| Pedro I Nkanga a Mvemba of Kongo | |
|---|---|
| Mwene Kongo | |
 Dom Pedro I | |
| King of Kongo | |
| Reign | 1543 to 1545 |
| Predecessor | Afonso I |
| Successor | Diogo I Nkumbi a Mpudi |
| Dynasty | Lukeni kanda |
| Father | Afonso I |
Pedro I Nkanga a Mvemba was manikongo of the Kingdom of Kongo from 1543 until being deposed in 1545.
Pedro I was the son of King Afonso I and became his immediate successor in 1543. He was part of a splinter kanda known as the Kibala (Portuguese: Quibala) or court faction or house in Kongo which had its roots in the House of Kilukeni. [1] He ruled only briefly before being overthrown by his nephew and Afonso I's grandson, Diogo I. [2] Records of the events leading up to and following his dethronement were preserved in the inquest after Pedro's failed attempt to regain power.
During his overthrow, Pedro I managed to seek asylum in one of the churches of M'banza-Kongo. King Diogo I was reluctant to attempt removing him, allowing Pedro to plot Diogo's overthrow from within the church. The details of his plot are well known because Diogo launched an inquest into them in 1550. A copy of the inquest has survived in the Portuguese archives and was published in 1877 by Paiva Manso. [3]
The inquest showed that Pedro had many friends in the kingdom and that there were confederates who wished to help him. Many held junior offices, many of the senior officials were reluctant to offer any help because they feared that Diogo would remove them from office. His most important confederate and cousin, Rodrigo de Santa Maria, fled to São Tomé, where he perhaps owned a plantation and tried to get assistance in Portugal and even in Rome. It was an intercepted letter that Pedro sent to his cousin to seek assistance that led Diogo to conduct the inquest and to send a copy to Portugal demanding that Santa Maria be extradited.
The Kingdom of Kongo was a kingdom in Central Africa. It was located in present-day northern Angola, the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, southern Gabon and the Republic of the Congo. 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.
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