African Kingdoms

Mbata (Bantu Clan State) (Africa)

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The pre-history of Africa contains a far longer period of human habitation than any other area on Earth, thanks to it being the cradle of humankind's evolution. Central Africa was poorly defined as a region until the creation of colonial-era territories in the eighteenth century. Before that at least parts of it appear to have been virgin territory, with no recent occupation.

The Bantu people originated in West Africa before they migrated across sub-Saharan Africa, generally helping to spread the African Neolithic as they went. The Bantu languages come from a proto-Bantu language which was spoken in the area of today's Cameroon. They are part of the Niger-Congo language family which forms the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid group of languages.

A collection of sultanates emerged across the area which today is partially covered by Central African Republic (or CAR) and to its north. To the south of that region, situated in the lower Congo and today's northern Angola, the Kongo kingdom was founded in the fourteenth century out of several established Bantu clan states.

Its original home lies somewhere in the region along the lower stretches of the River Congo. According to a study of Kongo's traditions by John Thornton, the kingdom's origin was in the small state of Mpemba Kasi, located just south of today's Matadi in Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A dynasty of rulers from this tribal state built up their rule along the Kwilu valley, and were buried in Nsi Kwilu, which was apparently their early capital. The Mbata army was claimed as being powerful, at least regionally so, and so much so that it formed the heart of the later Kongo kingdom's early army. As a result, Mbata itself retained a privileged position within the new state.

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(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Elite Women in the Kingdom of Kongo: Historical Perspectives on Women's Political Power, John Thornton (Journal of African History 47, 2006), from Mbanza Kongo/Sao Salvador: Kongo's Holy City, John Thornton, from Urban Africa; Histories in the Making (Africa's Urban Past), David M Anderson & Richard Rathbone (Eds), from Africana: The Encyclopaedia of the African and African American Experience, Anthony Appiah & Henry Louis Gates (Oxford University Press, 2005), from The New Atlas of African History, G S P Freeman-Grenville (Rex Collins, London, 1991), from Kongo's Incorporation into Angola: A Perspective from Kongo, John Thornton, from Times Atlas of World History (Maplewood, 1979), and from External Link: Encyclopaedia Britannica.)

fl c.1350s

Preceding unknown rulers of this tribal state.

fl c.1375

Ruler of Mbata. United to create Kongo kingdom.

c.1375

Nsaku Lau is recorded by oral tradition as the last independent ruler of the Mbata clan state. Around this time he enters into an alliance with the ruler of the neighbouring Mpemba Kasi state to create a bigger, combined state.

The Kongo kingdom had its early tribal origins in the lower stretches of the River Congo, but today the river forms much of the border between Republic of the Congo to its west and Democratic Republic of the Congo to its east

The alliance is sealed by Nimi a Nzima of Mpemba Kasi marrying Lukeni Lua Sange, the daughter of Nsaku Lau. Dates for either ruler are unknown, but general calculations place them here, at the start of the new Kongo kingdom.