Battle of Mbwila

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At the Battle of Mbwila (or Battle of Ambuila or Battle of Ulanga) on October 29, 1665, Portuguese forces defeated the forces of the Kingdom of Kongo and decapitated king Antonio I of Kongo, also called Nvita a Nkanga.

[edit] Origins of the War

Although Kongo and Portugal had been trading partners and participated in a culural exchange during the sixteenth century, the establishment of the Portuguese colony in Angola in 1575 put pressure on that relationship. Kongo initially assisted Portugal in Angola, sending an army to rescue the Portuguese governor Paulo Dias de Novais when his war against the nearby African kingdom of Ndongo failed in 1579. But subsequently as Portugal became stronger it began to press harder, and in 1622 severed even the cautiously friendly relationship of the earlier period when a large Portuguses army invaded southern Kongo and defeated the local forces. Pedro II, king of Kongo at the time formed an alliance with the Dutch to drive the Portuguese out of Angola. This alliance did not finally come to fruition until 1641 when combined Dutch and Kongolese forces took Luanda and forced the Portuguese to withdraw into the interior. However, they were not able to finish the Portuguese and as a result the Portuguese eventually restored the colony in 1648.

In the years following the Dutch attack, Angolan governors sought to obtain revenge against Kongo and to support the slave trade with a highly aggressive policy. Included in this policy were attacks on the zone of small, semi-independent states called Dembos that separated Angola for Kongo. Both Kongo and Angola claimed authority of the Dembos. In 1665, one of these small kingdoms, Mbwila, underwent a succession struggle and the various factions appealed to Kongo and Angola for aid. Both sides responded with armies.

[edit] The Battle

The Portuguese force, commanded byr Luis Lopes de Sequeira, a soldier of mixed Portuguese and African parentage, were centered on a group of 450 musketeers and two light artillery pieces, forces from Brazil including those of African and Native American origin, as well as Imbangala and African forces numbering about 15,000. The Kongo army included a large number of peasant archers, probably about 15,000, some 5,000 heavy infantry equipped with shields and swords, and a musket regiment of 380 men, 29 of them Portuguese led by Pedro Dias de Cabral, who was also of mixed Portuguese-African heritage.

Both armies were operating at some distance from their main bases and had marched for days to reach the battlefield, along the valley of the Ulanga River just south of the capital of Mbwila. Steep hills and the river defined the east side of the battlefield, and lower ridges the west. The Portuguese forces took up positions between the two, with their African forces deployed on the flanks and the musketeers forming a diamond shaped formation in the center, anchored by their artillery. The Imbangala forces were held in reserve.

Antonio's army advanced into the Portuguese formation with a vanguard, followed by three divisions of his heavy infantry and the archers on the flanks. The Duke of Bengo commanded the reserve. In the initial stages of the battle, the Kongolese archers swept most of the African archers of the Portuguese forces from the field and then launched attacks against the Portuguese musketeers with their own heavy infantry with the musketeers in support. In spite of heavy fighting, the Kongolese were unable to break the Portuguese formation and Antonio was killed in the final attempt. Most of the Kongo forces broke following the king's death, and the survivors were only able to withdraw thanks to skillful rearguard action by the Duke of Bengo and the reserves.

More than 400 of Kongo's heavy infantry were killed in the encounter and many more of the archers. Along with these losses was royal chaplain, the mixed race Capuchin priest Francisco de São Salvador (Manuel Robrerdo in secular life). King Antonio's young son of seven years was captured. After the battle, the head of the king or Manikongo was buried with ceremony by the Portuguese in chapel of Our Lady of Nazareth situated on the Bay of Luanda, and the crown and scepter of Kongo were sent to Lisbon as trophies.

Portugal obtained an act of vassalage from D. Izabel, the regent of Mbwila but was unable to exercise any real authority over the region once their forces had withdrawn. In 1693 they had to return to attempt to subdue the region again. The primary result in Kongo was that the absence of an immediate heir spun the country into a civil war. This civil war, which would rage for half a century led to its decentralization and fundamental change, which is why Kongolese historians, even in 1700 regarded the battle as a decisive turning point in their country's history.