Slavery in the Kongo Kingdom

Early Assumptions

• After start of slave trade, Kongo nobility beholden to Portuguese
• Portuguese subsequently responsible for destroying kingdom
• Kongo adopted aspects of Portuguese culture, but not vice-versa

Political History

• Jan Vansina in "Kingdoms of the Savannah," 1965
• Thornton “Early Kongolese-Portuguese Relations: A New Interpretation” 1981
• Thornton "Kingdom of Kongo: Civil War and Transition, 1641 – 1718," 1983

Big questions of political history

• Who had power in the Kongo-Portuguese Relationship?
• When did the Kongolese kingdom decline?
• Was the slave trade responsible for the decline of the Kongo kingdom?

Economic History

• Joseph Miller's "Way of Death"

Transformation thesis

• “Slavery and its Transformation in the Kingdom of the Kongo” 2009, Linda Heywood

Cultural History

• Thornton on cannibalism
• McGaffey on political symbols, ie Nkisi

Big questions of cultural history:

• How much power did women have? How did that change?
• Are authors grafting wider historiography onto the Kongo too much?

Gender history

Untitled Slide

• سمبي سييمنمت منتسشصثق سمبيمنتستببببيييييببببب