African Kingdoms

Orungu / Orongous (Clan State) (Western Bantu) (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. Much of this pre-history involves a great deal of uncertainty in which small windows of opportunity to view events can be gained through archaeology. Even more recent prehistory is shrouded in uncertainty, requiring analysis and archaeology to help define it.

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.

The Orungu are a Myèné-speaking Western Bantu tribe in the area of Cape Lopez and the mouths of the River Ogooué in modern Gabon in Central Africa. The Orungu formed a kingdom of the same name before AD 1700, the only important state in the region which would come to be called Gabon.

Myèné-speaking Western Bantu arrived in what is now Gabon in the thirteenth century where they largely replaced or absorbed the Pygmy who lived there. The Western Bantu originally formed a large number of very minor tribes, including the Orungu, and states with very fragmentary records.

According to a Mpongwe tradition, when the Asiga clan of the Mpongwe arrived in the region of the Gabon estuary their leader, Re-Ntori, skilfully negotiated an alliance with the Orungu. Demand from Brazil and Cuba caused the slave trade to swell between the 1760s and 1840s. Interior peoples in modern Gabon sent undesirable members or captives to slavery in return for payment or trade. Around this time, the Orungu clans formed a kingdom in order to assert their own control over the slave trade.

Rulers used the style agamwinboni, effectively with the same meaning as 'king'. Orungu became a French protectorate in 1873 and later part of French Gabon. In 1927 the French colonial government in Gabon as part of 'French Equatorial Africa' decided to extinguish the kingdom.

(Information by John De Cleene and the John De Cleene Archive, with additional information from Encyclopaedia Britannica (Eleventh Edition, Cambridge (England), 1910), and from External Links: Gabon (ChiefaCoins.com), and Gabon (Rulers.org), and Gabon (World Statesmen), and History of Gabon (Encyclopaedia Britannica), and Mpongwe Origins (Cambridge University Press), and The Settlement of the Mpongwe clans in the Gabon Estuary, Henry H Bucher Jr (Persée).)

AD 1200s

Myèné-speaking Western Bantu arrive in what is now Gabon where they largely replace or absorb the Pygmy who live there. The Western Bantu spread out to form a large number of very minor tribes, which includes amongst their number the Orungu, along with some states which have very fragmentary records.

before 1700

The Orungu form the only important kingdom in what is now Gabon. Rulers use the style agamwinboni, meaning 'king'. By 1790 the Abulia dynasty has managed to establish itself as rulers of the Orungu kingdom.

Bantu speakers entered southern Uganda probably by the end of the first millennium AD where they developed centralised kingdoms by the fifteenth or sixteenth century

c. 1700 - c.1730

Abulia dynasty agamwinboni of the Orungu.

1722

The Welsh pirate, Bartholomew Roberts (known as Black Bart), dies off the coast of Cape Lopez. He has spent the years 1719-1722 making a living by raiding ships which have been sailing in American and West African waters.

c.1730 - ?

Agamwinboni (king).

? - c.1750

Agamwinboni (king).

c.1750

Agamwinboni (king).

c.1750 - 1790

Agamwinboni (king).

1760s - 1840s

Demand from Brazil and Cuba causes the slave trade to swell. Interior peoples in modern Gabon send undesirable members or captives to slavery. Orungu takes advantage of its location to assert control over the local slave trade.

A forest village in Gabon in the nineteenth century, drawing of Thérond from a photograph taken by Houzé de l'Aulnoit, with the engraving being published in Le Tour du Monde, 1865

1790

Agamwinboni (king).

1803 - 1840

Agamwinboni (king).

1839

Now building a sizable colonial interest in Africa, France takes control in the Gabon estuary. The first transfer to France of sovereignty from local Mpongwe authorities occurs in 1839.

c.1840 - 1860

Agamwinboni (king).

c.1860 - 1865

Agamwinboni (king).

c.1865 - 1882

Agamwinboni (king).

1873

The kingdom has suffered a period of decline due to the ending of the slave trade by the European colonial powers in Africa. Ntchengue, agamwinboni of Orungu, enters into a treaty which makes his state a French protectorate which the French know as 'Orongous'.

British and French colonial forces remained relatively insubstantial but enourmously influential in Central Africa until well after the end of the Second World War, with British and Free French troops pictured here in 1941

1882 - ?

Agamwinboni (king).

? - 1927

Agamwinboni (king). Deposed.

1927

The French colonial government in Gabon which is part of 'French Equatorial Africa' extinguishes the kingdom of Orungu. Following this act the hereditary monarchy suffers the problem of not one but two pretenders. No dates are known for either of them, and the first even remains nameless as far as the historical record is concerned.

?

Pretender. Name and dates unknown.

2016 - On

Pretender.

2016