Mani Kikongo

Mani Kikongo takes its name from the title of the lords who governed the Kongo provinces under the king, and the place lies in the southern Kongo country, on the high ground above the river valleys. Farming communities cleared the woodland for cassava, millet and beans, and paths linked their villages with the larger centres of power. Local families and headmen organised labour, exchange and the obligations owed to the court.

From the late fifteenth century the Kongo kingdom's Atlantic connections brought Portuguese diplomats, priests and merchants into its southern provinces. Trade introduced cloth, metal goods and new faiths, while the slave trade and the wars that fed it disrupted villages. Local headmen answered these pressures through alliances, negotiation and resistance, and the kingdom's southern provinces were drawn into its disputes with Portuguese Angola.