62 Atlantic African, American, and European Backgrounds to Contact, Commerce, and EnslavementKongo Kingdom
Th e Kingdom of Kongo was founded in the 14th century.
In the 15th century, the kingdom stretched from the Congo
River in the north to the Loje River in the south and from
the Atlantic Ocean in the west to beyond the Kwango River
in the east. Several smaller autonomous states to the south
and east paid tribute to it.
Th e Kingdom of Kongo came into contact with Portugal
in 1483. In the early 16th century, the king and most of the
kingdom adopted Christianity and welcomed numerous Eu-
ropean missionaries, traders, and craft smen. Th e kingdom
reached the height of its political power in the 16th century
during the reign of Afonso I (1505–1543) and its alliance
with the Portuguese, but the establishment of the Portuguese
port of Luanda and the colony of Angola as well as the in-
terests of the Portuguese residents there in increasing their
private fortunes, especially through capturing Africans and
selling them into slavery, undermined this relationship.
Aft er the death of King Afonso I, Kongo declined rap-
idly and suff ered devastating civil wars from the late 17th
through the early 18th centuries, when many of its people
were enslaved and sent to the Americas. Th us, the slave
trade, which undermined the social structure of Kongo,
continued to weaken the authority of its king.
In 1641, King Garcia II allied himself with the Dutch
in an attempt to control Portuguese slave traders, but in
1665, a Portuguese force decisively defeated the army of
Kongo and from that time onward the kingdom disin-
tegrated into a number of small states, all controlled to
varying degrees by the Portuguese. Th e area of Kongo was
incorporated mostly into Angola and partly into the Inde-
pendent State of the Congo in the late 19th century.
See also: Kongo Cosmogram; Mbebma, Nzinga (Afonso I);
Vita, Dona Beatriz Kimpa; West-Central AfricaMoshe Terdiman
Bibliography
Davidson, Basil. Th e African Slave Trade: Precolonial History,
1 450– 1 850. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press Books, 1961.
Hilton, Anne. Th e Kingdom of Kongo. Oxford, UK: Clarendon
Press, 1987.
Th ornton, John Kelly. Th e Kingdom of Kongo: Civil War and Transi-
tion, 1641 – 171 8. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983.
Young, Jason R. Rituals of Resistance: African Atlantic Religion in
Kongo and the Lowcountry South in the Era of Slavery. Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007.survived until the late 19th century, when it was conquered
by French troops from Senegal and incorporated into
France’s West African colonies.
Th e origins of Dahomey can be traced back to a group
of Aja from the coastal kingdom of Allada who moved
northward and settled among the Fon people of the inte-
rior. By about 1650, the Aja managed to dominate the Fon,
and Wegbaja declared himself king of their joint territory.
Based in his capital of Agbome, Wegbaja and his succes-
sors succeeded in establishing a highly centralized state, in
which all land was owned directly by the king, who col-
lected taxes from all crops that were produced.
Economically, however, Wegbaja and his succes-
sors profi ted mainly from the slave trade and relations
with slavers along the coast. Dahomey’s kings embarked
on wars to expand their territory and began using rifl es
and other fi rearms traded with Europeans for captives,
who were sold into slavery in the Americas. Most of the
slaves were acquired either by trade into the interior or
by raids to the north and west into Nigeria. Under King
Agadja (ruled 1708–1732), the kingdom conquered Al-
lada, where the ruling family originated, thereby gaining
direct contact with European slave traders on the coast.
Europeans began arriving in the area in the 18th century.
Trading posts were established in Porto Novo, Ouidah,
and Cotonou. Th is relationship continued into the mid-
19th century.
Dahomey was very reluctant to give up the slave trade
in the 19th century and continued to carry on a clandes-
tine trade past the mid-19th century. However, without the
slave trade, Dahomey could no longer maintain the same
level of military superiority over other kingdoms. Th us,
King Guezo signed a treaty establishing French protector-
ates in Cotonou and Ouidah. Dahomey was fi nally con-
quered by France in 1892–1894. Most of the troops that
fought against Dahomey were native African.
See also: African Imperialism; Atlantic Slave Trade; Bight of
Benin; Gulf of Guinea
Moshe TerdimanBibliography
Argyle, William John. Th e Fon of Dahomey: A History and Eth-
nography of the Old Kingdom. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press,
1966.
Bay, Edna G. Wives of the Leopard: Gender, Politics, and Culture in
the Kingdom of Dahomey. Charlottesville: University of Vir-
ginia Press, 1998.