|
This article will focus on the major political entities in
Angola through the times. Of course I cannot give a full, deep understanding
of all of them in such a short article but I will try to give an overview.
Kingdom of Kongo
Bakongo kingdom in northwestern Angola, based around the river Kongo. Historically
this kingdom has been ruled by the Manikongo of Kongo.
Elders from among eligible members of the Kimpanzu or the Kimulazu clans
elected the Manikongo.
The Kingdom was further divided into six provinces,
each with an governor elected by the Manikongo. The capital of Kongo was the
Mbanza Congo,which during the colonial period of Angola was named São Salvador. This
city served as a capital for all Bakongos, not only the ones directly
serving under the king.
The Kingdom of Kongo immediately got good trading with the Portuguese explorers.
Only 11 years after the discovery of this land, Portuguese missionaries and
soldiers were welcomed in Mbaza in 1490. Within only a few years,
Manikongo Nzinga Nkuwu (who took the name Joao I)
converted to Christianity, which caused a major rebellion within the kingdom.
The Portuguese army helped to protect the king.
After the death of Joao I, Afonso I gained control of
the kingdom to become the the last powerful manikongo in history. Afonso I
reigned from 1505 - 43. During these almost forty years, the Portuguese worked actively to
weaken the country, as they needed slaves to their other colonies in Brazil.
The kingdom was also suffering under heavy attacks from the Lunda Plateau in
east.After the death of Afonzo, Kongo suffered major civil wars and in 1556 the Portuguese
aided the kingdom of Ndongo in an invasion of Kongo. This was a major
weakening of the military power of Kongo. In 1569 in a major attack from the
Lundas, however, Portugal once again supported Kongo.
In 1641, Manikongo Garcia II allied with the Dutch to defeat the Portuguese
slave traders but the alliance was broken in 1665 when the Portuguese won in
the Battle of Mbwila. After this, the Dutch fled Angola and the Manikongo lost most of his power.
In the late 1800’s, Kongo was divided, partly into the Portuguese colony
of Angola and partly into the Independent State of the Kongo (later named
the DRC).
Ndongo
The Ndongo kingdom came to exist as an independent
political unit in 1556 when they stopped paying tribute to the Manikongo of
Kongo. They managed this through a war which they fought against Portugal
and a very weakened Kongo.
The Ndongo kingdom mainly consisted of Mbundu people
and was generally les advanced than their neighbour in North, Kongo.Except
for the 1556 incident, Ndongo was at peace with Portugal
and they traded quite a lot. Ndongo provided slaves for trans-Atlantic
shipping while Portugal provided technology and knowledge. In 1560, however,
the Ngola took four Portuguese diplomats as prisoners and a peaceful period
ended. Still, Ndongo had the power to withstand Portuguese offensives and in
1579 when Dias died, Ndongo was still independent. After this, Dias'
successor made a slow progress up the Kwanza river, meeting constant
resistance from the Ndongo. for a long time, this was powered by a legend
about silver mines, which were discovered not to be true in 1604. Relations
between Ndongo and Portugal remained questionable until 1641 when the Dutch
captured Luanda and Ndongo remained loyal to Portugal. When the Dutch
occupation ended in 1648, Ndongo felt that their loyalty had not been
rewarded sufficiently. Thus, relationships once again gradually worsened and
ended in Ndongo declaring their own independence in 1671 and tempering
Portugal to declare war. This war ended in the fall of the Ndongo kingdom
and the Portuguese captured the capital and constructed a fort.
The Matamba and Kasanje kingdom was situated further
inland than Ndongo and Kongo and thus they both suffered and benefited from
Portuguese absence. There is no doubt, however, that they lasted much longer
than the coastal kingdoms since Portugal inflicted with them only after
defeating the coastal kingdoms. This, however, also means that very little
is known about these kingdoms.
Portugal's interests in Matamba and Kasanje, however,
was never large. Instead, Portugal wanted to trade with the Lundas, who lay
further east. This trade became a source of income for these Mbundu kingdoms
through which this trade had to go. Both Portugal and the Lundas, who at the
time were a major force, tried to overtake these kingdoms. Portugal was
sucessful with this only in the later parts of the 1700's.
Matamba became a major part of the life of Queen
Nzinga. Imbangala
The founders of this warrior group are thought to have left the Lunda state of
Shaba under a leader entitled Kinguri. Their land was found in the
eastern parts of Angola but they managed to get into contact with the
Portuguese in 1563 and by 1620’s they were allied. The Portuguese general
Vasconcelos joined three Imbangala companies to his own army when he was
invading the Angolan highlands in 1618.
According to Thornton they were a ”quasi-religious cult devoted to bloodlust, selfishness and
greed” and according to a European eyewitness of the 1600’s, they
practiced witchcraft. Further, Thornton talks about the battle tactics of
the Imbangala:
The Imbangala generally made a large encampment in the country they intended to
pillage, after arriving near harvest time. They forced the local authorities
either to fight them outright, or to withdraw into fortified locations,
leaving the fields for the Imbangala to harvest. Once their enemies were
weakened by fighting or lack of food, they could make the final assault on
their lands and capture them. The presence of Portuguese slave-traders who
also provided firearms, made the raiding of people as profitable or even
more profitable as raiding food and livestock had been before.”
Kwanyama
The Kwanyama kingdom emerged in the early 1800's and was one of the last African
kingdoms to withstand Portuguese colonial lust. In fact, they were not
defeated by the Portuguese before 1915. This is partially because of their
locality, southeastern Angola in the desert. Also, the kingdom traded with
Germany and Portugal and soon had large stockpiles of guns.
Mwat Yamwo
The Lunda Kingdom lay far east, beyond Matamba and Kasanje. It developed during the 1600's.
The Lunda Kingdom expanded by peaceful means, coming to agreements with the chiefs of neighboring
groups in the empire, rather than by directly fighting them. The Lunda consolidated their state by
adopting an orderly system of succession and by gaining control of the trade caravans that passed
through their kingdom.
The Portuguese hoped to deal directly with the Lunda for slaves and thus bypass the representatives
of the Matamba and Kasanje, who acted as intermediaries.
This was, in fact, a major source of income in those kingdoms. Apparently
with similar ideas, the Lunda attacked Matamba and Kasanje in the 1760's.
Lunda, however, alike Portugal, did not defeat these strong, Mbundu
kingdoms.
The Chokwe, who, according to oral accounts, migrated from central Africa,
established themselves as trading intermediaries in eastern Angola in the middle
of the nineteenth century. With guns that they obtained from the Ovimbundu, they
attacked and destroyed the Lunda Kingdom in 1900. The Chokwe rapidly expanded their
influence in the northeast and east, replacing the Lunda culture with their own language and customs.
After this, both the kingdom of Mwat Yamwo and the Lunda culture rapidly disappeared.
Chokwe
The people themselves pronounce this name Kocokwe or Tucokwe in
plural, but modern day scientists have over 30 spellings with which they
refer to this kingdom. The history of the Chokwe kingdom dates back to the
1400’s when a Lunda queen married the Luba prince Chibinda Ilunga. The
marriage was disapproved by elders, and the young couple then migrated to
the northeastern Angola (which then of course was not called Angola then).
Here they lived and are believed to have ruled over local, formerly
unorganized Mbundu and Mbuti Pygmies. They were, however, under considerable
influence from the Lunda states until the mid 1850's when they, themselves
became a considerable force. A great famine in the 1869’s, however, caused them to migrate southwards.
In this migration, of course with remarkable expansion of their political
unit, they overtook the Lunda stated in 1900 and was now alone as an African
super power. Soon, however, the major Chokwe empire was to fall due to over expansion,
famines, Portuguese disapproval and disease.
The Chokwe people, however, is remarkable for their structurisation of society.
Each family is very free to do what it wants, as long as it behaves
according to the orders of the Mwana
Ngana (the king), who among other tasks, distributed the land among the
people.The Chokwe were also a great folk of artists.
Ovimbundu Kingdoms
The Ovimbundu settlements of central Angola emerged in
the 1500's and the Ovimbundu people migrated to the Beguela Plateau in
central Angola between 1500 and the late 1700's. They did not, however,
assert sovereignty over the area before the 1700's when 22 kingdoms emerged.
Of these, 13 became considerable powers while the remaining few ended
up paying tributes to these. The Portuguese overtook this in the 1890's but
appointed chiefs among the Ovimbundu people and let the kingdoms remain as Portugal's
subordinates.
|
