The Republic of Congo

History

• Prehistory

  The earliest inhabitants of the region comprising present-day Congo were the Bambuti people. The Bambuti were linked to Pygmy tribes whose Stone Age culture was slowly replaced by Bantu tribes coming from regions north of the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo about 2,000 years ago, introducing Iron Age culture to the region. The main Bantu tribe living in the region were the Kongo, also known as Bakongo, who established mostly weak and unstable kingdoms along the mouth, north, and south of the Congo River. The capital of this Kongolese kingdom, Mbanza Kongo, later baptized as São Salvador by the Portuguese, is a town in northern Angola near the border with the DRC.

  The researchers identified an ancestral and autochthonous lineage of mtDNA shared by Pygmies and Bantus, suggesting that both populations were originally one and that they started to diverge from common ancestors around 70,000 years ago. After a period of isolation, during which current phenotype differences between Pygmies and Bantu farmers accumulated, Pygmy women started marrying male Bantu farmers (but not the opposite). This trend started around 40,000 years ago and continued until several thousand years ago. Subsequently, the Pygmy gene pool was not enriched by external gene influxes.

  The early inhabitants of these eras were farmer-trappers, fishing peoples, and Pygmy hunters. People lived in households that included kin and unrelated individuals; at the center of the household was a “big man,” who represented the group. Mobility—of individuals, groups, goods, and ideas—figured prominently and created a common social environment. Such intercommunication is evident from the closely related Bantu languages of the region. Speakers of Adamawa-Ubangi languages lived in the north but maintained ties with their forest neighbors. Research now suggests that agriculture emerged among the western Bantu of the savannas adjacent to the lower Congo River in the 1st millennium BCE—much earlier than previously thought.

  Larger-scale societies based on clans whose members lived in different villages, village clusters with chiefs and small forest principalities emerged between 1000 and 1500 CE. Chiefdoms on the southern fringes became more complex, and three kingdoms eventually developed: Loango, at the mouth of the Kouilou River on the Atlantic coast; Kongo, in the far southwest; and Tio (Anziku), which grew out of small chiefdoms on the plains north of Malebo Pool. Rulers derived power from control over spirit cults, but trade eventually became the second pillar of power.

• The Kingdom of Loango

  The origins of the kingdom are obscure. The most ancient complex society in the region was at Madingo Kayes, which was already a multi-site settlement in the first century CE. At present archaeological evidence is too scarce to say much more about developments until the late fifteenth or early sixteenth centuries. Loango is not mentioned in early travelers’ accounts of the region, nor is it mentioned in the titles of King Afonso I of Kongo in 1535, though Kakongo, Vungu, and Ngoyo, its southern neighbors. It is therefore unlikely that there was a major power on the coast of Central Africa north of the Congo River.

  Dutch visitors recorded the first traditional account of the kingdom’s origin in the 1630s or ’40s. The region where Loango would be constructed was populated by a number of small polities including Mayumba, Kilongo, Piri and Wansi, “each with their own leader” who “made war on each other.” He recorded that the founder of Loango, who boasted hailing from the district in Nzari in the small coastal kingdom of Kakongo, itself a vassal of Kongo, triumphed over all his rivals through the skillful use of alliances to defeat those who opposed him, particularly Wansa, Kilongo and Piri, the latter two of which required two wars to subdue. Once this had been effected, however, a range of more northern regions, including Docke and Sette submitted voluntarily. Having succeeded in the conquest, the new king moved northward and after having founded settlements in a variety of places, eventually built his capital in Buali in the province of Piri (from which the ethnic name “Muvili” eventually derived).

  The ruler who had died sometime before 1625 had ruled for 60 years and thus had taken the throne around 1565. The documentary chronology thus makes it very likely that Njimbe was the founder and first ruler mentioned in the traditions, and this supposition is supported by traditions recorded around 1890 by R. E. Dennett which also named Njimbe as the first ruler the basis of later traditions from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that linked the founding of Loango to that of Kongo, Phyllis Martin posited a much earlier foundation, the late fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries. She then argues that the absence of Loango from early titles of the king of Kongo is evidence that Loango was already independent at that time. The kingdom is certain to have come to an end with the Conference of Berlin (1884–1885) at the latest when European colonial powers divided most of Central Africa between them

• The Kingdom of Kongo

  The Kingdom of Kongo was an African kingdom located in west central Africa in what is now northern Angola, the Republic of the Congo, the western portion of the Democratic 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 neighboring kingdoms, such as Ngoyo, Kakongo, Ndongo, and Matamba.

  The first king of the Kingdom of Kongo Dya Ntotila was Lukeni lua Nimi (circa 1380-1420). The name Nimi a Lukeni appeared in later oral traditions and some modern historians, notably Jean Cuvelier, popularized it. Lukeni lua Nimi, or Nimi a Lukeni, became the founder of Kongo when he conquered the kingdom of the Mwene Kabunga (or Mwene Mpangala), which lay on a mountain to his south. He transferred his rule to this mountain, the Mongo dia Kongo or “mountain of Kongo”, and made Mbanza Kongo, the town there, his capital. Two centuries later the Mwene Kabunga’s descendants still symbolically challenged the conquest in an annual celebration. The rulers that followed Lukeni all claimed some form of relation to his kanda, or lineage and were known as the Kilukeni.

  By the time of the first recorded contact with the Europeans, the Kingdom of Kongo was a highly developed state at the center of an extensive trading network. Apart from natural resources and ivory, the country manufactured and traded copperware, ferrous metal goods, raffia cloth, and pottery. The Kongo people spoke in the Kikongo language. The eastern regions, especially that part known as the Seven Kingdoms of Kongo dia Nlaza (or in Kikongo Mumbwadi or “the Seven”), were particularly famous for the production of cloth.

  In 1483 the Portuguese landed in Kongo. Initially, relations between the Congolese and Portuguese rulers were good. Characterized by the exchange of representatives and the sojourn of Congolese students in Portugal, this period was a harbinger of late 20th-century technical assistance. Unfortunately, the need of Portuguese planters on São Tomé for slaves had undermined this amicable arrangement by the 1530s.

• The Kongo-Portuguese War

  The First Kongo-Portuguese War (~1580) began initially because of a Portuguese campaign against the Kasanze Kingdom, which was conducted ruthlessly. From there, the army moved to Nambu a Ngongo, whose ruler, Pedro Afonso, was held to be sheltering runaway slaves as well. Although Pedro Afonso, facing an overwhelming army of over 20,000, agreed to return some runaways, the army attacked his country and killed him.

  Following its success in Nambu a Ngongo, the Portuguese army advanced into Mbamba in November. The Portuguese forces scored a victory at the Battle of Mbumbi. There they faced a quickly gathered local force led by the new Duke of Mbamba and reinforced by forces from Mpemba led by its marquis. Both the Duke of Mbamba and the Marquis of Mpemba were killed in the battle. Portuguese residents of Kongo, frightened by the consequences for their business of the invasion, wrote a hostile letter to Correia de Sousa, denouncing his invasion.

  Following the defeat of the Portuguese at Mbandi Kasi, Pedro II declared Angola an official enemy. The king then wrote letters denouncing Correia de Sousa to the King of Spain and the Pope. Meanwhile, anti-Portuguese riots broke out all over the kingdom and threatened its long-established merchant community. Portuguese throughout the country were humiliatingly disarmed and even forced to give up their clothes. Pedro, anxious not to alienate the Portuguese merchant community, and aware that they had generally remained loyal during the war, did as much as he could to preserve their lives and property, leading some of his detractors to call him “king of Portuguese”.

  As a result of Kongo’s victory, the Portuguese merchant community of Luanda revolted against the governor, hoping to preserve their ties with the king. Backed by the Jesuits, who had also just recommenced their mission there, they forced João Correia de Sousa to resign and flee the country. The interim government that followed the departure was led by the bishop of Angola. They were very conciliatory to Kongo and agreed to return over a thousand of the slaves captured by Correia de Sousa, especially the lesser nobles captured at the Battle of Mbumbi.

• The Battle of Mbwila

  The Dutch were convinced that they could avoid committing their forces to any further wars. Queen Njinga had been active against the Portuguese, and the Dutch felt secure. When Portuguese reinforcements managed to defeat her at Kavanga in 1646, the Dutch felt obliged to be more aggressive. The Dutch convinced Kongo to join them and Queen Njinga in another venture against the Portuguese. In 1647, Kongo troops participated in the Battle of Kombi, where they soundly defeated the Portuguese field army, after forcing them to fight defensively. A year later, Portuguese reinforcements from Brazil forced the Dutch to surrender Luanda and withdraw from Angola in 1648. The new Portuguese governor, Salvador de Sá, sought terms with Kongo, demanding the Island of Luanda, the source of Kongo’s money supply of nzimbu shells.

  Although neither Kongo nor Angola ever ratified the treaty, sent to the king in 1649, the Portuguese gained de facto control of the island. The war resulted in the Dutch losing their claims in Central Africa. Portugal began pressing claims over southern vassals of Kongo, especially the country of Mbwila, following Portuguese restoration at Luanda. Mbwila, a nominal vassal of Kongo, had also signed a treaty of vassalage with Portugal in 1619. It divided its loyalty between the Colony of Angola and Kongo in the intervening period. Though the Portuguese often attacked Mbwila, they never brought it under their authority.

  Kongo began working towards a Spanish alliance, especially following António I’s succession as king in 1661. Although it is not clear what diplomatic activities he engaged in with Spain itself, the Portuguese clearly believed that he hoped to repeat the Dutch invasion, this time with the assistance of Spain. António sent emissaries to the Dembos region and to Matamba and Mbwila, attempting to form a new anti-Portuguese alliance. The Portuguese had been troubled, moreover, by Kongo support of runaway slaves, who flocked to southern Kongo throughout the 1650s. At the same time, the Portuguese were advancing their own agenda for Mbwila, which they claimed as a vassal. In 1665, both sides invaded Mbwila, and their rival armies met each other at Ulanga, in the valley below Mbanza Mbwila, capital of the district.

  At the Battle of Mbwila in 1665, the Portuguese forces from Angola had their first victory against the kingdom of Kongo since 1622. They defeated the forces under António I killing him and many of his courtiers as well as the Luso-African Capuchin priest Manuel Roboredo (also known by his cloister name of Francisco de São Salvador), who had attempted to prevent this final war.

• The Civil War of the 1670s

  In the aftermath of the battle, there was no clear succession. The country was divided between rival claimants to the throne. The two factions, Kimpanzu and Kinlaza, hardened, and partitioned the country between them. Pretenders would ascend to the throne, and then be ousted. The period was marked by an increase in BaKongo slaves being sold across the Atlantic, the weakening of the Kongo monarchy and the strengthening of Soyo. During this chaos, Kongo was being increasingly manipulated by Soyo. In an act of desperation, the central authority in Kongo called on Luanda to attack Soyo in return for various concessions. The Portuguese invaded the county of Soyo in 1670.

  Garcia II, being roundly defeated by Soyo’s forces at the Battle of Kitombo on 18 October 1670, The kingdom of Kongo was to remain completely independent. Though still embroiled in civil war, thanks to the very force (Portuguese colonials) it had fought so long to destroy. This Portuguese defeat was resounding enough to end all Portuguese ambitions in Kongo’s sphere of influence, until the end of the nineteenth century. The battles between the Kimpanzu and Kinlaza continued plunging the kingdom into a chaos not known in centuries. The fighting between the two lineages led to the sack of São Salvador in 1678.

  Ironically, the capital built by the pact of Mpemba and Mbata was burned to the ground, not by the Portuguese or rival African nations but by its very heirs. The city and hinterland around Mbanza Kongo became depopulated. The population dispersed into the mountaintop fortresses of the rival kings. These were the Mountain of Kibangu east of the capital and the fortress of the Águas Rosadas, a line founded in the 1680s from descendants of Kinlaza and Kimpanzu, the region of Mbula, or Lemba where a line founded by the Kinlaza pretender, Pedro III ruled; and Lovota, a district in southern Soyo that sheltered a Kimpanzu lineage whose head was D Suzanna de Nóbrega. Finally, D Ana Afonso de Leão founded her own center on the Mbidizi River at Nkondo and guided her junior kinsmen to reclaim the country, even as she sought to reconcile the hostile factions.

  In the interim, however, tens of thousands fleeing the conflict or caught up in the battles were deported as slaves to English, French, Dutch and Portuguese merchants every year. One human stream led north to Loango, whose merchants, known as Vili (Mubires in the period) carried them primarily to merchants from England and the Netherlands, and others were taken south to Luanda, where they were sold to Portuguese merchants bound for Brazil. By the end of the seventeenth century, several long wars and interventions by the now independent Counts of Soyo (who restyled themselves as Grand Princes) had brought an end to Kongo’s golden age.

• The End of the Slave trade

  In 1839 the Portuguese government, acting on British pressure, abolished the slave trade south of the equator which had so damaged Central Africa. During this period social structure changed as well. New social organizations, Makanda, emerged. This Makanda, nominally clans descended from common ancestors, were as much trading associations as family units. These clans founded strings of villages connected by fictional kinship along the trade routes, from Boma or the coast of Soyo to São Salvador and then on into the interior. A new oral tradition about the founder of the kingdom often held to be Afonso I, described the kingdom as originating when the king caused the clans to disperse in all directions. The histories of these clans, typically describing the travels of their founder and his followers from an origin point to their final villages, replaced in many areas the history of the kingdom itself.

  Despite violent rivalries and the fracturing of the kingdom, it continued to exist independently well into the 19th century. The rise of the clans became noticeable in the 1850s at the end of the reign of Henrique II. In 1855 or 1856, two potential kings emerged to contest the succession following his death. Álvaro Ndongo claimed the throne on behalf of the Kinlaza faction of Matari (ignoring the existence of Andre’s group at Mbanza Puto), calling himself Álvaro XIII and Pedro Lelo claimed the throne on behalf of the Mbidizi Valley faction of the Kinlaza from a base at Bembe. Pedro won the contest.

  In 1866, citing excessive costs, the Portuguese government withdrew the garrison. Pedro continued his rule, however, though he faced increasing rivalry from clan-based trading magnates who drained his authority from much of the country. The most dangerous of these was Garcia Mbwaka Matu of the town of Makuta. This town had been founded by a man named Kuvo, who probably obtained his wealth through trade since he and Garcia made plenty of control markets. Though this was a great challenge in the 1870s, after Garcia’s death in 1880, Makuta became less problematic.

  At the Conference of Berlin in 1884–1885, European powers divided most of Central Africa between them. Portugal claimed the lion’s share of what remained of independent Kongo; however, Portugal was not then in a position to make “effective occupation”. The area north of the Congo River came under French sovereignty in 1880 as a result of Pierre de Brazza’s treaty with King Makoko of the Bateke. The formal proclamation of the colony of French Congo came in 1891. Early French efforts to exploit their possession led to the ruthless treatment of the local people and the subjection of the territory to extreme exploitation by concessionary companies.

• Colonial France

  The Congo Colony became known first as French Congo, then as Middle Congo in 1903. In 1908, France organized French Equatorial Africa (AEF), comprising Middle Congo, Gabon, Chad, and Oubangui-Chari (the modern Central African Republic). The French designated Brazzaville as the federal capital. Economic development during the first 50 years of colonial rule in Congo centered on natural-resource extraction. The methods were often brutal. The French were preoccupied with acquiring labor, Forced labor, head taxes, the compulsory production of cash crops, and draconian labor contracts forced Africans to build infrastructure and to participate in the colonial economy.

  No project was more costly in African lives than the Congo-Ocean Railway, built between 1921 and 1934 from Pointe-Noire to Brazzaville; between 15,000 and 20,000 Africans died. Brazza returned in 1905 to lead an inquiry into these excesses. In 1910 the French joined Congo with neighboring colonies, creating a federation of French Equatorial Africa, with its capital at Brazzaville. In 1940, French Equatorial Africa joined the Free French movement and the Allied war effort against the Axis powers.

  During the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, Brazzaville functioned as the symbolic capital of Free France between 1940 and 1943. The Brazzaville Conference of 1944 heralded a period of major reform in French colonial policy. Congo benefited from the postwar expansion of colonial administrative and infrastructure spending as a result of its central geographic location within AEF and the federal capital at Brazzaville. It also received a local legislature after the adoption of the 1946 constitution that established the Fourth Republic. The first territorial assembly was elected in 1947.

  In a referendum held on 28 September 1958, the territory of Middle Congo voted to become an autonomous republic within the French Community. The Territorial Assembly of the Middle Congo proclaimed the Republic of the Congo on 28 November 1958. On 8 December, Fulbert Youlou, mayor of Brazzaville and leader of the Democratic Union for the Defense of African Interests (UDDIA), was elected to head the provisional government. The adoption of a constitution on 20 February 1959 transformed the provisional government into the first official government of the republic. Legislative elections were held that June. The new National Assembly elected Fulbert Youlou prime minister on 27 June and president on 21 November.

• Independent Congo

  The Republic of the Congo received full independence from France on 15 August 1960. Fulbert Youlou ruled as the country’s first president until labor elements and rival political parties instigated a three-day uprising that ousted him. The Congolese military took charge of the country briefly and installed a civilian provisional government headed by Alphonse Massamba-Débat. Under the 1963 constitution, Massamba-Débat was elected President for a five-year term. During Massamba-Débat’s term in office, the regime adopted “scientific socialism” as the country’s constitutional ideology.

  In 1965, Congo established relations with the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, North Korea, and North Vietnam. Massamba-Débat was unable to reconcile various institutional, tribal and ideological factions within the country and his regime ended abruptly with a bloodless coup d’état in September 1968. Marien Ngouabi, who had participated in the coup, assumed the presidency on 31 December 1968. One year later, President Ngouabi proclaimed Congo Africa’s first “people’s republic”, the People’s Republic of the Congo, and announced the decision of the National Revolutionary Movement to change its name to the Congolese Labour Party (PCT).

  Ngouabi survived an attempted coup in 1972 but was assassinated on 16 March 1977. An 11-member Military Committee of the Party (CMP) was then named to head an interim government with Joachim Yhombi-Opango to serve as President of the Republic. Two years later, Yhombi-Opango was forced from power and Denis Sassou Nguesso become the new president. Pascal Lissouba, who became Congo’s first elected president (1992–1997) during the period of multi-party democracy, attempted to implement economic reforms with IMF backing to liberalize the economy.

  In early October 1997, the Angolan régime began an invasion of Congo to install Sassou in power. In mid-October, the Lissouba government fell. Soon thereafter, Sassou declared himself president. In the controversial elections in 2002, Sassou won with almost 90% of the vote cast. Sassou also won the following presidential election in July 2009. In the last Presidential elections were held on 20 March 2016. It was the first election to be held under the constitution passed by referendum in 2015. President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who had exhausted the two-term limit imposed by the previous constitution, was allowed to run again due to the adoption of the new constitution. He won re-election in the first round of voting, receiving 60% of the vote.

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