Dynasties
When the Portuguese arrived in Kongo in 1483, the reigning king represented the Nimi kanda. This kanda was probably descended from Nimi a Nzima, father of the founder of Kongo. Divisions emerged within the kanda during succession disputes, for example, following the death of Afonso I in 1542, his son Pedro I and grandson Diogo I formed two opposed factions, that of Pedro was called the Kibala (court) faction, and the other, whose name is unknown that followed Diogo. Other elections in the sixteenth century probably also involved similar factions, though the details are unknown.
King Álvaro I was the first king of the House of Kwilu (Portuguese: Coulo). This kanda or lineage was named for the birthplace of Álvaro, north of the capital city. The Kwilu reigned until 1614 when Antonio da Silva, Duke of Mbamba intervened to place Bernardo I on the throne, in place of Alvaro II's minor son, who would eventually take office as Álvaro III.
Another kanda, the House of Nsundi, later known as the Kinkanga a Mvika, took control of Kongo in 1622 under Pedro II, and retained it through the reign of his son, Garcia I. Garcia never held power strongly, and the Kimpanzu returned to power under Ambrosio I. Kimpanzu domination ended in 1641 when two brothers Alvaro and Garcia of the new House of Kinlaza overthrew Alvaro V and took power. The members of the Kikanga a Mvika were all killed or absorbed into the Kinlaza by 1657. The Kinlaza dynasty would reign until Kongo's catastrophic civil war following the 1665 Battle of Mbwila, when sporadic and violent alternation followed.
The capital was destroyed in 1678. Its destruction forced the claimants from both sides of the conflict to rule from mountain fortresses. The Kinlaza retreated to Mbula where they founded the capital of Lemba. Earlier another branch of Kinlaza, under the leadership of Garcia III of Kongo founded a settlement at Kibangu. The Kimpanzu based their struggle for the throne at Mbamba Luvota in the south of Soyo. A new faction appeared in the form of the Água Rosada kanda, headquarteredd at the mountain fortress of Kibangu. This might be considered a new house formed from both the Kinlaza and Kimpanzu, its founders were the children of a Kimpanzu father and a Kinlaza mother. All parties claimed kingship over Kongo (or what was left of it), but their power rarely spread outside their fortresses or the immediate surrounding area.
The country was finally reunited by Pedro IV of the Água Rosada kanda. Pedro IV declared a doctrine of shared power by which the throne would shift (in due time) from Kinlaza to the Kimpanzu and back., while the Água Rosada appear to have continued as neutral in Pedro's fortress of Kibangu.
The system functioned sporadically, with considerable fighting, until 1764 when José I of the Kinlaza faction usurped the throne and thrust the country back into civil war. The Kinlaza enjoyed a short lived second dynasty that ended in 1788. After that, the throne moved through various royal hands until the kingship was extinguished in 1914.
Read more about this topic: List Of Rulers Of Kongo
Famous quotes containing the word dynasties:
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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