Chokwe

The Chokwe, Mbunda, Luvale and Luchazi live on the plateau of what is now Angola and its borders with Congo and Zambia. Their chiefs share a common ancestry that goes back to Lunda migrations of the sixteenth century, and the Chokwe were one of the clans of the Lunda Empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The Chokwe worked first for Lunda nobles, then broke away after disputes that included refusing tribute to the king, and their trade brought them wealth beyond their neighbours. The Portuguese had almost no contact with them until the 1830s, when the Chokwe began trading wax, rubber and ivory.