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Angola The Defeat of Kongo and Ndongo
The Portuguese imposed a peace treaty on the Bakongo.
Its
conditions, however, were so harsh that peace was never
really
achieved, and hostilities grew during the 1660s. The
Portuguese
victory over the Bakongo at the Battle of Mbwila (also
spelled
Ambuila) on October 29, 1665, marked the end of the Kongo
Kingdom
as a unified power. By the eighteenth century, Kongo had
been
transformed from a unitary state into a number of smaller
entities
that recognized the king but for all practical purposes
were
independent. Fragmented though they were, these Kongo
states still
resisted Portuguese encroachments. Although they were
never again
as significant as during Angola's early days, the Bakongo
played an
important role in the nationalist and independence
struggles of the
twentieth century.
The Ndongo Kingdom suffered a fate similar to that of
Kongo.
Before the Dutch captured Luanda in 1641, the Portuguese
attempted
to control Ndongo by supporting a pliant king, and during
the Dutch
occupation, Ndongo remained loyal to Portugal
(see The Dutch Interregnum, 1641-48
, this ch.). But after the retaking of
Luanda
in 1648, the ngola judged that the Portuguese had
not
sufficiently rewarded the kingdom for its allegiance.
Consequently,
he reasserted Ndongo independence, an act that angered the
colonists. In 1671 Ndongo intransigence prompted a
Portuguese
attack and siege on the capital of Pungu-a-Ndondong
(present-day
Pungo Andongo). The attackers killed the ngola,
enslaved
many of his followers, and built a fort on the site of the
capital.
Thus, the Ndongo Kingdom, which had enjoyed only
semi-independent
status, now surrendered entirely to Portugal.
Data as of February 1989
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