Ambundu

The Portuguese impose a peace treaty on the Bakongo.

Its conditions, however, are so harsh that peace is never really achieved, and hostilities grow during the 1660s.

The Portuguese victory over the Bakongo at the Battle of Mbwila (also spelled Ambuila) on October 29, 1665, marks the end of the Kongo Kingdom as a unified power.

Spain's enemies subject the Portuguese colonies to attacks during the first half of the 1600s when Portugal, at the insistence of Spain, becomes involved in a succession of European religious and dynastic wars.

Holland, one of Spain's most potent enemies, raids and harasses the Portuguese territories in Angola.

The Dutch also begin pursuing alliances with Africans, including the king of Kongo and Nzinga of Matamba, who, angered by their treatment at the hands of the Portuguese, welcome the opportunity to deal with another European power.

When Portugal rebels against Spain in 1640, the kingdom hopes to establish good relations with the Dutch.

Instead, the Dutch see an opportunity to expand their own colonial holdings and in 1641 capture  Luanda and Benguela, forcing the Portuguese governor to flee with his fellow refugees inland to Massangano.

The Portuguese are unable to dislodge the Dutch from their coastal beachhead.

As the Dutch occupation cuts off the supply of slaves to Brazil, that colony's economy suffers.

In response, Brazilian colonists raise money and organize forces to launch an expedition aimed at unseating the Dutch from Angola.

In May 1648, the Dutch garrison in Luanda surrenders to the Brazilian detachment, and the Dutch eventually relinquish their other Angolan conquests.

According to some historians, after the retaking of Luanda, Angola becomes a de facto colony of Brazil, so driven is the South American colony's sugar-growing economy by its need for slaves.

The Ndongo Kingdom suffers a fate similar to that of Kongo.

Before the Dutch capture Luanda in 1641, the Portuguese had attempted to control Ndongo by supporting a pliant king, and during the Dutch occupation, Ndongo had remained loyal to Portugal , but after the retaking of Luanda in 1648, the ngola judges that the Portuguese have not sufficientiy rewarded the kingdom for its allegiance.

Consequentiy, he reasserts Ndongo independence, an act that angers the colonists.

In 1671 Ndongo intransigence prompts a Portuguese attack and siege on the capital of Pungu-a-Ndondong (present-day Pungo Andongo).

The attackers kill the ngola, enslave many of his followers, and build a fort on the site of the capital.

Thus, the Ndongo Kingdom, which has enjoyed only semi-independent status, now surrenders entirely to Portugal.

Two inland Mbundu states—Matamba and Kasanje—prosper as Portugal becomes preoccupied with the Ndongo Kingdom as a source of slaves.

Little is known of Matamba before the seventeenth century, but in 1621 Nzinga (called Jinga by the Portuguese), the sister of the ngola a kiluanje,  persuades the Portuguese to recognize Ndongo as an independent monarchy and to help the kingdom expel the Imbangala people from its territory.

Three years later, according to some sources, Nzinga poisons her brother and succeeds him as monarch.

Unable to negotiate successfully with a series of Portuguese governors, however, she is eventually removed.

Nzinga and many of her followers travel east and forged alliances with several groups.

She finally ascends to the throne of the Matamba Kingdom.

From this eastern state, she pursues good relations with the Dutch during their occupation of the area from 1641 to 1648 and attempts to reconquer Ndongo.

After the Dutch expulsion, Nzinga again allies with the Portuguese.

A dynamic and wily ruler, Nzinga dominates Mbundu politics until she dies in 1663.

Although she dealt with the Europeans, in modern times Nzinga has been remembered by nationalists as an Angolan leader who never accepted Portuguese sovereignty.

After Nzinga's death, a succession struggle ensues, and the new ruler tries to reduce Portuguese influence.

Following their practice with the Ndongo, the Portuguese force him out and place their own candidate, Kanini, on the throne.

Kanini covets the nearby kingdom of Kasanje—peopled by Mbundu but ruled by Imbangala—for its role in the slave trade.

Once he has consolidated power, in 1680 Kanini successfully moves against Kasanje, which is undergoing a succession crisis of its own.

Kanini's defeat of the Kasanje state madkes his Portuguese benefactors realize that as his empire expands, Kanini is increasingly threatening their own slaving interests.

Subsequently, Kanini defeats a Portuguese military expedition sent against him, although he dies soon after.

In 1683 Portugal negotiates with the new Matamba queen to halt further attempts to conquer Kasanje territory and, because of mounting competition from other European powers, persuades her to trade exclusively with Portugal.

Diogo Cão, shortly after making his initial contact with the Kongo Kingdom of northern Angola in 1483, had established links farther south with Ndongo—an African state less advanced than Kongo that is made up of Kimbundu-speaking people.

Their ruler, who is tributary to the manikongo, is called the ngola a kiluanje.

It is the first part of the title, its pronunciation changed to "Angola," by which the Portuguese refer  to the entire area.

Throughout most of the sixteenth century, Portugal's relations with Ndongo are overshadowed by its dealings with Kongo.

Some historians, citing the disruptions the Portuguese caused in Kongo society, believe that Ndongo benefited from the lack of Portuguese interest.

It is not until after the founding of Luanda in 1576 that Portugal's exploration into the area of present-day Angola rivals its trade and commerce in Kongo.

Furthermore, it is only in the early seventeenth century that the importance of the colony Portugal has established comes to exceed that of Kongo.

Although officially ignored by Lisbon, the Angolan colony is the center of disputes, usually concerning the slave trade, between local Portuguese traders and the Mbundu people, who inhabit Ndongo, but by mid-century, the favorable attention the ngola receives from Portuguese trade or missionary groups angers the manikongo, who in 1556 sends an army against the Ndongo Kingdom.

The forces of the ngola defeat the Kongo army, encouraging him to declare his independence from Kongo and appeal to Portugal for military support.

In 1560 Lisbon responds by sending an expedition to Angola, but in the interim the ngola who had requested Portuguese support had died, and his successor takes captive four members of the expedition.

After the hostage taking, Lisbon routinely employs military force in dealing with the Ndongo Kingdom.

This results in a major eastward migration of Mbundu people and the subsequent establishment of other kingdoms.

Following the founding of Luanda, Paulo Dias carries out a series of bloody military campaigns that contribute to Ndongo resentment of Europeans.

Dias founds several forts east of Luanda, but—indicative of Portugal's declining status as a world power—he is unable to gain firm control of the land around them.

Dias dies in 1579 without having conquered the Ndongo Kingdom.

Dias's successors make slow progress up the Cuanza River, meeting constant African resistance.

By 1604 they reach Cambambe, where they learn that the presumed silver mines do not exist.

The failure of the Portuguese to find mineral wealth changes their outlook on the Angolan colony.

Slave taking, which had been incidental to the quest for the mines, now becomes the major economic motivation for expansion and extension of Portuguese authority.

In search of slaves, the Portuguese push farther into Ndongo country, establishing a fort a short distance from Massangano, itself about one hundred and seventy-five kilometers east of Angola's Atlantic coast.

The consequent fighting with the Ndongo generates a stream of slaves who are shipped to the coast.

Following a period of Ndongo diplomatic initiatives toward Lisbon in the 1620s, relations degenerate into a state of war.

The Portuguese authorities and settlers in Angola form a motley group.

The inhabitants resent the governors, whom they regard as outsiders.

Indeed, these officials are less concerned with the welfare of the colony than with the profit they can realize from the slave trade, but governing the small colony is difficult because any central administrative authority has to deal with a group of settlers prone to rebellion.

Because Brazil is the jewel of Portugal's overseas territories, Portuguese who immigrate to Angola are frequently deserters, degredados, peasants, and others who had been unable to succeed in Portugal or elsewhere in the Portuguese-speaking world.

Owing principally to the African colony's unsavory reputation in Portugal and the high regard in which Brazil is held, there is little emigration to Angola in the 1600s and 1700s.

Thus, the white population of Angola in 1777 is less than sixteen hundred.

Of this number, very few whites are females; one account states that in 1846 the ratio of Portuguese men to Portuguese women in the colony was eleven to one.

A product of this gender imbalance is miscegenation; for example, the mestizo population in 1777 is estimated at a little more than four thousand.

Besides exporting them, Europeans in Angola keep slaves as porters, soldiers, agricultural laborers, and as workers at jobs that the Portuguese increasingly consider too menial to do themselves. ]

At no time, however, is domestic slavery more important to the local economy than the exporting of slaves.

The Ovimbundu peoples migrate from the north and east of Angola to the Bié Plateau between 1500 and 1700.

They do not, however, consolidate their kingdoms, nor do their kings assert their sovereignty over the plateau until the eighteenth century, when some twenty-two kingdoms emerge.

Thirteen of the kingdoms, including Bie, Bailundu, and Ciyaka, emerge as powerful entities, and the Ovimbundu acquire  a reputation as the most successful traders of the Angolan interior.

Kongo has been transformed by the eighteenth century from a unitary state into a number of smaller entities that recognize the king but for all practical purposes are independent.

Fragmented though they are, these Kongo states still resist Portuguese encroachments.

Although they will never again be as significant as during Angola's early days, the Bakongo will play an important role in the nationalist and independence struggles of the twentieth century.

The Lunda Kingdom lies east, beyond Matamba and Kasanje.

It develops in the seventeenth century, and its center is in the western Shaba Region (formerly Katanga Province) of the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Lunda Kingdom expands by absorbing the chiefs of neighboring groups in the empire, rather than by deposing them.

The Lunda consolidates their state by adopting an orderly system of succession and by gaining control of the trade caravans that pass through their kingdom.

The Portuguese hope to deal directly with the Lunda for slaves and thus bypass the representatives of the Matamba and Kasanje, who act as intermediaries.

Apparently entertaining similar ideas, the Lunda attack Matamba and Kasanje in the 1760s.

The Lunda, however, prove no more successful than the Portuguese at totally subduing these Mbundu kingdoms.

Slave trading dominates the Portuguese economy in eighteenth-century Angola.

Slaves are obtained by agents, called pombeiros, who roam the interior, generally following established routes along rivers.

They buy slaves, called pegas (pieces), from local chiefs in exchange for commodities such as cloth and wine.

The pombeiros return to Luanda or Benguela with chain gangs of several hundred captives, most of whom are malnourished and in poor condition from the arduous trip on foot.

On the coast, they are better fed and readied for their sea crossing.

Before embarkIng, they Are baptized en masse by Roman Catholic priests.

The Atlantic crossing in the overcrowded, unsanitary vessels lasts from five weeks to two months.

Many captives dies en route.