Kingdom of Kongo: The African Nation That Wrote to the Vatican

The Kingdom of Kongo was one of Central Africa's most powerful states, and this documentary traces its extraordinary two-hundred-year relationship with Portugal and the Vatican, from a king's voluntary conversion to Christianity in 1491 to the Battle of Mbwila in 1665. Kongo's King Afonso I wrote letters directly to the King of Portugal demanding an end to the trafficking of his own people, and in 1604, King Álvaro II sent his own cousin, Antonio Manuel Ne Vunda, on a three-year journey to become the first African ambassador ever received by the Pope. This is the true history of the Kingdom of Kongo's diplomacy, its faith, and its fall. TerraVox is about African history — the empires, the kingdoms, the uprisings most people never got taught. We stick to what actually happened and let it speak for itself. | Episode 18 Subscribe and turn on your notifications for the next episode — A NOTE ON THIS VIDEO — This channel is built on real, verified research, but no single video can hold the full complexity of any history. Some details are necessarily condensed to fit the format. Treat this as a starting point, not the final word — if something here grips you, go dig further. That's the whole point. SOURCES AND FURTHER READING Thornton, John K. (1984) — The Development of an African Catholic Church in the Kingdom of Kongo, 1491–1750. The Journal of African History, 25(2), 147–167. Thornton, John (2021) — Revising the Population History of the Kingdom of Kongo. The Journal of African History, 62(2), 201–212. Heywood, Linda M. (2009) — Slavery and Its Transformation in the Kingdom of Kongo, 1491–1800. The Journal of African History. Martínez Ferrer, Luis and Nocca, Marco (2003) — "Coisas do outro mundo": A missão em Roma de António Manuel, Príncipe de N'Funta, conhecido por "o Negrita" (1604–1608), na Roma de Paulo V. Vatican City. Davidson, Basil (1964) — The African Past: Chronicles from Antiquity to Modern Times. London: Longmans, Green and Co.