Just How Christian Was the Kingdom of Kongo?

The Kingdom of Kongo was the first pre-modern African country to convert to Catholic Christianity. Following the arrival of Portuguese and Italian missionaries, Kongo’s elites adopted the new religion and ordered their people to follow suit. The kingdom was even recognized by the Pope in Rome as a bastion of Christian devotion. But given the persistence of local Kongolese customs in historical records, how Catholic was the Kingdom of Kongo? Did the people of Kongo and their European missionary guests have different notions of what it meant to be Christian?

By the time Europeans set ashore on the coast of Central Africa, the Kingdom of Kongo had already existed for nearly a hundred years. Its people came from Bantu-speaking ethnic groups which had migrated across the region centuries ago. The kingdom’s government was structured around a ruler known as the Mwene Kongo, his council of advisors, and local tributary officials. Much like the emperor of China, the position of the Mwene Kongo had spiritual significance. He was not only responsible for maintaining order and dispensing justice but he also occupied a crucial place in the Kongolese cosmology.

Portuguese sailors reached the Kingdom of Kongo around 1483, as part of the so-called Age of Discovery. Portugal had instigated the beginnings of a global slave trade decades earlier and had similar designs for Kongo. After all, a pre-existing system of slavery did exist in the area. However, it is essential to note that Kongolese ideas of enslavement were different from later trans-Atlantic conceptions of chattel slavery.

Kongolese Religion Before Catholicism

The arrival of the Catholic Church in the Kingdom of Kongo added another devotional element to an already deep spiritual cauldron. Kongolese religion did exist prior to Catholicism; in fact, it thrived. Rituals, ideas of morality, and the role of the spirits determined the order of the Central African world.

At the core of Kongolese religion lay the concept of ancestor veneration. A creator deity, Nzambi a Mpungu, did exist, but it was far more remote than familial ancestors. The people of Kongo believed their deceased family members could influence the lives of the living if properly cared for. People gave animal sacrifices and other offerings in ancestral shrines. In this regard, the Kingdom of Kongo was similar to other African societies across the continent.

Kongo spirituality also included veneration of statues and other constructed objects. These artifacts, known as Minkisi (sing. Nkisi), were more than simply sacred vessels. To the Kongolese, they contained sacred medicine, capable of healing the sick or downtrodden.

Conversely, they could also be used for malicious reasons by angry practitioners.

The typical Nkisi was made out of wood, but shells, metal, stones, or pegs could also be added. Each object had its own spiritual meaning. It was the job of a spiritual expert known as a nganga (plural Banganga) to communicate with the ancestral world and interpret the ancestors’ knowledge of people’s fates. Unfortunately, due in part to their wooden composition, Minkisi from the earliest parts of Kongo’s history have not survived.

Nzinga a Nkuwu may have converted to Catholicism in 1491, but his relationship with the church is not entirely clear. When he died in 1506, his son, Mvemba a Nzinga, took the throne. Mvemba a Nzinga adopted the Portuguese name Afonso. It would be under Afonso that the Kingdom of Kongo would become renowned internationally as a Catholic kingdom.

Afonso’s rise to the throne of Kongo was not straightforward. Unlike in Western Europe, the king’s oldest son did not automatically inherit his father’s office. Instead, Afonso saw an early challenge from his half-brother, a non-Christian. Afonso and his army would ultimately defeat his brother, which Afonso claimed was because of his prayers to Saint James the Apostle. Under the new Mwene Kongo, the true story of the Catholic Kingdom of Kongo was about to begin.

Afonso was highly educated, having studied with Portuguese priests. He ordered the construction of churches and destroyed symbols of Kongo’s indigenous belief systems. Yet his relations with Portugal weren’t all smooth. In some 24 letters to his counterparts in Portugal, Afonso lamented the moral corruption of some European priests in his lands. Additionally, he expressed his anger at the Portuguese Crown’s growing demand for Kongolese slaves. He viewed the visitors’ greed and plunder as an attack on his country’s sovereignty.

Afonso never managed to curb the slave trade. His successors upheld the Kingdom of Kongo’s image as a Catholic stronghold. However, his tensions with Portugal were unfortunately a harbinger of things to come.

Christianity probably could not have taken off the way it did in Kongo without translation. The Catholic religious orders in Africa — most notably the Jesuits and the Capuchins — were faced with a religious landscape quite unlike their own back in Europe. To win the hearts and minds of the Kongolese populace, they had to make Christian concepts understandable in the local languages.

The translations that the missionaries made weren’t always accurate. For example, they equated the Kongolese Nzambi a Mpungu with the Christian God, despite major conceptual differences. Other translations, however, meshed better. The Catholic veneration of saints bore some key similarities to the veneration of ancestors in Kongo. Priests, whether Jesuit or Capuchin, recognized the necessity of translation and the utility of language to their project.

Kongolese interpreters were just as important to the translation process as the European missionaries. Throughout its history, the Kingdom of Kongo struggled to attract a sustainable number of foreign priests Additionally, the kings of Portugal repeatedly sought to block the ordination of African priests for political reasons. However, while a large indigenous priesthood did not become a reality, Kongolese Catholics played an essential role in ministering to their people. They also provided their Portuguese and Italian guests with valuable information on the languages and cultures of Central Africa.

Kongolese Catholics are known to have authored sermons. Manuel Roboredo, a Capuchin-linked catechist of mixed African and Portuguese descent, was one such author. Roboredo was highly respected by his European colleagues. Other native Kongolese catechists undoubtedly existed, but their names have largely been lost to time.

The Christianization of the Kingdom of Kongo was a collaborative process between local Central Africans and missionaries from Europe. But a major question remains for us — what did the Europeans and Kongolese think of African notions of Christianity? Were there any points of contention?

Let’s start with the European standpoint on Kongolese Catholicism. European missionary views regarding Kongo were not uniform. Initially, they seem to have been more positive, especially during the reign of Kongo’s Afonso I. The missionaries were impressed with Afonso’s zeal for the Catholic religion; many explicitly praised him in their writings. Later kings won praise as well. In 1605-1608, King Álvaro II sent an ambassador, Antonio Manuel ne Vunda, to meet with the Pope in Rome.

Some of the priests left behind long manuscripts detailing their time in the Kingdom of Kongo and surrounding territories. Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Montecuccolo, an Italian Capuchin priest, wrote a particularly famous account between 1654 and his death in 1678. In addition to written histories, the Capuchins produced a number of watercolor paintings of life in Africa. Some depict them guiding the Kongolese in prayer, while others document important local cultural practices.

Not all of the accounts were positive, however. Some Capuchin priests were frustrated by the persistence of indigenous Kongo customs. They might react violently, as depicted in the painting above. Tensions also existed between the friars and their African interpreters over linguistic misunderstandings. Still, from the 15th through the 18th centuries, Europeans consistently recognized at least the elite of the Kingdom of Kongo as properly Christian.

Unsurprisingly, the Kongolese conceived of some aspects of Catholic Christianity differently from the Europeans. The Kingdom of Kongo’s adoption of Catholicism didn’t occur in a vacuum, nor did the way its people perceived the new religion. All of these developments happened in the context of pre-existing local belief systems.

The more extreme end of Kongo Christianity saw the destruction of traditional religious artifacts like minkisi. This does not seem to have been the norm, though. Instead, the people of Kongo more commonly adopted elements of Christianity that fit most with their pre-existing rituals and beliefs. Concepts that had no equivalent in their culture, such as the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, didn’t receive as much attention.

Kongolese Christian artwork reflects the indigenization of Catholicism in the region. Many crucifixes combine European formats with Central African artistic styles. Figures such as saints and even Jesus himself were depicted in a more opaque manner than European works from the same period.

Conclusion: How Christian Was the Kingdom of Kongo?

As our overview of the Catholic missionary project in Kongo comes to an end, let’s return to our first question: Just how Christian was the Kingdom of Kongo? We’ve seen how European missionaries and Kongolese Catholic converts interacted to produce a dynamic new faith and way of life. But how devout were the rulers and people of Kongo?

The Kongolese did not follow Christianity in the same way as their European guests. As records indicate, they held onto many of their previous customs and beliefs. However, they may also still have viewed themselves as devout Christians, and the Catholic Church as a venerable institution. Kongo’s ruling class adopted Christianity and maintained their commitment to the Church for centuries. Their recognition by the Pope only cemented their status.

Perhaps the main takeaway from Kongo Catholicism is that there was no singular form of Christianity in the pre-modern era. The Kingdom of Kongo mixed its old culture with Catholic rituals and doctrine, creating a new, syncretic culture in the process.