page_title: Kingdom of Kongo
section_title: 18th and 19th centuries
hierarchical_section_title: Kingdom of Kongo / History / 18th and 19th centuries
caption_attribution_description: English: Peter VII and Elizabeth, King and Queen of Kongo, in 1934; photograph in the collection of the Lisbon Geographic Society.
context_page_description: The Kingdom of Kongo was a kingdom located in central Africa in present-day northern Angola, the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo as well as the southernmost part of Gabon. At its greatest extent it reached from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Kwango River in the east, and from the Congo River in the north to the Kwanza River in the south. The kingdom consisted of several core provinces ruled by the Manikongo, the Portuguese version of the Kongo title Mwene Kongo, meaning "lord or ruler of the Kongo kingdom", but its sphere of influence extended to neighbouring kingdoms, such as Ngoyo, Kakongo, Loango, Ndongo and Matamba, the latter two located in what is Angola today.
  From c. 1390 to 1857 it was mostly an independent state. From 1857 to 1914 it functioned as a vassal state of the Kingdom of Portugal. In 1914, following the Portuguese suppression of a Kongo revolt, Portugal abolished the titular monarchy. The remaining territories of the kingdom were assimilated into the colony of Angola and the Protectorate of Cabinda respectively.
context_section_description: In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Kongo artists began making crucifixes and other religious objects that depicted Jesus as an African. Such objects produced by many workshops over a long period (given their variety) reflect that emerging belief that Kongo was a central part of the Christian world, and fundamental to its history. A story of the eighteenth century was that the partially ruined cathedral of São Salvador, originally constructed for the Jesuits in 1549 and eventually elevated to cathedral status, was actually built overnight by angels. It was called affectionately, Nkulumbimbi. Pope John Paul II would eventually say mass at this cathedral in 1992.
  Manuel II of Kongo succeeded Pedro IV in 1718. Manuel II ruled over a restored and restive kingdom until his death in 1743. However, Soyo's provincial status in the kingdom, nominal for years, limited Manuel's power. Nsundi on the north had also more or less become independent, although still claiming to be part of the larger kingdom and more or less permanently ruled by a Kimpanzu family. Even within the remaining portions of the kingdom, there were still powerful and violent rivalries. At least one major war took place in the 1730s in the province of Mbamba. Pedro IV's successor, Garcia IV Nkanga a Mvandu, ruled from 1743 to 1752. Pedro IV's restoration required his successor's membership in a branch of the Kinlaza faction resident in Matadi that had sworn loyalty to Pedro IV in 1716. Other Kinlaza branches had developed in the north, at Lemba and Matari, and in the south along the Mbidizi River in lands that had been ruled by D. Ana Afonso de Leão. De Leão's lands came to be called the "Lands of the Queen".
  The system of alternating succession broke down in 1764, when Álvaro XI, a Kinlaza, drove out the Kimpanzu king Pedro V and took over the throne. Pedro and his successor in Luvata maintained a separate court at Sembo, and never acknowledged the usurpation. A regent of Pedro's successor claimed the throne in the early 1780s and pressed his claims against a José I, a Kinlaza from the Mbidizi Valley branch of the royal family. José won the showdown, fought at São Salvador in 1781, a massive battle involving 30,000 soldiers on José's side alone. To show his contempt for his defeated rival, José refused to allow the soldiers of the other faction to receive Christian burial. José's power was limited, as he had no sway over the lands controlled by the Kinlaza faction of Lemba and Matari, even though they were technically of the same family, and he did not follow up his victory to extend his authority over the Kimpanzu lands around Luvota. At the same time, the lands around Mount Kibangu, Pedro IV's original base, was controlled—as it had been for the whole eighteenth century—by members of the Água Rosada family, who claimed descent from both the Kimpanzu and Kinlaza.
  José ruled until 1785, when he handed power over to his brother Afonso V (1785–87). Afonso's brief reign ended in his sudden death, rumored to be by poisoning. A confused struggle broke out following Afonso's death. By 1794, the throne ended up in the hands of Henrique I, a man of uncertain factional origin, who arranged for three parties to divide the succession. Garcia V abrogated the arrangement, proclaiming himself king in 1805. He ruled until 1830. André II, who followed Garcia V, appeared to have restored the older rotational claims, as he was from the northern branch of the Kinlaza, whose capital had moved from Matadi to Manga. Andre ruled until 1842 when Henrique II, from the southern (Mbidizi Valley) branch of the same family, overthrew him. Andre, however, did not accept his fate and withdrew with his followers to Mbanza Mputo, a village just beyond the edge of São Salvador, where he and his descendants kept up their claims. King Henrique II, who came to power after overthrowing André II, ruled Kongo from 1842 until his death in 1857.
  In 1839 the Portuguese government, acting on British pressure, abolished the slave trade south of the equator which had so damaged Central Africa. Human
caption: Pedro VII and Isabel, titular King and Queen of Kongo, pictured in 1934
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