Mbundu

Despite heavy involvement in the SLAVE TRADE with the Portuguese, the Mbundu resisted Portuguese attempts at colonization of their territory throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.

Mbundu oral tradition describes how three separate Bantu-speaking ethnic groups migrated in the 15th century from central and east central Africa to the northern coast of present-day Angola and coalesced into a larger single ethnic group. The Mbundu ancestors brought with them sophisticated ironmaking techniques, an agricultural tradition, and a unifying belief in a divine kingship. Ngola, or lineage emblems passed down in matrilineal succession, formed the basis of the Mbundu political structure. By 1500 the Ndongo monarchy, largest of the Mbundu kingdoms, established its capital at Kabasa. The Ndongo had a three-part mixed economy based on agriculture, artisanry, and trade.

Proximity to the coast and control of major trade routes brought the Ndongo into contact with Portuguese traders early in the 16th century. In 1520 the Portuguese issued a royal decree requiring Mbundu conversion to Christianity. Catholic missionaries established a mission near present-day Luanda, but the Mbundu of Ndongo proved indifferent to the new religion, unlike their Kongo counterparts to the north. The Ndongo king was interested in trading with the Europeans, not in adopting their religion, and outlawed preaching of the gospel. Later Ndongo rulers, such as NziNGA, also resisted Portuguese colonization but desired to maintain trade relationships with the Europeans. The major source of trade between the Mbundu and the

Portuguese was in humans bound for the transatlantic slave trade. Resistance to and participation in the slave trade destroyed many of the Mbundu kingdoms, including the Ndongo, whose capital fell to the Portuguese in 1669.

Further reading: Eric Young, “Mbundu,” in Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, eds. Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 1999), 1,280; “The Peoples,” in Cambridge Encyclopedia of Africa, eds. Roland Oliver and Michael Crowder (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 57-86.

—Lisa M. Brady