Ambuila

Ambuila lies in the northern highlands of the Kingdom of Kongo, in the country that the kings of Mbanza Kongo drew on for food, labour and tribute. Its woodland and cultivated clearings produced cassava, maize, palm oil and cotton, and villages were spread across the hills and the valleys between streams.

Kongo's provinces were governed by lords who answered to the king, and the Portuguese priests and merchants who arrived from the coast in the late fifteenth century found a state with its own courts, markets and church. The kingdom's authority began to fragment after the Battle of Mbwila in 1665, and local lords in the northern provinces gained more independence as the royal court lost control of its outlying lands.