Eastern Atlantic High Sea

The eastern Atlantic waters lie off the mouth of the Congo, the great equatorial river named for the Kingdom of Kongo on its southern bank. The kingdom grew from the union of Mpemba Kasi and Mbata and took its name from the Bantu Kongo people. Although Livingstone Falls blocked direct access from the sea, sections of the upper river remained navigable and carried trade across a vast drainage basin.

Bantu communities had reached the middle Congo by about 500 BCE and the upper river by the first century CE. They farmed, fished, worked iron and built networks of villages and chiefdoms. The lower Congo connected Atlantic sailors with inland markets for cloth, copper, salt, ivory and food. The river mouth was a place where ocean navigation met the political authority of Kongo and its regional rivals.

Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão reached the estuary in 1482 and established contact with the kingdom. Missionaries, merchants and soldiers followed, transforming trade and introducing Atlantic demands for slaves and imported goods. The upper and lower river remained poorly connected to European knowledge through the pre-industrial period, but the estuary already served as a meeting point between Atlantic shipping and west-central African commerce. Atlantic sailors anchored near the estuary.