NZINGA MPUDI

Nzinga Mpudi (circa 1510-November 4, 1561) ruled from 1545 to 1561, as Mani Kongo (ruler of the Kongo) during a period of confrontation between the kingdom of the Kongo and the Portuguese.

Succeeding, Mvemba Nzinga, also known as Afonso I, a Christian ruler who ruled from 1506 to about 1543, Nzinga Mpudi took office in 1545 as Diogo I, following a succession struggle with other pretenders.

Soon after taking power, he dispatched Diogo Gomes, a Creole priest, as an ambassador to the Portuguese king, João III (ruled 1521-57). Through Gomes, Nzinga Mpudi hoped to acquire some new missionaries, but especially to renew a 1517 treaty that recognised a royal monopoly on trade and confined Portuguese boats and merchants to the port of Mpinda on the Congo (Zaire) river estuary. This was because, in the 1540s, Portuguese traders from São Tomé island were trying to bypass the authority of the Mani Kongo.

Gomes was not entirely successful, but he did return with four Jesuit priests. The Jesuits established a school at Mbanza Kongo (now San Salvador) where they enrolled 600 pupils. Relations between Nzinga Mpudi and the Jesuits deteriorated, however, as the – Jesuits increasingly sided with the interests of the Portuguese on São Tomé. By 1555 the Jesuits, and also Gomes, had left the Kongo. In 1557 Franciscan missionaries arrived to replace the Jesuits. Their catechism, in Kikongo, was the first written document in the local language.

The conflict with São Tomé eventually led Nzinga Mpudi into war with his southern neighbor, Ndongo. Portuguese traders at his capital, Mbanza Kongo, urged zinga to punish the Ngola (chief) of Ndongo, who permitted and even encouraged São Tomé merchants to operate in Ndongo. Although the Mani Kongo sent troops against the Ngola, Kongolese forces were badly beaten in 1556.

Unhappily for Nzinga, in 1557 Ndongo established direct relations with Portugal, thus weakening the status of the Kongo kingdom and further thwarting the Kongo’s attempts to establish controls over European commerce in central Africa.

Unlike his predecessor Mvemba Nzinga, Nzinga Mpudi was not deceived by the Portuguese. He worked hard to curb foreign intervention in local political affairs, and he tried to maintain authority over trade in his domain. He died on November 4, 1561.

TSIMBA MABIALA