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Diogo I Of Kongo
Nkumbi-a-Mpudi Diogo I was manikongo in 1545–1561. King Diogo was the grandson of king Afonso I of Kongo and won the throne after overthrowing his uncle Pedro Nkanga a Mvemba and forcing him to take refuge in a church in São Salvador. Diogo's early struggles are documented in a legal inquest he conducted in 1550 into a plot against him launched by the former king. In 1555, the king cut all ties with the Portuguese whom he saw as meddlesome and a threat to the kingdom and expelled all 70 Portuguese inhabitants from the kingdom. One of the primary sources we have which sheds light on Diogo's reign is a document from 1550, an inquest that he ordered into a plot by his predecessor, Dom Pedro Nkanga a Mvemba to regain his throne. The alleged plot was orchestrated from the church in which Dom Pedro sought sanctuary and involved, aside from the unseated king, a number of Kongolese lords who remained loyal to the former regent. The inquest ordered by Diogo was conducted by his magist ...
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Manikongo
The Manikongo, or Mwene Kongo, was the title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo, a kingdom that existed from the 14th to the 19th centuries and consisted of land in present-day Angola, Gabon, the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The manikongo's seat of power was Mbanza Kongo (also called ''São Salvador'' from 1570 to 1975), now the capital of Zaire Province in Angola. The manikongo appointed governors for the provinces of the Kingdom and received tribute from neighbouring subjects. The term "manikongo" is derived from Portuguese ''manicongo'', an alteration of the KiKongo term ''Mwene Kongo'' (literally "lord of Kongo"). The term ''wene'', from which ''mwene'' is derived, is also used to mean kingdom and is attested with this meaning in the Kongo catechism of 1624 with reference to the Kingdom of Heaven. The term ''mwene'' is created by adding the personal prefix ''mu-'' to this stem, to mean "person of the kingdom". ''Mwene'' is attested in ver ...
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Pedro I Of Kongo
Pedro I Nkanga a Mvemba was manikongo of the Kingdom of Kongo from 1543 until being deposed in 1545. Background Pedro I was the son of King Afonso I and became his immediate successor in 1543. He was part of a splinter kanda known as the Kibala (Portuguese: ''Quibala'') or court faction or house in Kongo which had its roots in the House of Kilukeni. He ruled only briefly before being overthrown by his nephew and Afonso I's grandson, Diogo I. Records of the events leading up to and following his dethronement were preserved in the inquest after Pedro's failed attempt to regain power. Asylum and conspiracy During his overthrow, Pedro I managed to seek asylum in one of the churches of M'banza-Kongo. King Diogo I was reluctant to attempt removing him, allowing Pedro to plot Diogo's overthrow from within the church. The details of his plot are well known because Diogo launched an inquest into them in 1550. A copy of the inquest has survived in the Portuguese archives and was published i ...
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Afonso II Of Kongo
Afonso II was a ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo in 1561. Biography Little is known about Afonso II or his reign. Duarte Lopes told Filippo Pigafetta the Italian humanist who composed a description of Kongo in 1591 that Diogo I's succession was disputed by three pretenders, His son, who few favored was immediately killed, and a second person was elected favored by the majority of the people, but the Portuguese in the capital murdered him , while the party of the second king murdered the Portuguese favorite and then set out a general massacre of Portuguese. However, contemporary records support a different course of events, the first elected king, Afonso II, ruled only a few days, though he had Portuguese support and was overthrown as being illegitimate by Bernardo. No contemporary sources mention Afonso II by name, perhaps because his reign was so short, but his name appeared on a list of kings written by Antonio da Silva, a Kongo historian who served as Duke of Mbamba in 1617. See ...
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Kilukeni
The Kilukeni were members of the Lukeni kanda or House of Kilukeni, the ruling dynasty of the Kingdom of Kongo from its inception in the late 14th century until the 1567 with the rise of the House of Kwilu.Thornton, John: "Elite Women in the Kingdom of Kongo: Historical Perspectives on Women's Political Power", page 445. The Journal of African History, Vol. 47, 2006 The Kilukeni were springboard for most of the major factions that battled for control of Kongo during its civil war. Etymology In KiKongo the language of the kingdom of Kongo, the name of the kanda is ''Lukeni''. It is taken from the first name of the founder of the kingdom, Lukeni lua Nimi. Lukeni lua Nimi ruled around the 1390s before the throne was handed down to his cousins. History Beginning with the reign of Nkuwu a Ntinu, a son of Lukeni and the last non-Catholic mwenekongo, the throne passed from father to son. Occasionally there were usurpations, but the crown stayed within the lineage of the founder unti ...
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Manikongo
The Manikongo, or Mwene Kongo, was the title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo, a kingdom that existed from the 14th to the 19th centuries and consisted of land in present-day Angola, Gabon, the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The manikongo's seat of power was Mbanza Kongo (also called ''São Salvador'' from 1570 to 1975), now the capital of Zaire Province in Angola. The manikongo appointed governors for the provinces of the Kingdom and received tribute from neighbouring subjects. The term "manikongo" is derived from Portuguese ''manicongo'', an alteration of the KiKongo term ''Mwene Kongo'' (literally "lord of Kongo"). The term ''wene'', from which ''mwene'' is derived, is also used to mean kingdom and is attested with this meaning in the Kongo catechism of 1624 with reference to the Kingdom of Heaven. The term ''mwene'' is created by adding the personal prefix ''mu-'' to this stem, to mean "person of the kingdom". ''Mwene'' is attested in ver ...
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Afonso I Of Kongo
Mvemba a Nzinga, Nzinga Mbemba, Funsu Nzinga Mvemba or Dom Alfonso. (c. 1456–1542 or 1543), also known as King Afonso I, was the sixth ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo from the Lukeni kanda dynasty and ruled in the first half of the 16th century. He reigned over the Kongo Empire from 1509 to late 1542 or 1543. Biography Pre-reign career Born Mvemba a Nzinga, he was the son of Manikongo (Mwene Kongo) (king) Nzinga a Nkuwu, the fifth king of the Kongo dynasty. At the time of the first arrival of the Portuguese to the Kingdom of the Kongo's capital of M'banza-Kongo in 1491, Mvemba a Nzinga was in his thirties and was the ruler of Nsundi province in the northeast, and the likely heir to the throne. He took the name Afonso when he was baptized after his father decided to convert to Christianity. He studied with Portuguese priests and advisers for ten years in the kingdom's capital. Letters written by priests to the king of Portugal paint Afonso as an enthusiastic and scholarly ...
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M'banza-Kongo
Mbanza-Kongo (, , or , known as São Salvador in Portuguese from 1570 to 1975), is the capital of Angola's northwestern Zaire Province with a population of 148,000 (2014). Mbanza Kongo (properly Mbanza Koongo or Kôngo in most acceptable orthographies) was founded some time before the arrival of the Portuguese in 1483 and was the capital of the Kilukeni dynasty ruling at that time. The site was temporarily abandoned during civil wars in the 17th century. It lies close to Angola's border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is located at around and sits on top of an impressive flat-topped mountain, sometimes called Mongo a Kaila (mountain of division) because recent legends recall that the king created the clans of the kingdom and sent them out from there. In the valley to the south runs the Luezi River. In 2017, Mbanza Kongo was declared as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. History Mbanza-Kongo (formerly called ''Nkumba a Ngudi'', ''Mongo wa Kaila'' and ''Kongo dia Ngung ...
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Kingdom Of Portugal
The Kingdom of Portugal ( la, Regnum Portugalliae, pt, Reino de Portugal) was a monarchy in the western Iberian Peninsula and the predecessor of the modern Portuguese Republic. Existing to various extents between 1139 and 1910, it was also known as the Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves after 1415, and as the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves between 1815 and 1822. The name is also often applied to the Portuguese Empire, the realm's overseas colonies. The nucleus of the Portuguese state was the County of Portugal, established in the 9th century as part of the ''Reconquista'', by Vímara Peres, a vassal of the King of Asturias. The county became part of the Kingdom of León in 1097, and the Counts of Portugal established themselves as rulers of an independent kingdom in the 12th century, following the battle of São Mamede. The kingdom was ruled by the Alfonsine Dynasty until the 1383–85 Crisis, after which the monarchy passed to the House of Aviz. Dur ...
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Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization.O'Collins, p. v (preface). The church consists of 24 ''sui iuris'' churches, including the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, which comprise almost 3,500 dioceses and eparchies located around the world. The pope, who is the bishop of Rome, is the chief pastor of the church. The bishopric of Rome, known as the Holy See, is the central governing authority of the church. The administrative body of the Holy See, the Roman Curia, has its principal offices in Vatican City, a small enclave of the Italian city of Rome, of which the pope is head of state. The core beliefs of Catholicism are found in the Nicene Creed. The Catholic Church teaches that it is th ...
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Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira. It features the westernmost point in continental Europe, and its Iberian portion is bordered to the west and south by the Atlantic Ocean and to the north and east by Spain, the sole country to have a land border with Portugal. Its two archipelagos form two autonomous regions with their own regional governments. Lisbon is the capital and largest city by population. Portugal is the oldest continuously existing nation state on the Iberian Peninsula and one of the oldest in Europe, its territory having been continuously settled, invaded and fought over since prehistoric times. It was inhabited by pre-Celtic and Celtic peoples who had contact with Phoenicians and Ancient Greek traders, it was ruled by the Ro ...
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Roman Catholic Church In Kongo
The Catholic Church arrived in the Kingdom of Kongo shortly after the first Portuguese explorers reached its shores in 1483. Portuguese left several of their own number and kidnapped a group of Kongo including at least one nobleman, Kala ka Mfusu and took them to Portugal where they stayed a year, learned Portuguese and were converted to Christianity. The group was returned to Kongo in 1485 and Kala ka Mfusu led a royal mission from Kongo's king , Nzinga a Nkuwu to Portugal. Following their arrival in late 1486 the embassy stayed nearly four years in Lisbon and stayed with the monks of Saint John the Baptist. There they studied Christianity and Portuguese with Vicente dos Anjos (who also learned to speak Kikongo), and began the start of the Kongo version of Christianity. The mission returned to Kongo in early 1491, although Kala ka Mfusu died on the return trip. The provincial ruler of Soyo on the Atlantic coast received them and was the first to be baptized. They moved to the r ...
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List Of Rulers Of Kongo
This is a list of the rulers of the Kingdom of Kongo known commonly as the Manikongos (KiKongo: Mwenekongo). Mwene (plural: Awene) in Kikongo meant a person holding authority, particularly judicial authority, derived from the root -wene which meant, by the sixteenth century at least, territory over which jurisdiction was held. The ruler of Kongo was the most powerful mwene in the region who the Portuguese regarded as the king (in Kikongo ''ntinu'') upon their arrival in 1483. The kings claimed several titles and the following royal style in Portuguese ''"Pela graça de de Deus Rei do Congo, do Loango, de Cacongo e de Ngoio, aquém e além do Zaire, Senhor dos Ambundos e de Angola, de Aquisima, de Musuru, de Matamba, de Malilu, de Musuko e Anzizo, da conquista de Pangu-Alumbu, etc"'', that means ''"By the grace of God King of Kongo, of Loango, of Kakongo and of Ngoyo, on this side of the Zaire and beyond it, Lord of the Ambundu and of Angola, of Aquisima, of Musuru, of Matamba, o ...
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