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The Battle of Mbumbi in 1622 marked an important turning point in the relationship between Portugal and the Kingdom of Kongo. This battle, usually viewed by existing historiography as a decisive defeat for Kongo, represented the first time that main-force Kongo armies met those of Portugal in battle.1 A newly discovered document revises our understanding of the Battle of Mbumbi by revealing a second battle, probably waged near a place called Mbanda Kasi, that was a decisive Kongo victory. This Dutch States General document also helps to contextualize Kongo's larger place in the Thirty Years' War in the Atlantic and the Dutch invasion of Angola in 1641. The early decades of the seventeenth century are poorly documented in this region, coming just before the very well-documented period of the governor Fernão de Sousa, and as a consequence even a single, short document can completely reverse our understanding of this crucial period.
Most accounts of the Atlantic wing of the Thirty Years' War stress Dutch initiative in invading Angola in 1641, usually seen as a natural outgrowth of their campaign in Brazil (from 1630 onwards) and their desire to cut off the slave trade of Angola and divert it to their holdings in Pernambuco. While there is little question that a concern about obtaining slaves for Pernambuco was important, the attack was only possible thanks to the Dutch alliance with Kongo. This alliance, as the new document reveals, dated from a proposal on the part of Kongo's king, Pedro II (1622-4), to the Dutch States General to form a joint land-sea invasion of Angola, and was on Kongo's initiative as a result of their break with Portugal following the Battle of Mbumbi.
DEEPER BACKGROUND: KONGO AND PORTUGAL
The relationship between Kongo and Portugal was first formed when Portuguese sailors under Diogo Cão arrived at the mouth of the Congo River in 1483 and set in motion a long - and at times fruitful - alliance with Nzinga Nkuwu, the king of Kongo. In its earliest stages, Nzinga Nkuwu accepted baptism, taking the name of João I, and initiated a relationship that involved a substantial attempt by Portugal to build a model Christian kingdom in Kongo. Although Portugal's rather grandiose...