Álvaro III Nimi a Mpanzu, also known as Álvaro III Mbiki a Mpanzu, ruled as king or

manikongo Manikongo (also called Awenekongo or Mwenekongo) 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 th ...

of the

Kingdom of Kongo The Kingdom of Kongo ( or ''Wene wa Kongo;'' ) was a kingdom in Central Africa. It was located in present-day northern Angola, the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, southern Gabon and the Republic of the Congo. At its gre ...

from August 1615 to 4 May 1622. Prior to becoming king, he had served as Duke of Mbamba.Battell, Andrew and Samuel Purchas: The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell of Leigh, in Angola and the Adjoining Regions", page 137. The Hakluyt Society, 1901 Like his predecessor, Bernardo II he was a son of King Álvaro II. King Álvaro III was the fourth ruler from the royal

house of Kwilu Kwilu, also known as the House of Kwilu (Portuguese: ''Coulo''), was a kanda or royal lineage of the Kingdom of Kongo. Origins Prior to the rise of the Kwilu kanda, the Kilukeni kanda or House of Lukeni had ruled Kongo since its inception aroun ...

established by King Álvaro I. In 1622, Álvaro III died while his son, Ambrósio, was too young to become king. The nobles elected the Duke of Mbamba to the post of mwenekongo, ushering the short dynasty of the House of Nsundi.

Reign

Alvaro III formalized the construction of a

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...

in Sao Salvador around 1619. In the 1610s, Dutch–Kongo relations soured after the King enforced the closure of a Dutch

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...

Soyo Soyo (formerly known as ''Santo António do Zaire'') is a city, with a population of 200,920 (2014 census), and a municipality, with a population of 227,175 (2014 census), located in the province of Zaire in Angola, at the mouth of the Congo Riv ...

. Kongo would revive relations with the Dutch once more during his reign as a means to check Portuguese expansionism in the region. Dutch factories were reopened at Soyo in 1621.

References

Manikongo of Kongo 1622 deaths 17th-century monarchs in Africa Year of birth unknown {{Africa-royal-stub

Reign

See also

References