Jaga (Kongo)

Last updated December 27, 2020

The Jaga or Jagas were terms applied by the Portuguese to tribes such as Yaka, Suku, Teke, Luba, Kuba and Hungaan invading bands of African warriors east and south of the kingdom of Kongo. The use of the phrase took on different connotations depending on where it was applied. There were two groups of people, both known as fierce warriors, who were dubbed jagas or the jaga. Unbeknownst to the Portuguese who encountered these warriors, the two groups were practically unrelated.

The "Jaga" Question

In the 17th century there were a number of theories proposed by missionaries and geographers that connected these two groups to other marauding groups operating as far afield as Somalia, Angola and Sierra Leone and ultimately to some great "Jaga homeland" somewhere in central Africa. While more recent scholarship dismissed these earlier claims, in the 1960s a number of scholars proposed that oral traditions of the Lunda Empire, when compared with those of some Angolan groups, suggested that the Jaga invasion of Kongo and the Jagas of Angola were in fact groups of conquerors fleeing from Lunda in the 16th century.

In 1972 Joseph C. Miller presented a review of the available evidence and argued that the group that invaded Kongo was completely distinct from the group that invaded Angola, so that the second group should properly be called "Imbangala". This distinction is now widely accepted among scholars operating in this field.

Yaka Jagas

The Portuguese first learned about a people they called "jagas" during Kongo's 1556 war with the Mbundu kingdom of Ndongo.^[1] Among Ndongo's regular forces were mercenary warriors of the Yaka ethnic group. The Yaka had a reputation for ferocity and were said to come from the far interior. They inhabited the middle reaches of the Kwango valley, making them the eastern neighbors to the Mbundu and BaKongo.^[1] These particular "jagas" were constant victims of the Kongo slave trade and eventually invaded their western neighbor in 1568.^[2] This forced the Portuguese to intervene with some 600 matchlockmen on behalf of then king Alvaro I.^[2] Though forced completely out of Kongo by the mid-1570s, they continued to be a force on the border. They later supplied many mercenary troops to Kongo during its civil war.

The Portuguese intervention in the war with the Jaga increased their power in the Kingdom of Kongo. This led to increased trade in favor of Portugal and a seat for priests on the Kongo electoral council.^[3]

Imbangala Jagas

The Portuguese also encountered another fierce warrior people, this time further south beyond the Kwanza River. The actual name of these people was Imbangala. The origins of these people is still debated, but they are also believed to have immigrated from the Lunda Empire, rejecting that state's political changes.^[4] The Imbangala were known to be notoriously cruel and also ritually cannibalistic.^[4] They were used to good effect as mercenary elements in the Portuguese army during its conquest of Angola. Once introduced into central Angola, the Imbangala settled there, forming the kingdom of Kasanje on the Kwango River.^[5]

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Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Rwanda, and São Tomé and Príncipe are members of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). Six of those states are also members of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) and share a common currency, the Central African CFA franc. The African Development Bank defines Central Africa as Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon. Middle Africa is an analogous term used by the United Nations in its geoscheme for Africa. It includes the same countries as the African Development Bank's definition, along with Angola, and São Tomé and Príncipe.

The Kingdom of Ndongo, formerly known as Angola or Dongo, was an early-modern African state located in what is now Angola.

The Yaka are an African ethnic group found in southwestern Democratic Republic of the Congo, with Angola border to their west. They number about 300,000 and are related to the Suku people. They live in the forest and savanna region between the Kwango River and the Wamba River. They speak the Yaka language).

The Imbangala or Mbangala were 17th-century groups of Angolan warriors and marauders who founded the Kasanje Kingdom.

The Kingdom of Kongo was a kingdom located in central Africa in present-day northern Angola, the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo as well as the southernmost part of Gabon. At its greatest extent it reached from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Kwango River in the east, and from the Congo River in the north to the Kwanza River in the south. The kingdom consisted of several core provinces ruled by the Manikongo, the Portuguese version of the Kongo title Mwene Kongo, meaning "lord or ruler of the Kongo kingdom", but its sphere of influence extended to neighbouring kingdoms, such as Ngoyo, Kakongo, Loango, Ndongo and Matamba, the latter two located in what is Angola today.

The Kingdom of Matamba (1631–1744) was a pre-colonial African state located in what is now the Baixa de Cassange region of Malanje Province of modern-day Angola. It was a powerful kingdom that long resisted Portuguese colonisation attempts and was only integrated into Angola in the late nineteenth century.

The Ambundu or Mbundu are a Bantu people living in Angola's North-West, North of the river Kwanza. The Ambundu speak Kimbundu, and mostly also the official language of the country, Portuguese. They are the second biggest ethnic group in the country and make up 25% of the total population of Angola.

Nzinga-a-Nkuwu João I né Nzinga-a-Nkuwu, was the 5th ManiKongo of the Kingdom of Kongo between 1470 and 1509. He voluntarily converted to Roman Catholicism. He was baptized on 3 May 1491 and took the Christian name of João. Soon after, ManiKongo Nzinga-a-Nkuwu João I abandoned the new faith for a number of reasons, one of them being the Roman Catholic Church requirement of monogamy. Politically, the king could not afford to abandon polygamy and embrace monogamy, a cultural shift that the king could not contemplate as power in Kongo was elective, rather than hereditary as in Europe. Kongo culture followed a Matrilineality structure, where the elder son of the king is not automatically the next king.

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The Kasanze Kingdom, also known as Kasanye, was a pre-colonial Central West African state in what is today Angola.

Bernardo I of Kongo was a 16th-century manikongo (ruler) of the Kingdom of Kongo, a region encompassing areas in 21st-century Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He came to power after murdering his half-brother Afonso II who was less well-disposed toward the Portuguese.

Henrique I Nerika a Mpudi was ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo from 1567 to 1568 and the last from the Lukeni kanda dynasty. Like his predecessor Bernardo I, Henrique died while on campaign at the frontiers of the kingdom. He was killed while fighting the BaTeke of the Anziku Kingdom.

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References

1 2 Oliver, Roland and Anthony Atmore: "Medieval Africa, 1250–1800", page 172. Cambridge University Press, 2001
1 2 Oliver, Roland and Anthony Atmore: "Medieval Africa, 1250–1800", page 173. Cambridge University Press, 2001
↑ Green, Toby, 1974- (21 March 2019). A fistful of shells : West Africa from the rise of the slave trade to the age of revolution. Chicago. ISBN 9780226644578. OCLC 1051687994.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
1 2 Oliver, Roland and Anthony Atmore: "Medieval Africa, 1250–1800", page 175. Cambridge University Press, 2001
↑ Oliver, Roland and Anthony Atmore: "Medieval Africa, 1250–1800", page 177. Cambridge University Press, 2001