2
THE DIOCESE OF SÃO SALVADOR:
CONGO AND ANGOLA
2.2 First contacts with Angola
The Portuguese discovered the land of Angola, whose name derives from Ngola, the title of its king, at the time of their first explorations. In 1520 King Manuel I of Portugal told his officials to take a priest to Angola in the hope of converting the Ngola. In 1529 King João III made the same proposal.[1] The matter was dropped until 1557 when the Ngola’s ambassadors, who were delayed a few years on São Tomé because King Diogo of Congo demanded a monopoly of the mainland trade with São Tomé, were finally allowed to go to Portugal and ask for missionaries. Queen Caterina and Cardinal Henrique received them and sent back with them a diplomatic mission together with four Jesuits.
When the mission arrived in 1560 the former Ngola had died and a new one took his place who was not favourable to the missionaries. Six months after landing and after the death of one of the Jesuits the remaining missionaries and envoys were allowed to go to Cabaça, the capital of Ndongo, 500 kms up the Cuanza river. They were allowed to open a school for 30 students, but gradually all their possessions were taken from them and the school was closed. The Ngola then sent most of the Portuguese away but held Fr. Francisco de Gouveia, Bro. António Mendes and the Portuguese ambassador Paulo Dias de Novais as hostages. In 1562 after eleven months captivity António Mendes was allowed to go. He blamed King Bernardo of Congo for telling the Ngola that the Portuguese had come only for gold. Paulo Dias was released in 1565, but Francisco de Gouveia was held until his death in 1575.
In 1563 Francisco de Gouveia wrote advocating conquering Angola to open it up for evangelization.[2] But a letter of his in 1565 was more hopeful for a peaceful introduction of the Gospel.[3] Nevertheless Fr. Mauricio Serpe SJ wrote from Portugal in 1568 to the Jesuit General once more advocating the conquest of Angola.[4] In 1571 King Sebastião of Portugal gave Paulo Dias de Novais authorization to conquer the territory between the Dange and Cuanza rivers. A fleet accompanied by four Jesuits landed on Luanda island in 1575.
The occupation of the coast took place without conflict with the ruling Ngola, but some months after arriving Fr. Garcia Simões SJ wrote that King Álvaro I of Congo was colluding with the Ngola against the Portuguese, and added that “almost all hold for certain that the conversion of these barbarians will not be accomplished by love unless they are first subjected by arms as vassals to the King [of Portugal].” [5] After another year’s seasoning and two years before his premature death the same Jesuit was writing that the colonial government was fatal for evangelization, that the Portuguese were becoming more violent and in one year they had killed 4,000 and enslaved 14,000.[6] Before the Angolan adventure the Portuguese only dabbled in the slavery business, buying for their labour requirements common criminals or prisoners of war already enslaved by African chiefs or kings, in spite of the fact that in 1462 Pius II had condemned the West African slave trade.[7] In Angola the Portuguese not only bought slaves but also made war and captured their own slaves on a vast scale and turned them into an international medium of exchange, since the property of Portuguese who died in Angola was sold for slaves who were then sent to Brazil to be resold as compensation for the heirs.[8]
In spite of this obstacle the Jesuits made considerable progress in evangelizing the people along the coast. The Jesuit newcomers naively allied themselves with Paulo Dias in his policy of military expansion inland beginning in 1580. The Jesuits saw victory in war as a means of removing obstacles to conversion,[9] but Paulo Dias, while happy with the salt mines and countless slaves he captured during 1583, had his sights set on the “mountain of silver” at the Cambambe mines.[10] Initially the Jesuits followed up the military victories by making many conversions, but they learned at times of Portuguese reverses that their converts, while still Christian, preferred to obey their own king rather than foreigners.[11] In 1584 the Ngola sent word that he was prepared to become a Christian and give up half his kingdom. Paulo Dias answered that he was welcome to become a Christian but he must give up his whole kingdom.[12] The next year Paulo Dias took the silver mines of Cambambe and the Ngola abandoned his capital of Cabaça, retreating further inland.[13] In 1586 Baltasar Barreira SJ reported that conversions that year were few because of the fighting, but the Jesuit report for 1588 still upheld the policy of conquest before evangelization.[14]