The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell Part 13

33. Joo of Mbula, brother of No. 27, 1679-(He was alive in 1710).

34. Andre mulaza, a descendant of No. 25, 1679.

35. Manuel Nzinga elenge, a descendant of No. 14, 1680-16-.

36. Alvaro IX Nenimi a mbemba, a descendant both of No. 14 and of No. 25.

37. Pedro IV, Nsanu a mbemba (Agoa rosada), brother of No. 36, acceded 1694, and was alive in 1710.

38. Pedro Constantino Kibangu. He was executed in 1709.

The dates given for Nos. 26-38, are for the most part very uncertain: Nos. 26, 28, 31, and 32 I believe to have resided at S. Salvador; Nos.

29, 30, 34, 35, 36 and 37, at Kibangu; Nos. 27 and 33, in Mbula.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

APPENDIX IV.

A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF ANGOLA TO THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

EARLY PORTUGUESE VISITORS.

The inhabitants of S. Thome were granted permission in 1500[387] to trade as far as the Kongo river; but it is just possible that long before that time, and notwithstanding an interdict of 1504, they had felt their way southward along the coast, and had discovered that a profitable trade, not hampered by the presence of royal officials or "farmers," might be carried on at Luandu, and up a river which, after the King of the country, was called the river of Ngola (Angola).

Several years afterwards, a representative of this Ngola, whilst on a visit at S. Salvador, suggested that missionaries should be sent to convert his master. King Manuel was nothing loth to act upon this suggestion, and entrusted Manuel Pacheco and Balthasar de Castro, both of whom were old residents in Kongo, with an expedition, whose main object was to report on the missionary and commercial prospects in Ngola's country, to inquire into the existence of reputed silver mines, and, eventually, to explore the coast as far as the Cape of Good Hope.

On arriving at the bar of Ngola's river (the Kwanza), B. de Castro was to go to the King's court, where, if circ.u.mstances were favourable, he was to be joined by a priest. Pacheco himself was to return to Portugal, with a cargo of slaves, ivory, and silver.[388]

No report of this mission has. .h.i.therto seen the light; but we know that B. de Castro actually reached Ngola's residence, and that he was retained there as a prisoner, until released in 1526, through the intervention of the King of Kongo. He reported that he never saw silver or precious stones anywhere in Angola.[389]

THE EARLY HISTORY OF NDONGO (ANGOLA).

Ndongo is the original name of the vast territory now known as Angola, from the name or t.i.tle of its ruler (Ngola) when first the Portuguese became acquainted with it. The early history of this region is involved in obscurity, but it seems that its chiefs at one time owed allegiance to the King of Kongo, whose authority was finally shaken off about the middle of the sixteenth century, the King only keeping possession of Luandu island and its valuable _njimbu_ fishery.

Cavazzi, Antonio Laudati of Gaeta, Cadornega, and others, have published long lists of Kings of "Angola;" but nearly all the names they give are not those of the Kings, but the t.i.tles which they a.s.sumed,[390] and by which they were generally known. The full t.i.tle of the King of Ndongo was _Ngola kiluanji kia Samba_,[391] and that t.i.tle is still borne by the present ruler, who claims to be a descendant of the kings of old, and whose _Kabasa_[392] on the River Hamba (Va-umba or Umba) still occupies the locality a.s.signed by the missionaries to Queen Nzinga's _Kabasa_, where they built the church of S. Maria of Matamba.

Cavazzi's Matamba, however, included the whole of Queen Nzinga's kingdom, as it existed in his day, whilst the original Matamba, as also the country known by that name in the present day, had much narrower limits. It was originally tributary to Kongo, but one of its rulers a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of _Kambulu_, that is, King, and renounced all va.s.salage to his former suzerain. It existed as an independent kingdom until 1627, when the famous Queen Nzinga took prisoner the dowager Queen, Muongo Matamba, and incorporated this ancient kingdom in her own dominions.[393]

It may have been a Ngola kiluanji, described by Cavazzi as the son of Tumba ria ngola and of a Ngola kiluanji kia Samba, who first invaded lower Ndongo, and a.s.signed his conquest to one of his sons. But all is uncertainty, and there exists an inextricable confusion in the names of the Kings of upper and lower Ndongo as transmitted to us. One thing, however, is certain, namely, that as early as 1520 the country down to the sea was held by a king bearing the name or t.i.tle of Ngola.[394]

THE FIRST EXPEDITION OF PAULO DIAS DE NOVAES, 1560.

In 1556 Ngola Ineve,[395] being threatened by Kongo, sent an amba.s.sador to Portugal asking for the establishment of friendly relations. This amba.s.sador arriving in the year of the death of King John III (1557), action was deferred until 1559, when three caravels were fitted out and placed under the command of Paulo Dias, a grandson of the discoverer of the Cape of Good Hope. Dias left Lisbon on December 22nd, 1559, and called at S. Thome (where Bishop Gaspar Co observed that the Jesuits, who accompanied Dias, would meet with no success as long as commercial intercourse was prohibited).[396] Dias arrived at the bar of the Kwanza on May 3rd, and there waited patiently for six months, when Musungu, a native chief, made his appearance at the head of a crew of painted warriors, armed with bows and arrows. In his company Dias, accompanied by the Jesuit fathers and twenty men, travelled up the country for sixty leagues, when he arrived at the royal residence.[397] The King, not any longer the Ngola who had asked for missionaries, but his successor,[398]

received his visitors kindly, but would net allow them to depart until they had helped him against one of his revolted Sobas, called Kiluanji kia kw.a.n.gu by Garcia Mendes.[399] Having rendered this service Dias was dismissed, but the Jesuits remained behind as hostages. Whilst Dias was absent in Europe, Ngola defeated an army sent against him, and thus compelled the recognition of the Dande river as his boundary, the island of Luandu alone, with its productive _njimbu_ fishery, remaining with Kongo. Ngola ndambi died (in 1568?) before Dias returned.

THE SECOND EXPEDITION OF DIAS, 1574.

After a considerable delay, Dias was sent out as "Conquistador" of the territory recently visited by him. He left Lisbon on October 23rd, 1574, with seven vessels and three hundred and fifty men, most of them cobblers, tailors, and tradesmen.[400] Among his officers were Pedro da Fonseca, his son-in-law, Luis Serro, Andre Ferreira Pereira, and Garcia Mendes Castellobranco, all of whom subsequently won distinction as "Conquistadores." Three Jesuit fathers (with P. Balthasar Barreira as superior), and three Dominicans accompanied him. These latter, however, not finding the country to their liking, soon sought more comfortable quarters in Kongo. Dias was authorised to grant estates (including full seignorial rights) to all such among his companions as were prepared to build a small fort at their own expense.

In February, 1575, the fleet sighted the coast near the Kwanza, and pa.s.sing over the bar of Kurimba cast anchor in the fine bay of Luandu, and on February 20th Dias laid the foundations of a church.[401] The island, at that time, was inhabited by forty Portuguese who had come from Kongo, and a considerable number of native Christians. Its cowry fisheries yielded great profit to its owner, the King of Kongo, who was represented by a governor.[402] Not finding the site originally chosen for his capital to be suitable, Dias, in 1576, removed to what is now known as the Morro de S. Miguel, and he named the new colony "Reino de Sebaste na conquista de Ethiopia," in honour of the King who fell gloriously at Al Kasr el Kebir, and its capital S. Paulo de Luandu.

Meanwhile the customary presents were exchanged with the King, whose name or t.i.tle seems to have been Ngola a kiluanji. The King's gifts included slaves, cattle, copper and silver bracelets, and aromatic Kakongo wood. The Cardinal King D. Henrique (1578-80) converted the silver bracelets into a chalice, which he presented to the church of Belem.

Friendly relations continued for three years. The King had been duly helped against his rebellious sobas; Pedro da Fonseca lived at the King's residence as "ministro conservador" of the Portuguese, and a brisk trade seems to have sprung up with the new town of S. Paulo de Luandu, when it was insinuated to the King that the Portuguese ultimately intended to take possession of his country, and to sell his subjects abroad as slaves. The _Catalogo_ traces these insinuations to the jealousy of a Portuguese trader "inspired by the Devil," and although neither Garcia Mendes nor Abreu de Brito alludes to this infamy, their not doing so does not disprove the positive statement of the _Catalogo_.[403] Moreover, whether the King's mind was influenced by envoys from Kongo, or by a traitorous Portuguese, it must be admitted that the intentions of the Portuguese were not altogether misrepresented.

At all events, the results were immediately disastrous, for twenty Portuguese traders, who were at the King's kabasa at the time, were murdered, together with one thousand slaves, and their merchandise was confiscated.

DIAS IN THE FIELD, 1578-89.

Dias, before this happened, had already (in 1577) built the fort of S.

Cruz,[404] ten leagues up the Kwanza, and was at the time at a stockade on the Penedo de S. Pedro, still higher up on the river.[405] When there, he was warned not to advance any further, and, suspecting treachery, he retired with his one hundred and fifty men to Kanzele (Anzele),[406] where he entrenched himself (in 1578). Twenty days later he received news of the ma.s.sacre. Dias at once hastened back to Luandu for reinforcements, the serjeant-major, Manuel Joo, meanwhile valiantly defending the stockade and raiding the neighbourhood.

In September, 1580, Dias again left Luandu with three hundred men.

Slowly he proceeded along the Kwanza by land and in boats, punished the sobas Muchima, Kitangombe, and Kizua, in Kisama, and defeated the King's army at Makunde,[407] where he had his headquarters for two years, during which time his subordinates, Joo Serro, Manuel Joo, and others, established his authority among the sobas of Kisama and Lamba (Ilamba).

In 1582 he removed to Masanganu, at the "meeting of the waters" of the Lukala and Kwanza. Determined to capture the reputed silver mines of Kambambe, he set out with Luiz Serro, eighty Portuguese, and a "guerra preta" of thirty thousand men. During his forward march he defeated the soba Mbamba Tungu; and at an entrenched camp at Teka ndungu, on February 2nd, 1584, he inflicted a crus.h.i.+ng defeat upon the King's forces; the Jesuit Father Balthasar Barreiro claiming no little credit for having contributed to this victory by his prayers.[408] As a result of this success, many of the sobas declared in favour of Portugal, but so inconsiderable were the forces at the command of Dias that he could do no more than maintain his position at Masanganu. An army under the Duke of Mbamba, which had been promised to him, was never sent.[409]

Reinforcements, however, arrived in the course of 1584 and 1586,[410]

and Dias fought a battle on the Lukala. But his subordinates did not always meet with a like success; and Joo Castanhosa Vellez, with one hundred Portuguese, was completely routed by the soba Ngola Kalungu.[411]

As an incident of the governors.h.i.+p of Paulo Dias may be mentioned the building of a fort at Benguella velho, by his nephew, Antonio Lopes Peixoto, in 1587. Unhappily, fifty men of the garrison ventured abroad, unarmed, and fell in an ambush; and of the twenty who had remained in the fort, and who offered a stout resistance, only two escaped. As a matter of fact, the losses of human life in these native wars were very considerable.

Paulo Dias died in the midst of preparations for a fresh expedition against Ngola, in October, 1589, and was buried in the church of N. S.

da Victoria, which he himself had built at Masanganu.[412]

His soldiers elected Luiz Serro, the captain-major, to succeed him.

LUIZ SERRO AND THE BATTLE OF 1590.

Luiz Serro, having completed his preparations, started with an army numbering one hundred and twenty eight Portuguese musketeers (with three horses), and fifteen thousand native allies armed with bows. With this utterly insufficient force he crossed the Lukala, and then advanced to the east. On Friday, December 25th, 1590, when at Ngwalema a kitambu (Anguolome aquitambo) in Ari,[413] he found himself face to face with the King of Matamba, whose army had been reinforced by Ngola, the King of Kongo, the Jaga Kinda,[414] and others. Serro desired to retire before this overwhelming host, but his subordinate officers, Andre Ferreira Pereira and Francisco de Sequeira, persuaded him to attack the enemy. He did so, on Monday, December 28th, 1590, and was defeated. The retreat was effected in good order. The vanguard of forty musketeers was led by Joo de Velloria, then came the "guerra preta," whilst Serro himself commanded the rear, and fought almost daily with his pursuers.

The camp at Lukanza, with its valuable contents, had to be abandoned. At length, on reaching Akimbolo,[415] many leagues to the rear, the fugitives met Luiz Mendez Rapozo, who had come up from Luandu with seventy-eight men. At last they reached the old presidio of Mbamba Tungu and Masanganu; Manuel Jorge d'Oliveira was at once sent down to Luandu for reinforcements, and on their arrival the siege was raised. L. Serro survived this disaster only for a month; and when he died, his officers elected Luiz Ferreira Pereira, the captain-major, to take his place. The sobas all around, and in Lamba and Ngulungu, headed by one Muzi Zemba (Muge Asemba), were in the field, but they were held in check by Pereira, and the Portuguese name continued to be respected.

THE JAGA.

Jaga or Jaka is a military t.i.tle,[416] and by no means the name of a people. The predatory man-eating bands at whose head they invaded the agricultural districts towards the sea coast, included elements of all kinds, not unlike the bands of the "Zulu" of our own time; and hence, one of the names by which they became known in Angola was Bangala.[417]

I have already stated that I do not think that these military leaders, or Jaga, have anything to do with the tribe of the Ayaka to the east of Kongo. Still less can we adopt the monstrous notion that the various inland tribes who, in the course of the sixteenth century, descended upon the coast of the most opposite parts of Africa, are to be identified with our Jaga. It was Joo Bermudes[418] who first identified the Galla of Abyssinia with the Sumba, who raided the coast of Guinea about 1570. Duarte Lopez (pp. 66, 67) would have us believe that the Jaga came out of Moenemuge (Mwene muji), and called themselves Agag.[419] But the people of Mwene muji, or the land of the Maravi, are in reality the Zimbas, who raided Kilwa and Mombasa in 1589, whilst "Agag" looks to me like a corruption of Agau, which is the name of an Abyssinian tribe.[420] And hence arises this absurd confusion of Father Guerreiro, who expects us to believe that the Jaga are known in Kongo as Iacas, in Angola as Gindes,[421] in "India" (that is, on the East coast of Africa) as Zimbas, in Prester John's country as Gallas, and in Sierra Leone as Sumbas! Battell, who reports facts and leaves hypotheses alone, confesses that in his day nothing was known about the origin of this dreaded people.[422]

We have already met with Jaga in Kongo, as allies of Ngola. In 1590 they were fighting Luiz Serro as the allies of Matamba, and by 1600 they appear to have advanced as far as the coast of Benguella, where Battell joined them, and had an opportunity of gaining an intimate knowledge of their daily life, not enjoyed by any other traveller. H. D. de Carvalho[423] and A. R. Neves[424] have been at the trouble of collecting such information on their origin as it is possible to gather after the lapse of three centuries. Entrusting ourselves to the guidance of the former of these authors, we learn that Kinguri, the son of the chief of the Bungo, in Lunda, was excluded by his father from the succession, in favour of his sister Lueji. Gathering around him his adherents, he left his native land to found a "state" elsewhere. He first settled in Kioko, then crossed the Upper Kwanza into Kimbundu (Binbundu of Bie), and reached Lubolo, where he made friends with the chief, Ngongo, whose daughter Kulachinga he married. He then crossed the Kwanza above Kambambe, entered into friendly relations with the Portuguese, visited the Governor, D. Manuel,[425] and offered to fight on the side of the Portuguese. He was granted land at Lukamba,[426] on the river Kamueji. Being dissatisfied with this land, on account of its sterility, he again turned to the eastward, and, crossing the Lui, finally settled in the country still occupied by his successors, who (according to Carvalho), were Kasanje, Ngonga ka mbanda, Kalunga ka kilombo, Kasanje ka Kulachinga, etc.[427] Having settled down, Kinguri invited his father-in-law to join him, and his forces were subsequently increased by some discontented subjects of Queen Nzinga, led by Kalungu.