Vili

The Vili were a Kongo people of the Atlantic coast, north of the Congo River, who became the dominant political group in Loango.

Loango emerged by the sixteenth century with its capital at Bwali and traded copper and cloth with Europeans. Around 1610 the English traveller Andrew Battel recorded an earlier king, Njimbe. In 1701 the English merchant Nathaniel Uring dealt with Mucundy, a woman exercising authority after a king’s death. After King Buatu died in 1787, the succession became uncertain.