African Kingdoms

Olamba / Glasstown (Orungu Clan State) (Gabon)

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The Bantu people of Africa originated in West Africa, before migrating across sub-Saharan Africa and 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 tribal state of Olamba apparently was founded by an Orungu clan, 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. Today that state's chief settlement is the town of Olamba. It sits just to the south of the River Ogooué and to the south-east of Port Gentil in Gabon.

The state of Olamba had a brief and relatively undocumented existence between about 1839-1847. American Protestant missionary activity inspired the French in 1842-1844 to undertake similar missionary engagement, as well as to build fortifications in the area. The town of Casetown, or Tom Case's, was united with 'Glasstown' or Olamba, in 1847. Olamba's rulers had the title aguekaza, and a few individuals claimed the title after the state had ceased to exist. Their dates are generally unknown.

(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), and 101 Last Tribes.)

c.1839 - 1848

King of the Agekaza-Glass. Acknowledged French rule.

1842 - 1844

American Protestant missionaries arrive in the lands of 'King Glass' (R'Ogouarowe) on the northern bank of the River Ogooué, where American, German, and British activity in the area is most heavily concentrated.

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

This move prompts the French to build a fort in King Louis' territory in 1843 and to send Catholic Church missionaries in 1844 to introduce French culture and religion to the Mpongwe who are currently suffering great numbers of casualties to European-introduced smallpox and other diseases.

King Glass acknowledges French sovereignty, even though he is not a king as such, more a member of the Agwèsônô clan and the most powerful merchant of the Mpongwe. Certain power comes with such status.

1848 - ?

Status and relationship unknown.

?

Status and relationship unknown. Founder of Casetown.

?

Status and relationship unknown. Founder of Glasstown.

by 1884

Smallpox has hit the Mpongwe population and has ravaged it, destroying its numbers. By this stage in the nineteenth century only about three thousand of them remain alive. By the end of the century the Agekaza clan has absorbed many other Mpongwe clans, especially those which have been drastically weakened by smallpox.

Bouit Willaumez arrived in Gabon in 1839, soon being instructed to carry out a punitive action following the looting of two French ships on the northern Gabon coast, which he did at the village of Re-Ntchindo (known as Kringer, now Battery IV), thereby precipitating French occupation