the losers of Kongo's succession fights, and Paulo would hold it until 1641.

Ambrósio I restored the old line in 1626. Two years later he accused Jordão of eyeing the throne, stripped him of Nsundi and exiled him to an island in the Congo River: the kingmaker went the way of António da Silva. Ambrósio's own reign ran on plots and rumours of war until a great revolt in the capital killed him on 7 March 1631.

Álvaro IV, Álvaro III's son, was crowned on 8 March 1631, about eleven years old (thirteen by another account). The direct line of the Kwilu kings was back on the throne, but a boy king was a prize for whoever could control him.

Ambrósio gave offices to members of the da Silva family, among them a Daniel da Silva, whom he made duke of Mbamba: a different man from the Daniel waiting to claim Soyo. When the revolt of 1631 killed Ambrósio, the duke was uncle to the boy who followed, and he expected to rule through him.

In the early 1630s (the sources give 1632, 1633 or 1634) the duke of Mbamba marched on São Salvador with an army reported at 12,000, saying he came to protect his nephew from outsiders. When the king fled to Soyo the duke pursued him there, and was killed in a desperate battle by a swamp, the royal army pinned against the river.

Garcia Afonso, called Kipaku, and his elder brother Álvaro Afonso, descendants of Afonso I through his daughter Ana Ntumba and former pupils of the Jesuit college, came to the king's defence. Garcia fought hardest in the battle and killed the duke. The king made him marquis of Kiova, a small territory on the south bank of the Congo.

Álvaro Afonso was given Mbamba itself, about 1634. The brothers had come in as the king's protectors; they now held the province from which two dukes in turn had made and threatened kings.

Álvaro IV fled before his uncle's army to Soyo and owed his throne to the battle fought there. He was restored to São Salvador, but did not live long: he died on 25 February 1636, probably of poison.

Álvaro V, Mpanzu a Nimi, of the house later called Kimpanzu, feared the brothers' power. Urged on by a court noble, Gregório, he tried to take Mbamba from Álvaro Afonso; the brothers beat his army and spared him. About six months later he tried again, and on 14 August 1636 he was captured and beheaded.

Álvaro Afonso was not elected. With his warriors in the capital he declared himself king and was acclaimed by the orders of the realm assembled in São Salvador as Álvaro VI, the first king of the house of Kinlaza. He gave Mbamba to his brother Garcia.

Count Paulo, still holding Soyo for the house of Pedro II, took in the fleeing boy king, and the battle that saved him was fought on Soyo's ground. Ten years after sheltering Garcia I, Soyo again gave refuge to a king in flight.

Gregório, the court noble who had set Álvaro V against the brothers, escaped east to Mbata and raised its forces; Piętek, following Franco's Jesuit annals, calls him duke of Mbata. In 1637 he marched on São Salvador. On a sorcerer's advice his warriors wore poisoned antelope horns on their belts; Álvaro VI had his own men hang crosses from theirs.

The Jesuit Miguel Afonso went into Gregório's camp to stop the battle. Gregório received him with respect but did not trust the king and would not submit. Álvaro VI made his confession to Father Miguel and marched out; Gregório's men broke and fled, and he was captured.

Before the king Gregório was flogged and his arms, legs and head cut off; his body was roasted and thrown to the dogs. Álvaro VI came back to the capital in procession behind an image of the Virgin, a thurible in his hand, and built a church of Our Lady of Victory. Cruelty showed his strength; the procession showed heaven's favour.

Count Paulo, Pedro II's appointee, still held Soyo and was still largely his own master. Álvaro VI could not bring him to heel; in 1637 he gave up the marquisate of Makuta to him.

In 1639 Álvaro VI asked Rome's Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith for priests, wanting clergy outside Portugal's patronage. On 25 June 1640 it created a prefecture of the Congo for Italian Capuchins and named Bonaventura da Alessano prefect. Portugal never recognised the prefecture, and the friars did not land until 1645.

Álvaro VI died on 22 January or February 1641. Before the electors could meet, Garcia marched his army from Mbamba to São Salvador and took the crown as Garcia II. Within weeks his ally Count Paulo of Soyo died, and an enemy took Soyo.

Garcia sent his son and intended heir Afonso against Soyo. On 29 April 1645 the royal army failed before Soyo's fortified camp at Mfinda Ngula, and Afonso was taken prisoner. A second army was beaten on 25 July 1646, Saint James's day. Afonso came home only at the end of November 1646, when Capuchin friars negotiated his release.

Cornelis Jol, the West India Company admiral nicknamed Peg-leg, sailed from Brazil and in August 1641 took Luanda from the Portuguese almost without a fight; he died of malaria on São Tomé that October. Garcia at once sent troops south to help the Dutch and drove nearly all Portuguese merchants out of Kongo.

In 1642 Garcia received a Dutch embassy and signed an alliance, though he refused a Calvinist preacher. Dutch soldiers helped him crush a rising in Nsala, paid in captives sent to Pernambuco, and in 1643 a joint force drove the Portuguese from the Bengo. Then the Company made peace with Portugal and left it the inland forts.

Njinga, queen of Ndongo and Matamba, fought the Portuguese on. After her defeat at Kavanga in 1646 the Dutch committed troops to her side, and she persuaded Garcia to send forces too. In 1647 Kongo soldiers fought in the allied victory at Kombi; with his war against Soyo, Garcia could spare only small forces.

Paulo's death let Daniel da Silva, Miguel's son, kept out of Soyo thirty years before, seize his father's seat. He claimed Soyo's right to choose its own ruler; Garcia never accepted it and meant to remove him. Daniel was a friend of the Dutch too: the Company had leaned on the count's help when it took Luanda.

Daniel's cousin Miguel de Castro sailed as his envoy to Dutch Brazil, where Johan Maurits received him at Recife, and on to the Netherlands: he landed at Flushing on 19 June 1643 and reached The Hague on 2 July. He asked the stadtholder to mediate between the count and the king. His portrait was painted at Middelburg.

The first Capuchins landed in Soyo on 25 May 1645, weeks after Soyo's victory. Daniel tried to keep them there; most went on to São Salvador, which they reached on 2 September, and Garcia welcomed them. Soyo suspected them of serving the king, yet their first political work was to mediate between Soyo and Kongo, and they won Afonso's release.

Manuel Roboredo, a Kongo-born secular priest of mixed descent, worked with the Capuchins. About 1648 he was the principal author of their Kikongo dictionary, some 10,000 words with a two-page sermon in Kikongo at the back. He later joined the order as Francisco de São Salvador, and died at Mbwila in 1665 as the royal chaplain.

Salvador de Sá sailed from Rio de Janeiro in May 1648 with a fleet raised in Brazil, and in August Luanda surrendered; the Dutch left Angola and Njinga abandoned her sieges. As governor he drafted a treaty demanding of Garcia the Island of Luanda, source of Kongo's shell money, all land south of the Bengo, every mine in Kongo and an indemnity.

Garcia had backed the losing side. He answered with a treaty of his own, insisting on his rights south of the Bengo. The texts were presented in 1649; neither side signed, but Garcia paid an indemnity and Portugal held the island in practice. At home he wanted Rome's backing to make the crown hereditary in his own line.

Bonaventura da Alessano died in April 1651, and Giacinto da Vetralla became prefect of the Capuchin mission. That same year Garcia's hope that Rome would help him do away with the election and make the crown hereditary came to nothing, and the king's warmth towards the friars began to cool.

In 1652 Garcia accused the Capuchins of plotting against Kongo, and jailed an aged queen for her part in an alleged plot. In 1655 he tried once more to take Soyo. He trusted no one he had not made.

Dona Leonor, an elderly and widely respected queen of the royal house, was imprisoned on the charge of plotting and died in Garcia's prison. Her death cost the king much of his people's confidence.

In 1654 Giacinto reproached the king for his conduct and his 'superstitions', and their accord broke; Garcia told the Portuguese that the friars were Spain's agents. Giacinto resigned as prefect in May 1657. His Kikongo grammar, the first of the language, was published in 1659.

Pedro II's house still held offices around São Salvador. In 1656 two of his sons, with the marquis of Mpemba, tried to overthrow Garcia. He defeated them, and by 1657 he had destroyed or absorbed the house of Nsundi.

Luís Martins de Sousa Chichorro, governor of Angola from 1654, declared war on Kongo in June 1657 on behalf of Garcia's defeated enemies. His army marched north but would not cross the Loje River. Garcia made peace with Portugal that year, conceding nothing but an indemnity.

Garcia kept his throne. In 1659 or 1660 he fell gravely ill and accused his elder son Afonso, the heir he had once sent to win back Soyo, of trying to poison him.

Garcia ordered his younger son António to kill Afonso, and chose António as his successor. Garcia died about 1660 (23 January 1660 in the king-list; 1661 elsewhere), and António, Vita a Nkanga, followed him. He would die at Mbwila in 1665, fighting the Portuguese.