#FairCommodities: De la ville Jérémieh Matadi Foundation - Congo Kinshasa RDC

Fair Commodities: De la ville Jérémieh Matadi Foundation - Congo Kinshasa RDC Mbenza & Schneeweiss Holding AB/LLC International Import & Export Commercial - Congo America Suede Matadi, Solna Contact & Information Center: Tel+243855736604 Tel+46841009493 #TheOopacabanaOrchestra #GreenDonkeyCooperations #FairCommodities www.msholding.co www.nordicnewscenter.co www.nsumbumbenza.co www.greendonkey.co CONGO DRC - MATADI BAKONGO CENTRAL PRONUNCIATION: buh-KAHN-go ALTERNATE NAMES: Kongo LOCATION: Congo River region (Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Republic of the Congo) POPULATION: 3.3 million LANGUAGE: Kikongo RELIGION: Christianity; Kimbanguism; indigenous beliefs 1 • INTRODUCTION The solidarity of the Bakongo people has a long history based on the splendor of the ancient Kongo kingdom and the cultural unity of the Kikongo language. Founded in the fifteenth century AD , the kingdom was discovered by Portuguese explorer Diego Cao when he landed at the mouth of the Congo River in 1484. As trade developed with the Portuguese, Mbanza Bata, located south of the Congo, became the capital (later known as San Salvador). Portuguese missionaries baptized King Nzinga Mbemba (?–1550), who adopted the Christian name Afonso I. Within a few years, the kingdom was exchanging ambassadors with Portugal and the Vatican. By the end of the sixteenth century, the Kongo kingdom had virtually ceased to exist. Invasions by neighboring groups from the east severely weakened it, and it became controlled by Portugal. In the seventeenth century, British, Dutch, and French slave ships reportedly carried 13 million persons from the Kongo kingdom to the New World. Ironically, the king and his subjects profited financially from the trade as their kingdom crumbled beneath them. In 1884–85 at the Conference of Berlin, the European powers divided the kingdom among the French, Belgian, and Portuguese. By the end of the nineteenth century, little remained of the once great Kongo civilization. The twentieth century has seen a rebirth of Kongo nationalism and culture. The Kimbanguist religious movement gained a strong following in the 1920s and became a springboard for anticolonial sentiment. European historians and missionaries, including Georges Balandier and Father Van Wing also helped by uncovering the glorious past of the kingdom. Their enthusiasm inspired Bakongo intellectuals in the Belgian Congo to demand immediate independence in 1956. They founded a political party, whose candidates won the vast majority of municipal seats in 1959, leading to the election of President Joseph Kasavubu (1910–69), a Mukongo, as the Congo's first president. While Kongo secessionist movements have come and gone, currently a group of fundamentalists is trying to gain independence for the Bakongo, and wants to establish a Kongo federal state composed of five provinces. It would bring together Bakongo living in the southern Congo, the Angolan enclave of Cabinda, the lower province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo-Kinshasa, formerly Zaire), and northern Angola. Its name would be Kongo Dia Ntotela (the United States of the Kongo). 2 • LOCATION The Bakongo are a blend of peoples who assimilated the Kongo culture and language over time. The kingdom consisted of some thirty groups at its beginning. Its original inhabitants occupied a narrow corridor south of the Congo River from present-day Kinshasa to the port city of Matadi in the lower Congo. Through conflict, conquest, and treaties, they came to dominate neighboring tribes, including the Bambata, the Mayumbe, the Basolongo, the Kakongo, the Basundi, and the Babuende. These peoples gradually adopted the Bakongo culture and through intermarriage blended completely with the Bakongo. The Kongo kingdom once covered about 116 square miles (300 square kilometers). Its boundaries extended as far as the Nkisi River to the east, the Dande River to the south, the Congo (Zaire) River to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The greater kingdom of the sixteenth century extended another 62 miles (100 kilometers) east to the Kwango River and 124 miles (200 kilometers) further north to the Kwilu River. Today, the Bakongo peoples still live in their ancestral homeland. It is quite mountainous and has a dry season lasting from May to August or September. Of the three ecological zones to the south of the Congo River, the hilly middle zone receives the most annual rainfall (55 inches/140 centimeters) and has relatively fertile soils and moderately warm temperatures. Consequently, it is more densely populated than the dry, sandy coastal region and the infertile arid plateau to the east. There are about 1.6 million Bakongo living in Angola, 1.1 million in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), and 600,000 in the Republic of the Congo, where they are the largest ethnic group. In Angola, they are the third-largest group, making up 14 percent of the population.