END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
Early Portuguese Visitors.
The inhabitants of S. Thomé were granted permission in 1500[387] to trade as far as the Kongo river; but it is just possible that long before that time, and notwithstanding an interdict of 1504, they had felt their way southward along the coast, and had discovered that a profitable trade, not hampered by the presence of royal officials or “farmers,” might be carried on at Luandu, and up a river which, after the King of the country, was called the river of Ngola (Angola).
Several years afterwards, a representative of this Ngola, whilst on a visit at S. Salvador, suggested that missionaries should be sent to convert his master. King Manuel was nothing loth to act upon this suggestion, and entrusted Manuel Pacheco and Balthasar de Castro, both of whom were old residents in Kongo, with an expedition, whose main object was to report on the missionary and commercial prospects in Ngola’s country, to inquire into the existence of reputed silver mines, and, eventually, to explore the coast as far as the Cape of Good Hope. On arriving at the bar of Ngola’s river (the Kwanza), B. de Castro was to go to the King’s court, where, if circumstances were favourable, he was to be joined by a priest. Pacheco himself was to return to Portugal, with a cargo of slaves, ivory, and silver.[388]
No report of this mission has hitherto seen the light; but we know that B. de Castro actually reached Ngola’s residence, and that he was retained there as a prisoner, until released in 1526, through the intervention of the King of Kongo. He reported that he never saw silver or precious stones anywhere in Angola.[389]
The Early History of Ndongo (Angola).
Ndongo is the original name of the vast territory now known as Angola, from the name or title of its ruler (Ngola) when first the Portuguese became acquainted with it. The early history of this region is involved in obscurity, but it seems that its chiefs at one time owed allegiance to the King of Kongo, whose authority was finally shaken off about the middle of the sixteenth century, the King only keeping possession of Luandu island and its valuable njimbu fishery.
Cavazzi, Antonio Laudati of Gaeta, Cadornega, and others, have published long lists of Kings of “Angola;” but nearly all the names they give are not those of the Kings, but the titles which they assumed,[390] and by which they were generally known. The full title of the King of Ndongo was Ngola kiluanji kia Samba,[391] and that title is still borne by the present ruler, who claims to be a descendant of the kings of old, and whose Kabasa[392] on the River Hamba (Va-umba or Umba) still occupies the locality assigned by the missionaries to Queen Nzinga’s Kabasa, where they built the church of S. Maria of Matamba.
Cavazzi’s Matamba, however, included the whole of Queen Nzinga’s kingdom, as it existed in his day, whilst the original Matamba, as also the country known by that name in the present day, had much narrower limits. It was originally tributary to Kongo, but one of its rulers assumed the title of Kambulu, that is, King, and renounced all vassalage to his former suzerain. It existed as an independent kingdom until 1627, when the famous Queen Nzinga took prisoner the dowager Queen, Muongo Matamba, and incorporated this ancient kingdom in her own dominions.[393]
It may have been a Ngola kiluanji, described by Cavazzi as the son of Tumba ria ngola and of a Ngola kiluanji kia Samba, who first invaded lower Ndongo, and assigned his conquest to one of his sons. But all is uncertainty, and there exists an inextricable confusion in the names of the Kings of upper and lower Ndongo as transmitted to us. One thing, however, is certain, namely, that as early as 1520 the country down to the sea was held by a king bearing the name or title of Ngola.[394]