35 Facts About Kongo people

Kongo people are a Bantu ethnic group primarily defined as the speakers of Kikongo.

Kongo people were among the earliest indigenous Africans to welcome Portuguese traders in 1483 CE, and began converting to Catholicism in the late 15th century.

The Kongo people were a part of the major slave raiding, capture and export trade of African slaves to the European colonial interests in 17th and 18th centuries.

Origin of the name Kongo people is unclear, and several theories have been proposed.

Kongo people have been referred to by various names in the colonial French, Belgian and Portuguese literature, names such as Esikongo, Mucicongo, Mesikongo, Madcongo and Moxicongo.

Related searches

Ancient archeological evidence linked to Kongo people has not been found, and glottochronology – or the estimation of ethnic group chronologies based on language evolution – has been applied to the Kongo.

The Kongo people had settled into the area well before the fifth century CE, begun a society that utilized the diverse and rich resources of region and developed farming methods.

Detailed and copious description about the Kongo people who lived next to the Atlantic ports of the region, as a sophisticated culture, language and infrastructure, appear in the 15th century, written by the Portuguese explorers.

The evidence suggests, states Vansina, that the Kongo people were advanced in their culture and socio-political systems with multiple kingdoms well before the arrival of first Portuguese ships in the late 15th century.

The kingdom of Kongo people appeared to become receptive of the new traders, allowed them to settle an uninhabited nearby island called Sao Tome, and sent Bakongo nobles to visit the royal court in Portugal.

The Kongo people created songs to warn themselves of the arrival of the Portuguese, one of the famous songs is " Malele " .

The weakened Kingdom of Kongo people continued to face internal revolts and violence that resulted from the raids and capture of slaves, and the Portuguese in 1575 established the port city of Luanda in cooperation with a Kongo people noble family to facilitate their military presence, African operations and the slave trade thereof.

In 1665, the Portuguese army invaded the Kingdom, killed the Kongo people king, disbanded his army, and installed a friendly replacement in his place.

The Kongo people kingdom disintegrated into smaller kingdoms, each controlled by nobles considered friendly by the Portuguese.

The old capital of the Kongo people called Sao Salvador was burnt down, and was in ruins and abandoned in 1678.

The fragmented new kingdoms of the Kongo people disputed each other's boundaries and rights, as well as those of other non-Kongo ethnic groups bordering them, leading to steady wars and mutual raids.

Kongo people's started preaching that Mary and Jesus were not born in Nazareth but in Africa among the Kongo people.

Kongo people's created a movement among the Kongo people which historians call as Kongo Antonianism.

Dona Beatriz questioned the wars devastating the Kongo people, asked all Kongo people to end the wars that fed the trading in humans, and unite under one king.

Kongo people's attracted a following of thousands of Kongo people into the ruins of their old capital.

Kongo people's was declared a false saint by the Portuguese-appointed Kongo king Pedro IV, with the support of Portuguese Catholic missionaries and Italian Capuchin monks then resident in Kongo lands.

The conflicts continued through the 18th century and the demand for and the caravan of Kongo and non-Kongo people as captured slaves kept rising, headed to the Atlantic ports.

Although, in Portuguese documents, all of Kongo people were technically under one ruler, they were no longer governed that way by the mid-18th century.

The Kongo people were now divided into regions, each headed by a noble family.

The Swedish missionaries, notably Karl Laman, encouraged the local people to write their history and customs in notebooks, which then became the source for Laman's famous and widely cited ethnography and their dialect became well established thanks to Laman's dictionary of Kikongo.

Related searches

Religious history of the Kongo people is complex, particularly after the ruling class of the Kingdom of Kongo people accepted Christianity at the start of the 16th century.

The Kongo people's beliefs included Kilundu as Nzambi or Jinzambi, all of which had limited powers.

Kongo people maintained both churches and shrines, which they called Kiteki.

Later Portuguese missionaries and Capuchin monks upon their arrival in Kongo people were baffled by these practices in the late 17th century .

However, the Kongo people credited these shrines for abundance and defended them.

The Kongo people's conversion was based on different assumptions and premises about what Christianity was, and syncretic ideas continued for centuries.

Vanhee suggests that the Afro-Brazilian Quimbanda religion is a new world manifestation of Bantu religion and spirituality, and Kongo people Christianity played a role in the formation of Voudou in Haiti.

Kongo people have traditionally recognized their descent from their mother, and this lineage links them into kinship groups.

Kongo people week was a four-day week: Konzo, Nkenge, Nsona and Nkandu.

Bakongo people have championed ethnic rivalry and nationalism through sports such as football.