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Diogo Cão, anglicised as Diogo Cam and also known as Diego Cam, was a Portuguese explorer and one of the most notable navigators of the Age of Discovery. He made two voyages sailing along the west coast of Africa in the 1480s, exploring the Congo River and the coasts of the present-day Angola and Namibia.
Kongo or Kikongo is one of the Bantu languages spoken by the Kongo and Ndundu people living in the equatorial forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo and Angola. It is a tonal language. It was spoken by many of those who were taken from the region and sold as slaves in the Americas. For this reason, while Kongo still is spoken in the above-mentioned countries, creolized forms of the language are found in ritual speech of Afro-American religions, especially in Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Haiti. It is also one of the sources of the Gullah language and the Palenquero creole in Colombia. The vast majority of present-day speakers live in Africa. There are roughly seven million native speakers of Kongo, with perhaps two million more who use it as a second language.
The Manikongo or Mwene Kongo was the title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo, a kingdom that existed from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries and consisted of land in present-day Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The manikongo's seat of power was M'banza-Kongo, now the capital of Zaire Province in Angola. The manikongo appointed governors for the provinces of the Kingdom and received tribute from neighbouring subjects.
The Kingdom of Ndongo, formerly known as Dongo or Angola, was an early-modern African state located in what is now Angola.
The Patriarchate of Lisbon is a Metropolitan Archdiocese of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church based in Lisbon, the national capital of Portugal.
The Kingdom of Loango was a pre-colonial African state, during approximately the 16th to 19th centuries in what is now the western part of the Republic of the Congo, Southern Gabon and Cabinda. Situated to the north of the more powerful Kingdom of Kongo, at its height in the 17th century Loango influence extended from Cape St Catherine in the north to almost the mouth of the Congo River.
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.
Kakongo was a former small kingdom located on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, in the modern-day Republic of Congo and Cabinda, Angola. It along with its southern neighbor, Ngoyo, and Loango, its neighbor on the north were important political commercial centers during the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. The people speak a dialect of the Kikongo language and thus may be considered a part of the Bakongo ethnicity.
The Catholic Church arrived in the Kingdom of Kongo shortly after the first Portuguese explorers reached its shores in 1483. After an exchange of hostages, the ruling king, Nzinga a Nkuwu agreed to allow missionaries to come to his country and to learn more about Christianity. The missionaries arrived early in 1491, and baptized the provincial ruler of Soyo whose lands were located on the Atlantic coast, before moving to the royal capital in April and May. According to Portuguese accounts, Nzinga a Nkuwu was further convinced to the Christian message when he witnessed what he and the priests both regarded as a miracle: two of the king's subjects dreamed simultaneously of beautiful woman who urged the king to be baptized, and a third one reported finding a cross shaped stone near a riverbed.
Nsundi was a province of the old Kingdom of Kongo whose capital lay on the Inkisi River in modern-day Democratic Republic of Congo near the village of Mbanza Nsundi.
The Kinlaza were members of the Nlaza kanda or House of Kinlaza, one of the ruling houses of the Kingdom of Kongo during the 17th century. It was one of the main factions during the Kongo Civil War along with the Kimpanzu and Kinkanga a Mvika kandas.
Mvemba a Nzinga or Nzinga Mbemba, also known as King Afonso I, was a ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo in the first half of the 16th century. He reigned over the Kongo Empire from 1509 to late 1542 or 1543.
João I of Kongo, alias Nzinga a Nkuwu or Nkuwu Nzinga, was ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo between 1470 and 1509. He was baptized as João on 3 May 1491 by Portuguese missionaries. Due to his interest in Portugal and its culture, he initiated a major cultural initiative in 1485 upon the arrival of Diogo Cão. It was under these conditions that the first Atlantic Creole emerged, forming in both Central Africa and in Portugal.
The precolonial history of Angola lasted until Portugal annexed the territory as a colony in 1655.
The Seven Kingdoms of Kongo dia Nlaza were a confederation of states in west Central Africa that were absorbed into the Kingdom of Kongo in the 16th century. This polity or region was first mentioned in texts of the Kingdom of Kongo in the late 16th century, although it probably existed much earlier. It was only then being incorporated into Kongo, through the kingdom's eastern province of Mbata Kingdom. It is unclear what the Seven Kingdoms were, though perhaps they included Kundi and Okanga. Presumably these kingdoms represented an alliance of several smaller polities, though the sources of the time tell us nothing about it.
Mbanza-Kongo, is the capital of Angola's northwestern Zaire Province with a population of 145,000 (2014). Mbanza Kongo was founded some time before the arrival of the Portuguese in 1483 and was the capital of the Kilukeni dynasty ruling at that time. The site was temporarily abandoned during civil wars in the 17th century. It lies close to Angola's border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is located at around 6°16′0″S14°15′0″E and sits on top of an impressive flat-topped mountain, sometimes called Mongo a Kaila because recent legends recall that the king created the clans of the kingdom and sent them out from there. In the valley to the south runs the Luezi River. In 2017, Mbanza Kongo was declared as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Nzari was a small kingdom located on the north bank of the Congo River. It is mentioned in Dutch sources of the seventeenth century in particular. It is not clear from these sources whether the territory was independent or a part of another political entity, such as Loango. It was not found in the titles of the kings of Kongo, for example, Afonso I of Kongo's list of titles in his letter to the Pope of 1535.
Nzambi a Mpungu is the Kongolese name for a high creator god. The idea of such a god spread from Central Africa into other Kongo related religions.