João I of Kongo (died 1506), alias Nzinga a Nkuwu or Nkuwu Nzinga, was ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo between 1470–1506. He was baptized as João in 3 May 1491 by Portuguese missionaries
King Nzinga a Nkuwu was the fourth or fifth ruler of Kongo.[1] He was married to Queen Nzinga a Nlaza, a first cousin.[2] She had a son by the king named Nzinga Mbemba. She would later help him become king of Kongo after her husband's death.[2] Under the reign of Nzinga a Nkuwu, Kongo had grown to 100,000 square kilometres and contained a very centralised government
In 1483, a Portuguese caravel captained by Diogo Cão reached the estuary of the Congo River and made contact with subjects of the king.[4] Cão sailed back to Portugal carrying a party of Kongo emissaries. On arrival in Lisbon, the emissaries were baptized and placed in a monastery before returning to the king in 1491.[5]
Along with the emissaries came Portuguese priests, masons, carpenters and soldiers plus European goods.[5] The ships anchored at Mpinda and after a brief halt to baptise the governor of Soyo, uncle to the manikongo, the procession went on to the capital where they were greeted by the king and 5 of his leading nobles
On 3 May 1491, the king of Kongo was baptised along with his family.[6] Initially, only the king and his nobles were to be converted, but the queen demanded to be baptised.[2] Kongo's royal family took the names of their Portuguese counterparts, thus João, Eleanor (or Leanor in some instances) and Afonso.[7] A thousand subjects were detailed to help the Portuguese carpenters build a church, meanwhile the Portuguese soldiers accompanied the king in a campaign to defend the province of Nsundi from BaTeke raiders.[6] The European firearms were decisive in the victory and many captives were taken
Most of the Portuguese later departed with slaves and ivory while leaving behind priests and craftsmen.[6] After this cultural honeymoon, the king's profession of the Catholic faith proved short lived.[6] His life ended in 1506. He was succeeded by his son via the Queen, Afonso
King Alvaro II of Kongo with Dutch Ambassadors
Álvaro II Nimi a Nkanga was king of Kongo from 1587 to 1614. He was one of Kongo's most powerful and important kings, who succeeded his father Álvaro I, but not until resolving a dispute with his brother. Both sides brought armies to São Salvador but to avoid bloodshed they agreed to single combat, won by Álvaro.
Álvaro faced serious problems with other nobles besides his brother, and in 1590-91 was racked by a serious, though poorly documented, civil war. In order to reestablish his authority, Álvaro had to accept the virtual independence of Miguel, the count of Soyo. In order to recognize those nobles who had been loyal to him during this struggle, Álvaro began granting habits of the Order of Christ to his followers. Although the Portuguese crown complained to the Pope about this, claiming that the King of Portugal, as Grand Master of the Order was the only one to grant such habits, in fact, Kongo kings would establish this order (see Order of Christ (Kongo Empire)) and continued to knight their followers in it right through the nineteenth century.
During Álvaro's reign, the capital city, São Salvador was recognized as the capital of the diocese of then Portuguese Congo and Angola, and the first bishop was appointed, in 1596. However, because the kings of Portugal claimed the right of Padroado (patronage), they chose their own bishop. Constant struggles between the king and the bishop followed.
Kongo's relations with Portuguese Angola worsened during Álvaro's reign, and he complained bitterly about the behaviour of the governors to the King of Spain (then also ruling Portugal during the period of the Iberian Union).
In 1604–1608, Alvaro II sent an ambassador to Pope Paul V in the person of Emanuele Ne Vunda
King of Kongo Manuel Alfonso Nzinga
Manuel Afonso Nzinga a Nlenke was a ruler of Kibangu and was one of the two main Kinlaza claimants to the throne of the Kingdom of Kongo during its civil war, the other being the King of Lemba. He ruled the Kingdom of Kibangu from 1685 to 1688.[1]
When Manuel Afonso ascended to the throne of Kibangu, there were those who were opposed to his claim to the Kingdom of Kongo, and an internal struggle for the throne of Kibangu began. The leaders of those against Manuel Afonso's rule were two brothers of the Água Rosada house, the product of one Kinlaza parent, and one Kimpanzu parent. The brothers' faction was eventually successful in 1688, and the older of the two, Álvaro, gained the throne of Kibangu
Mani Mondaba Queen of Kongo
Queen Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba
Queen Nzinga meeting with Portuguese governor Joao De Souza
Queen Anne Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba
Queen Nzinga (Nzinga Mbande), the monarch of the Mbundu people, was a resilient leader who fought against the Portuguese and their expanding slave trade in Central Africa.
During the late 16th Century, the French and the English threatened the Portuguese near monopoly on the sources of slaves along the West African coast, forcing it to seek new areas for exploitation. By 1580 they had already established a trading relationship with Afonso I in the nearby Kongo Kingdom. They then turned to Angola, south of the Kongo.
The Portuguese established a fort and settlement at Luanda in 1617, encroaching on Mbundu land. In 1622 they invited Ngola (King) Mbande to attend a peace conference there to end the hostilities with the Mbundu. Mbande sent his sister, Nzinga, to represent him in a meeting with Portuguese Governor Joao Corria de Sousa. Nzinga was aware of her diplomatically awkward position. She knew of events in the Kongo which had led to Portuguese domination of the nominally independent nation. She also recognized, however, that to refuse to trade with the Portuguese would remove a potential ally and the major source of guns for her own state.
In the first of a series of meetings Nzinga sought to establish her equality with the representative of the Portugal crown. Noting that the only chair in the room belonged to Governor Corria, she immediately motioned to one of her assistants who fell on her hands and knees and served as a chair for Nzinga for the rest of the meeting.
Despite that display, Nzinga made accommodations with the Portuguese. She converted to Christianity and adopted the name Dona Anna de Souza. She was baptized in honor of the governor's wife who also became her godmother. Shortly afterwards Nzinga urged a reluctant Ngola Mbande to order the conversion of his people to Christianity.
In 1626 Nzinga became Queen of the Mbundu when her brother committed suicide in the face of rising Portuguese demands for slave trade concessions. Nzinga, however, refused to allow them to control her nation. In 1627, after forming alliances with former rival states, she led her army against the Portuguese, initiating a thirty year war against them. She exploited European rivalry by forging an alliance with the Dutch who had conquered Luanda in 1641. With their help, Nzinga defeated a Portuguese army in 1647. When the Dutch were in turn defeated by the Portuguese the following year and withdrew from Central Africa, Nzinga continued her struggle against the Portuguese. Now in her 60s she still personally led troops in battle. She also orchestrated guerilla attacks on the Portuguese which would continue long after her death and inspire the ultimately successful 20th Century armed resistance against the Portuguese that resulted in independent Angola in 1975.
Despite repeated attempts by the Portuguese and their allies to capture or kill Queen Nzinga, she died peacefully in her eighties on December 17, 1663
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Kingdom of Kongo Ambassadors to the Papal state.
Kongo Ambassador to the Papacy Emanuele Ne Vunda
Emanuele Ne Vunda (died 1608), also Antonio Emanuele Ne Vunda, or Antonio Emmanuele Funta, was an ambassador from Congo, sent by the king of Congo Alvaro II to Pope Paul V in 1604–1608.[1] Ne-Vunda traveled through Brazil and Spain and only reached Rome on 3 January 1608, but he died two days later of illness.
A 1608–1609 bust of Ne-Vunda made in colored marble can be seen at Santa Maria Maggiore, by Francesco Caporale.[2]
A painting of Emanuele Ne Vunda is visible in the Sala dei Corazzieri, Palazzo del Quirinale in Rome, next to a painting depicting the 1615 embassy of Hasekura Tsunenaga from Japan
Ambassador Antonio Emanuele ne Vunda
Ambassador Antonio Emanuele Ne Vunda
Ambassador Emanuele Ne Vunda
Ambassador Emanuele Ne Vunda statue
ambassador don Antonio Manuel de Funta
Ambassador Dan Antonio Manuel De Funta
Kingdom of Kongo nobleman in Brazil don Miguel De Castro.
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mena7 - That is not really the Ambassador of Kongo. The Albino people use that to explain Blacks in Europe just like they sometimes identify the Black person as a Slave or a Servant.
Look at the picture, what about it, or the expressions or dress of the men, suggests that the Black man is a foreigner - NOTHING! If some lying Albino had not told you that the Black man did not belong, you would never know it by looking at the picture.
The fact is that the Black man looks like a lord and he is angry with the men behind him.
Also note that all the paintings are suppose to be of Antonio Emanuele Ne Vunda, yet they are all paintings of different men.
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Mike you are right the paintings and statues of the Kingdom of Kongo ambassador Antonio Emanuel Ne Vunda doesn't look like the same person. Maybe the European artists make a mistake, maybe they are the pictures of the European black nobility. I don't know, I have no choice but calling them Emanuele Ne Vunda ambassador of Kongo to the Papacy.
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Other Ambassadors to Pope Paul V. Pope Paul V
Pope Paul V (Latin: Paulus V; 17 September 1552 – 28 January 1621), born Camillo Borghese, was Pope from 16 May 1605 to his death in 1621
Japanese Ambassador to Pope Paul V Hasekura Tsunegaga
Japanese Ambassador Hasekura Tsunegaga to Pope Paul V
Hasekura Rokuemon Tsunenaga (or "Francisco Felipe Faxicura", as he was baptized in Spain) (1571–1622) (Japanese: 支倉六右衛門常長, also spelled Faxecura Rocuyemon in period European sources, reflecting the contemporary pronunciation of Japanese)[1] was a Japanese samurai and retainer of Date Masamune, the daimyo of Sendai.
In the years 1613 through 1620, Hasekura headed a diplomatic mission to the Vatican in Rome, traveling through New Spain (arriving in Acapulco and departing from Veracruz) and visiting various ports-of-call in Europe. This historic mission is called the Keichō Embassy (慶長使節), and follows the Tenshō embassy (天正使節) of 1582.[2] On the return trip, Hasekura and his companions re-traced their route across Mexico in 1619, sailing from Acapulco for Manila, and then sailing north to Japan in 1620.[3] He is conventionally considered the first Japanese ambassador in the Americas and in Europe.[4]
Although Hasekura's embassy was cordially received in Europe, it happened at a time when Japan was moving toward the suppression of Christianity. European monarchs such as the King of Spain thus refused the trade agreements Hasekura had been seeking. Hasekura returned to Japan in 1620 and died of illness a year later, his embassy seemingly ending with few results in an increasingly isolationist Japan.
Japan's next embassy to Europe would only occur more than 200 years later, following two centuries of isolation, with the "First Japanese Embassy to Europe" in 1862.
Japanese delegation
Ambassador Ne Vunta and Ambassador Tsunegaga
Safavid Persian Ambassador to the Papacy
Ottoman Turk ambassador to the Papacy
Emissaries of the Kingdom of Kongo to Brazil.
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quote:Originally posted by mena7: Mike you are right the paintings and statues of the Kingdom of Kongo ambassador Antonio Emanuel Ne Vunda doesn't look like the same person. Maybe the European artists make a mistake, maybe they are the pictures of the European black nobility. I don't know, I have no choice but calling them Emanuele Ne Vunda ambassador of Kongo to the Papacy.
Ndop were figurative sculptures representing different kings (nyim) of the Kuba kingdom. Although the sculptural genre appears naturalistic, ndop are not actual one-to-one representations of particular subjects, but rather a culmination of visual notations that represented the ideal characteristics of the deceased king. The reign of individual rulers are identified by a small emblem, called an ibol, at the base of the sculpture. Each ibol is rendered with a great degree of customization and personalization in an otherwise formal and naturalistic standardization.[1] Measuring about 48-55 centimeters in height, ndop were carved in hardwood and anointed with palm oil to protect them from insects, which is unique in African art and underscores their survival in Western collections today. Ndop sculptures depict subjects sitting cross-legged, a posture that is equally unique in African sculpture.
Ndop frequently portray the ruler carrying a weapon in his left hand, an ikul or peace knife, made in the style reserved for the Bushoong, the dominant sub-group of the Kuba. The wooden portraits were kept in the king's quarters with other sculptures referred to as 'royal charms', upon which the king's magical powers rested. When the king was absent from the capital, the ndop were rubbed with oil.
Ndop Kuba king Miko Mbul
Ndop Kuba king
Kuba/Cuba King
Japanese Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu seated in the same position as the Kuba kings with his sword.
The Teutonic cross is one of THE issues, because an African would not be allowed to wear it.
The ROYAL CORONET (the cap) and ROYAL INSIGNIA is another of THE issues, because an African wearing them would likely be executed.
mena this is disgusting. This is more than just talking in a forum..
what he is saying about Prince Nicolau and how Africans would be executed if the wore this cross in the picture is a LIE. It a LIE He has no source to back it up because he made it up.
Mike has a website and a lot of people read it everyday He is mis-educating black people and lying to us about African history. He is trying to say this is not an African prince it's a European prince.
Mike does more damage to African history than white racists to on their websites.
If you looked at a website run by the KKK you would know that if they spoke about history it would be distorted by their hatred of black people. Black people would know it would have lies in it right form the beginning.
But when they look at Mike's website it looks friendly to Black people. So when Mike LIES about AFRICAN HISTORY because he hates Africans and never to Africa, there Black people reading hiw website who don't know that and might believe some of these LIES and this stuff hurts African History
Mike is poison to African History. You need to do something about it and not just sit there. It's not just talk on a forum. He has a website and is acting like it's facts not just opinion articles.
If you look in a magazine the have a News section and they have another section called Opinion or Editorial, The News is supposed to be fact and the Opinion/Editorial section is supposed to be opinion.
Mike takes opinion and crazy hate African based history theories and and tries to make it seem like it's like fact in an encyclopedia. It hurts Africa
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Portuguese priest converting, brainwashing, enslaving the Kongolese King, noble and people to European version of Christianity. This is Africans greatest mistake converting to the European religion. Once you converted to their religion they owned you and will make you do every bad things in the name of God.
The Kongoleses of the Kingdom of Kongo should have known better. The kongolese should have copied the original Christianity of the Egyptian called Heru krast and created a modern African version of it. After that they should have gone in a mission to convert Africa, Asia, Europe, America to their version of Christianity. If the Kongoleses had done that The Kingdom of Kongo would have been one of the most powerful and richest country in the world today.
Kongolese being converted to Euro Christianity.
wolf in sheep clothing. First the Europeans came as peaceful traders and friends of the Kongoleses. Later they became the masters of the Kongolese servant Kings, serf nobles and enslaved people.
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My apologies to all who follow my work, I rushed through my analysis of this young prince. My errors, some are pretty silly, are as follows.
I assumed that only the British used CORONETS: (the style fit perfectly with the examples of British coronets that I found). Not so, the Holy Roman Empire used coronets too, they were called Adelskrone/Rangkrone.
Here is the worst one of my FPs.
I stupidly assumed that because the "Cross Pattee" was on all British Crowns, that it was a British icon.
Not so, it was actually first used in the domains of the Holy Roman Empire called "Tatzenkreuz": the most famous of which is "The Iron Cross" on the left below, and a closed variant on the right.
Note that they match the Black princes coronet perfectly.
In short: he was NOT a British prince, he was a Holy Roman Empire Prince!
Of course the Holy Roman Empire had no great dealings with the Kongo, so that premise is still just as ridiculous.Posts: 22721 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Mike111: A "REAL" African Prince, but I have no info. If anyone knows who this is, please post.
He's King Daudi Cwa II of Buganda, the biggest kingdom of the 5 that form present day Uganda.
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The Portuguese gave him those clothes, he was a collaborationist and introduced mass slavery in the zone, starting kidnapping the people of the neighbouring kingdoms to feed the hunger of slaves of the Portuguese.
quote:Originally posted by TheAfricaTNSY: The Portuguese gave him those clothes, he was a collaborationist and introduced mass slavery in the zone, starting kidnapping the people of the neighbouring kingdoms to feed the hunger of slaves of the Portuguese.
Thanks for the Info.
Really puts in perspective, How uncle toms have devastated The Continent .
Smile in there Face and they ready to kill there brothers for a cup of tea.
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Protest and Resistance in Angola and Brazil: Comparative Studies - Google Books Result books.google.com/books?isbn=0520018788 Ronald H. Chilcote - 1972 - 317 pages
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: when some research is done rather than making wild assumptions about clothing
I'm sorry liones, I missed the part where you proved that the picture was of Prince Nicolas of Kongo. Could you please go over that part again?
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Ya, that's really great research lioness. You found mention of a Prince Nicolas in a 1972 book about Africa and voila, you proved that the above picture of a Holy Roman Prince was in fact the African Prince Nicolas. Damn it you're a genius lioness.
And there I am, researching clothing, Jewelry, and every damn thing, trying to figure it out. When all I had to do was read the book and assume that the picture went with the book - silly me.
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PRINCE DOM NICOLAU OF KONGO:.ONE OF THE EARLIEST AFRICAN AND THE FIRST ANGOLAN RULER TO PROTEST AGAINST COLONIALISM
Dom Nicolau, prince of Kongo (Circa. 1830-1860) also known as Nicolau I Misaki mia Nimi is perhaps the earliest African leader who wrote publicly to protest colonial influences. Nicolau, or Nicolas, protested against Portuguese commercial and political activity and military expansion by publishing a letter in a Portuguese newspaper in Lisbon.
Prince Nicolau in his teens
In the history of Angolan resistance to Portuguese rule the traditional and most common form of protest has been armed rebellion. In the late nine- teenth century, however, new forms of protest appeared. African and mestigo assimilados (Angolans with varying degrees of Western education) began to express their protests in writing, both in letters to authorities and in colonial newspapers. Perhaps the earliest case of Angolan written protest came in 1859-1860 in the activities of a prince of the Kongo Kingdom, Nicolau de Agua Rosada de Sardonia. Nicolau, or Nicolas, protested against Portuguese commercial and political activity and military expansion by publishing a letter in a Portuguese newspaper in Lisbon. His written protest is the first case of Angolan written assertion against modern colonial influence and, therefore, represents an antecedent to later Angolan nationalism.
The life of Prince Nicolas is inextricably woven into the fabric of the fortunes of the Kingdom of Kongo and of Angola, a Portuguese colony to the south of the Congo River. By the time of Prince Nicolas' birth in the first third of the nineteenth century the Kingdom of Kongo had become a de facto, if not a de jure, colonial puppet of the government-general of Angola. Portuguese military and political expansion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which involved wars and slave-trading activities, as well as internecine warfare among the Kongo provinces, had effectively ruined the power and sovereignty of the Kongo kings. Although the Kongo Kingdom was not formally annexed to Angola until 1885, as the "District of Congo, " the kings of Kongo were dependent upon Luanda for supplies of food, wine, and arms, and for political support and Catholic priests long before. Moreover, the tradition that the Portuguese educated Kongo royal princes for the priesthood, in Luanda and in Lisbon, continued - albeit with some lapses - from the time of the original Bishop Henrique, son of Dom Affonso I (1508-1543?), through the lifetime of Nicolas.
The weakness and dependence of the Kongo Kingdom coincided with a colonial revival on the part of the Portuguese authorities in Angola. The official decree of 1836 abolishing the slave trade in Portuguese Africa was followed by a new colonial program which was designed to replace the slave trade revenue with legitimate trade profits; Portuguese commercial, political, and military expansion between 1845 and 1865 was thus an attempt to renovate the post-abolition economy of the territory. Part of the plan to increase the government revenue involved Portuguese expansion of customs house control north of Luanda. A number of active governors-general, beginning in 1842, sought to capture most of the coastal trade north of Luanda, including trade in the mouth of the Congo River, and thereby to gain profits for Portuguese merchants and customs revenue for the provincial government. The Kongo Kingdom, which was directly behind the coastal area of this coveted trade, was, by 1845, dominated mainly by British. and American merchants. The Portuguese plan was to renew long neglected relations with the Kongo Kingdom, to apply pressure, and then to control events on the coast from the interior of Kongo.
The Portuguese policy toward the Kongo Kingdom in the early nineteenth century had been characterized by indifference and neglect, but the new incentives reversed the trend. While a letter of 1814 from the King of Kongo to Luanda had met no response and elicited no aid, 4 similar plaintive letters in the 1840's met a new response from the Portuguese. In Lisbon Portuguese writers took a new interest in the Kongo Kingdom; between 1844 and 1846 Joaquim Lopes de Lima, a colonialista and writer, advocated expansion of Portuguese control in that kingdom. He noted in one newspaper article on the Kongo Kingdom that this subject was particularly timely as "Prince Nicholau of Congo" was then visiting Lisbon.
Nicolas' exact birth date remains uncertain. Contemporary engravings of Nicolas during his visit in Lisbon in 1845 suggest that he was then perhaps fifteen to twenty years of age .7 In any event, he was the son of King Henry II of Kongo, who ruled from 1842 to 1857. In early 1845 King Henry, from his capital at Sao Salvador, sent letters to the Governor of Angola expressing the desire to send Infante Dom Alvaro d'Agua Rosada e Sardonia, apparently the heir to the throne at that time, to Portugal to get an education. He was to be accompanied by an African priest, Dom Ant6nio Francisco das Necessidades. The Governor complied and sent Captain Antonio Joaquim de Castro to Kongo to accompany these men back to Luanda and thence to Portugal. The party was to be presented to the Queen of Portugal, Maria II (1843-1853). Instead of Dom Alvaro, however, Prince Dom Nicolau d'Agua Rosada de Sardonia came back with Castro and the African priest; there was no explanation for this change in the correspondence.
Nicolas left Luanda on the frigate Diana either in late August or early September 1845 and arrived at Lisbon on or about October 31st. Little is known about Nicolas' activities in Lisbon; how long he stayed or what he studied. It is clear, however, that he had an official reception with Queen Maria II, as there is an engraving, done by a contemporary Lisbon artist, of Nicolas in ceremonial robes worn at the royal reception. As of May 1846 Nicolas was reported to be in good health in Lisbon; several of the Prince's letters from Lisbon were received by his father at Sao Salvador in late August. Nicolas did not remain long in Portugal. Sometime between late 1846 and early 1848 he returned to Angola; the King of Kongo reported to the Governor-General in a letter of February 1848 that his son had returned safely to his capital.
The prince of Kongo was evidently anxious to continue his studies and to leave Kongo. He wrote letters to the Governor at Luanda expressing his desire to study in that city, to which the Governor replied in letters to Nicolas and to his father that the young man should remain in Kongo until the arrival of the Bishop of Angola at Luanda; until the new Bishop came with some "good teachers," he added, Nicolas would be wasting his time in Luanda. 13 Sometime between the time of this letter and late 1849 Nicolas did travel to Luanda and renewed his studies. In early 1850 he made a written appeal to the Governor for employment or for a small pension for subsistence to enable him to study Latin to become a Beneficio Ecclesiastico (assistant to a priest). The government in Lisbon recommended that Prince Nicolas be granted a small monthly pension by the Treasury Board until he could qualify as Beneficio.
Nicolas probably changed his mind about a career in the Church, for in 1850 he became a civil servant in the Portuguese government service in Luanda and remained in this position until 1857. By then Nicolas had lived over ten years in European society and had assimilated some European culture along with his ability to read, speak, and write Portuguese as well as some French. In short, Nicolas had what British Consul Gabriel described in 1859 as "a very liberal education."
Map of Kongo Alfredo de Sarmento, a contemporary Portuguese official and settler who knew him in Luanda suggests several reasons why Nicolas wished to leave the Kongo Kingdom: Nicolas was not eligible under the Kongo law to succeed to his father's throne; furthermore, "his experience with the Europeans did not permit him now to adapt himself to native customs [usos gentilicos]. He remained in Luanda, where he was employed in the accountant's office of the Public Treasury Department." Sarmento provides the only known physical description of Prince Nicolas: D. Nicolas Agua-Rosada was a tall black, with very dark color, kind features, a perfect racial type of muxiconga, which is distinguished especially by the prominence of cheeks, narrowness of the forehead, and by the thickness of the lips; he was modest, intelligent, not very talkative, but with affable and polite manners.
In short, he won general popularity, and as a public employee, he was exceedingly zealous in the fulfillment of his duties. His good service and aptitude resulted in his promotion.
Why was Nicolas ineligible for the throne of Kongo? Sarmento claimed that it was because he was a direct son of Henry II rather than a son of the King's sister or brother.18 The Kingship of Kongo was elective, but elections were often followed by wars. According to Vansina, the six electors usually chose "one who was not a child of the deceased king."19 Nicolas was one of a host of infantes, that is, descendants of one of the sixteenth-century King. Affonso I's three children. His title, "Prince, " meant that he could have been head of one of the many petty chiefdoms surrounding Sao Salvador, but from Sarmento's evidence, it seems that during Nicolas' time the electors would favor a king's nephew for King of Kongo.
The question of succession to the Kongo throne became an important issue in Portugal and Angola in this period. In literature which appeared between 1845 and 1855 Portuguese writers debated as to whether Kongo was a "vassal kingdom" of Angola or merely a "friend and ally." Nicolas later became involved in this question when he protested official Portuguese activities with regard to the Kongo. Lopes de Lima argued that the Kongo was actually a district of Angola and that the king was a loyal "vassal" of the Portuguese crown. Santar6m and Sa da Bandeira, two distinguished Portuguese statesmen, gathered historical documents to try and prove that the Kongo Kingdom had submitted to Portugal well before the nineteenth century as a "vassal" and not as a mere "ally. It is interesting to note, however, that Captain Castro, one of Nicolas' companions to Lisbon in 1845, believed that the Kongo Kingdom was outside Portuguese rule, for he placed the northern frontier of Portuguese territory at the River Lifume, which, in effect, might be interpreted as a southern boundary of Kongo Kingdom.
If the Portuguese were interested in renewing contacts in Kongo and strengthening their influence with its elite, there was not complete agreement on the achievements of the new policy. The policy of the official entertainment of Prince Nicolas came under attack by a former treasury official in Angola, Joaquim Ant6nio de Carvalho e Menezes. In a book written about 1846, but published in 1848 in Rio de Janeiro, Carvalho e Menezes stated that the money spent on Nicolas' visit was wasted. Prince Nicolas, he continued, was illegitimate and merely one of the offspring of concubines of the King of Kongo. He asserted that while Nicolas, an imposter barely able to speak a few words of Portuguese, was in Lisbon, the real descendant and legitimate heir to the throne of Kongo was in Luanda. Portugal's new interest in Kongo was misguided, he wrote, since that area had no political or commercial importance. Carvalho e Menezes criticized the Overseas Minister of Portugal for deliberate "conspicuous consumption" in the Prince Nicolas affair.23 Despite this official's attacks and his information on Nicolas' status is difficult to check the new policy toward Kongo went ahead and Prince Nicolas continued to receive certain considerations from the Portuguese government in Luanda.
II Prince Nicolas became further involved in the question of the succession to the throne of Kongo and expanding Portuguese influence on the north coast and in Kongo when the Portuguese officially annexed the port of Ambriz in May 1855. This annexation was opposed by British authorities as well as by local African authorities. The British Foreign Office had, since 1846, officially opposed expansion of Portuguese sovereignty north of eight degrees south latitude (a little south of Ambriz) in the interests of "unrestricted intercourse, " or free trade; Portuguese annexation would be followed by customs house control of the local trade. 24 Local African authorities resisted by armed violence but were defeated in a short skirmish. King Henry of Kongo, however, felt that the Portuguese annexation was favorable to his interests of getting support from Luanda. Therefore, he sent a message of congratulation to the Governor-General of Angola within a month of the annexation.Within a few years Nicolas was posted as a civil servant to the new administration set up at Ambriz.
The death of King Henry II in late 1857 sparked a struggle for the throne among claimant infantes. This civil war was further complicated by the growing, general African resistance to expanding Portuguese authority north of Luanda. Portuguese forces suppressed African rebellions at Ambriz and Bembe in 1857 and initiated relations with the candidate who emerged as one "legitimate" heir to the throne, the Marquis of Catende, called Dom Pedro, a nephew of the deceased King. The Kongo custom that a European missionary had to crown the king was already well established by this date; in 1858 the Marquis was still uncrowned, for there were no Portuguese missionaries then resident in Kongo. That same year he visited Bembe, where the Portuguese had begun copper mining operations, and the coronation ceremony seems to have been planned at that meeting. On August 7, 1859, at Banza a Puto in Kongo, the Marquis of Catende was crowned King Dom Pedro V; Portuguese officials, soldiers, and priests were in attendance. Dom Pedro was given the same royal title as that of the contemporary King of Portugal, Dom Pedro V of Braganga (1853-1861) and was crowned by Portuguese priests from Bembe and Ambriz.
Dom Pedro was clearly the favored Portuguese candidate. Opposition from several quarters, however, emerged both before and after his coronation. The first and most traditional opposition came from a rival claimant, the brave warrior, Dom Alvaro Kiambu Ndongo, called "Alvaro Dongo" by the Portuguese. As the candidate for the throne put up by the Kisundi clan, Alvaro Kiambu temporarily occupied Sao Salvador and threatened Dom Pedro's claim.31 Dom Pedro called for help from the Portuguese in Luanda. In mid-September the Governor- General dispatched a military expedition to relieve pressure on Sao Salvador and to support King Pedro in his fragile kingship. Major J. Baptista de Andrade, later a well known governor-general of Angola, led the expedition, which was supported by African auxiliaries, the guerra preta. They occupied Sao Salvador in late 1859.
In the meantime Prince Nicolas had taken a civil service position in Ambriz in 1857. Little is known of his life during this period, but it is very likely that he came into contact with other assimilados, as well as with resident foreign consuls, including those of the United States, Brazil, and Great Britain, and became culturally more Westernized. New ideas from Europe and America influenced Nicolas and his contemporaries in coastal Angola, and certain groups were becoming dissatisfied with their personal status and the status of Angola under Portuguese rule. Recalling the period of the late 1850's and early 1860's, Nicolas' contemporary, Sarmento, wrote: At that time in Luanda, some utopian ideas of independence fermented, so that some radical natives tried to liberate the mother country [italics in original], as they called it, from Portuguese rule. They talked of a republic, preferring Brazilian nationality, and there were even those who thought of making a present of the beloved country to the republic of the United States of America.
The official policy of sending Portuguese political exiles to serve sentences in Angola encouraged the spread of anti-monarchical, pro-republican doctrines at this time. Coinciding with a certain amount of European discontent, and perhaps encouraged by it, was an African separatism among a handful of Africans and mestigos with European education.
Either in Ambriz or in Luanda Prince Nicolas read in the government gazette, the Boletim Official, of the coronation of King Pedro V on August 7, 1859, and of the official oath of loyalty the King of Kongo took to the King of Portugal. Within nine days of the publication of this "Auto, " Nicolas had written several letters of protest. Two of these letters were to individuals, one to Dom Pedro V of Portugal dated September 26, 1859, and one to Dom Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil, with an unknown date. 35 More important than these letters in terms of Nicolas' future, however, was a protest letter addressed to a Portuguese daily newspaper, the Jornal do Commercio (Lisbon), also dated September 26, 1859, and published in Lisbon on December 1, 1859.36 This document became the focus of a cause celebre in Angola and indirectly resulted in the tragic end of the Prince of Kongo.
The major point of Nicolas' written protests was that Portugal had no right to claim that the Kongo Kingdom or king were now "vassals" of Portugal when in fact they were "ancient allies" or "a friend and faithful ally." Quoting documents to prove his point, Nicolas cited a letter from the Governor of Angola to the King of Kongo, Henry II, dated November 5, 1853, in which the Governor addressed that monarch as "an ancient ally."37 Nicolas thus protested the new oath taken by Dom Pedro V at the August 7th coronation and added that the military force sent to aid the King 'against an illegitimate but powerful pretender" was dispatched to aid an ally, not to pressure a vassal. Indeed, Nicolas maintained, the King of Kongo was an independent agent. The King and his aides had signed the document of August 7, 1859, only because they could not read Portuguese. Nicolas appealed to the King of Portugal and asked him to support "the independence of that kingdom [Kongo]
Nicolas' letter to the Lisbon newspaper contained much the same protest but went further, claiming that he, Nicolas, was the only person of royal blood from the Kongo elite who had the education to understand the issue and to protect the Kingdom of Kongo against future dishonest acts. In this letter Nicolas does not actually claim the throne for himself, but the tone and content of the letter leave little to the imagination in terms of Nicolas' ambitions. The Kongo Kingdom was an independent state, Nicolas asserted, and the recent Portuguese oath taken by King Dom Pedro was an infringement of this well established sovereignty. The Portuguese had hoodwinked the ignorant aides of the King, who evidently knew no Portuguese himself, and had made them sign this document. The secretaries and clerks of Kongo "so poorly understood the Portuguese language that they mistook the phrase, swearing of obedience and homage for renewal of alliance and friendship."
This interesting protest letter suggested that Nicolas was better fitted to exercise rule in the Kongo than were his relatives, stating that: This act, moreover, by the swearing of loyalty and homage said to be done by the Marquis of Catendi, my first cousin, in the role as king of the Kongo, is an infraction of national independence, well recognized by history and by the very government of His Most Faithful Majesty and by all their representatives in this Province, in many documents .... And since the Kongo Kingdom possesses no other person with such learning, it is therefore necessary to make a public and solemn declaration in this respect, as such, to protest, as I do protest, against the stated act, which subjugates the same kingdom to that of Portugal.
Although the publication of this article had little impact in Portugal, the bold protest, accompanied as it was by an elaborate set of arguments and documents, raised eyebrows in Angola. Sometime in early February 1860 the government-general of Angola received a copy of the paper which carried Nicolas' protest letter. On February 11 the government sent Nicolas a letter at Ambriz, where he was "interim clerk" to the treasury board. In this letter the Secretary- General of Angola acknowledged that Luanda knew of Nicolas' protest letter and that the government understood the conflict between Nicolas' position as "a public employee" of Angola and his recently published claim to be "a foreign prince of a free state." At about the same time the government sent Nicolas an order to be transferred to a new post, out of harm's way, at the new village of Mogcmedes.
It is unclear whether Nicolas received these letters, but if the one of February 11 was a measure to stall him, it would not have worked in any case; by then he had apparently made plans for leaving Angola. He had been contacted by foreign friends in Luanda and warned about the government's displeasure over his letter. Furthermore, he must have known about the fate of his uncle, Dom Aleixo, or Alexus, Prince of Kongo, a brother of King Henry II, who in 1841 had incited the Dembos people north of Luanda to rebel and refuse to pay a Portuguese tax, had been arrested, and imprisoned in a Luanda fortress until 1856. Nicolas left Ambriz on February 13, 1860, with the aid of his friend Saturnino de Sousa e Oliveira, the Brazilian consul.
Had Sousa e Oliveira helped Nicolas to write his famous protest letters? If so, what were his motives? At present such questions cannot be answered since the relevant correspondence from this Brazilian consul has not yet been studied. What is known is contained in several letters of explanation from Sousa e Oliveira to the Governor-General, in letters from Huntley and Gabriel, the British representatives in Luanda, as well as in correspondence from the Governor-General. From these letters it appears that, of the two foreign consuls involved in giving aid to Nicolas in his abortive attempt to leave Angola, the most compromised and guilty one was Sousa e Oliveira. Sousa e Oliveira was willing to help Nicolas leave Angola and went to Consul Gabriel to arrange for a British ship to pick up Nicolas north of Ambriz and take him to Brazil. Gabriel, who was shown two of the protest letters on or about February 9th, was reluctant to help Nicolas but finally consented to supply the Kongo Prince with a letter of introduction to the commander of any British vessel which might call at the ports north of Ambriz. This letter was sent to Nicolas in Ambriz with a warning that the government might be taking action against him for his letters of protest.
Some vague plan involving relations between Brazil and the "free state" of Kongo with Nicolas as king was apparently behind the Brazilian Consul's involvement with Nicolas. In a letter of February 28, 1860, the Brazilian Consul revealed the outlines of such a plan and explained, at least in part, his relations with Nicolas. Sousa e Oliveira stated that Prince Nicolas as a civil servant in a low position ("Escrivao Interino da Delegagao da Junta da Fazenda") in Ambriz was now dissatisfied with his role and wanted to continue his education. Nicolas lacked the means to continue his studies but felt that as a government employee he was "without honors or distinctions." He had decided, therefore, to leave Angola and study at Rio de Janeiro under Brazilian sponsorship. In the future, Nicolas planned for a close "alliance" between Brazil and the Kongo Kingdom, the nature of which would be commercial: wax, ivory, gums, and oils to be traded for Brazilian rum, sugar, glass, and textiles.
Nicolas considered himself the most educated person of royal blood from the Kongo Kingdom, but it is not clear whether he conceived of himself as a king in a future alliance with Brazil. In any event, further education was part of the plan, and Nicolas badly needed money to finance his departure from Angola and his stay in Brazil. Sousa e Oliveira later explained to the Governor- General that Nicolas planned to meet a member of his family at Ambriz, obtain from him 200 to 400 African slaves, and, masquerading them as "indentured servants, " sell them to a French agent on the coast. He would then have the necessary funds to travel to Brazil, where he would seek the patronage of the Brazilian Emperor. From Ambriz, Nicolas' destination was the small port of Kissembo, a few miles to the north in territory as yet outside of Portuguese jurisdiction and customs house control. The village was the site of a number of trading factories owned by American, British, and Dutch telling friends that he intended to visit a nearby relative. He was bearing the letter of introduction written by Consul Gabriel. When he reached Kissembo, he entered the house of a British merchant, Mr. Morgan. Morgan's house was soon surrounded by a large group of hostile Africans screaming for Nicolas. According to one account Morgan refused to surrender Nicolas, and when he raised a British flag to get help, the Africans broke in, dragged Nicolas out, and slaughtered him. Another account stated that Nicolas succeeded in getting out of the back of the house but was then shot dead. The American commercial agent, Willis, reported that Morgan gave Nicolas up after awhile, and the crowd then shot and beheaded him.
Why did these Africans kill Nicolas? One interpretation was that Nicolas was an assimilado and a traitor to Africans in that region; "because, they said, he had sold Ambriz to the Government and now wanted to sell the Congo." Indeed, his Portuguese friend at Abriz, Sarmento, had warned Nicolas just prior to his departure for Kissembo that he was taking a terrible risk, "because the black natives north of Ambriz despised him for leaving the Kongo and for living on intimate terms with the whites." Thus, Nicolas may have become a victim of popular Kongo justice, condemned as an agent of interests alien to the people north of Ambriz.
The exact identity of Nicolas' assassins remains unknown. The Brazilian consul later blamed the death of the Prince on "blacks coming from Ambriz, " who had been informed about Nicolas by agents of the Governor-General in order to prevent him from achieving the "independence of the Congo." Out of later repercussions from the affair came the Governor-General's bitter accusation that Gabriel had "sacrificed" Nicolas' life. The assailants of the ill fated Prince were undoubtedly caught up in the general unrest fomented by Portuguese expansion north of Luanda after 1855, but this factor would not by itself explain what appears to have been a planned attack.
The crucial question remains whether or not the African assassins knew that Nicolas had recently incurred the wrath of the Portuguese authorities in Luanda with his protest letters. When the Governor-General learned of Nicolas' violent death, he decided to launch a military expedition to Kissembo, partly in order to avenge the Prince's death, but also to annex Kissembo for Portugal. The Governor confided to Lisbon that Nicolas had "betrayed" the Portuguese authorities but that the African assailants had to be punished. He blamed Consul Sousa e Oliveira more than Consul Gabriel, but he did accuse Gabriel of plotting to "seduce" Nicolas into "opposing our projects of subjugating he Congo.' Sousa e Oliveira, he said, had encouraged "aspirations of independence which now are germinating around here in the excitable minds of the natives." Both men, he argued, should be removed from their positions for such "ridiculous thoughts."
The expedition to Kissembo failed to complete its mission, meeting considerable opposition from Africans as well as from foreign naval units which opposed the expansion of Portuguese sovereignty. When Governor-General Amaral, who was leading the expedition himself, met armed crews from the U.S.S. Union and from the British vessel, Falcon, he stated that he wished only to rest his troops in the town; but the foreign commanders refused to permit even this much. The Portuguese expedition then burned parts of the town and withdrew toward Ambriz. In crossing the Loge River near Ambriz, the Portuguese were ambushed by Africans and took heavy casualties. Poorly supplied and badly led, they retreated south to Luanda and safety.
III The Prince Nicolas affair ended with the Portuguese failure either to "avenge" the Prince's murder or to annex Kissembo to Angola. Nearly every individual touched by the events of February 1860 suffered in one way or another. Commissioner Huntley used the affair to try to discredit and dismiss Consul Gabriel; Huntley considered Nicolas' protest as "spurious" and contrived by the Portuguese to make claims in the Kongo area. Brazilian Consul, Sousa e Oliveira, was compromised, despite his explanations to the Governor-General that Gabriel was only a friend of Nicolas and that Britain and Brazil had no real interest in the Kongo Kingdom; he eventually left his position as consul, but remained in Luanda as a physician. The Governor-General attempted to use the affair to expand Portuguese authority on the coast, but met complete disaster in the Kissembo expedition; despite the fact that his term of office had been long and largely successful, Portuguese settlers clamored for his dismissal, and the government relieved him of his post in June. He was replaced by a new Governor - General in August 1860. Nor was Amaral's reputation the last one to suffer. The general reputation of all Portuguese authority in coastal Angola was severely shaken by the Prince Nicolas affair and its repercussions; and an expedition of 800 European reinforcements sent from Portugal to attempt to restore this tarnished image, achieved little or nothing as well as suffering nearly fifty percent mortality from malaria and yellow fever.
In Portugal, however, the Prince Nicolas affair indirectly prompted the King of Portugal to reassess Portuguese overseas policy and to reappraise its costs. When he had received a full report of the affair a few months after Nicolas' death, King Pedro V wrote a minister in Lisbon: "Many of our misfortunes in Angola clearly originate in the policy of expansion, which the Overseas Council began, and which we today find ourselves obliged to continue . .. To follow this policy, it is necessary to accept all the consequences, and these are the weakening of the Metropolis in favor of the colonies .... We are moving to destroy the special civilization of the natives- that is to say, their absolute liberty- but we cannot substitute our civilization, since they cannot accept it, and because they do not know or understand it."
Portuguese influence in the Kongo Kingdom declined again after the brief spurt of activity in 1859-1860. A rebel claimant to Dom Pedro's throne, Alvaro Ndongo, was kept at bay and was soon defeated. Yet the power of King Pedro V (or VI) was very limited and was confined to the environs of his wretched capital at Sao Salvador. The resident Portuguese garrison which maintained whatever power he enjoyed was withdrawn in 1870, and the Portuguese garrison at near-by Bembe was withdrawn two years later.66 When Amaral returned for a second term in 1869-1870, he admitted that the Kongo King was but a figurehead among a number of other petty chiefdoms and that the cost of earlier expeditions and occupation had been wasted. Although a Baptist missionary later referred to Dom Pedro as "the last independent King of Congo, " it was obvious that the King was rather helpless and that, as Nicolas had pointed out in 1859, his ignorance of Portuguese would make him vulnerable to Portuguese ambitions. Indeed, in 1884 the king apparently signed a document acknowledging the suzerainty of Portugal, believing that he was only thanking the King of Portugal for some gifts.
A decade and a half later, when the Portuguese again sought to expand their influence in Angola, some officials reconsidered the policy of maintaining and educating the tiny Kongo elite. The Prince Nicolas affair and several others, including that of Prince Alexus, suggested that the education of the Agua Rosada dynasty tended to produce enemies rather than friends for Portugal. The statement of a governor-general in a letter of 1885 to Lisbon that such education thus far had created only "useless visionaries, detestable clerks, " was referring, at least indirectly, to the case of Prince Nicolas as well as to later assimilados.
Despite the fact that the Prince Nicolas case remains mysterious, even to Angolan historians, several conclusions can be reached. Nicolas' roles in Angolan society were conflicting. He was at once an assimilado and an African traditional leader. As the personally ambitious assimilado he was prepared to use the slave trade to better his own condition. Vansina's hypothesis that the political leadership of the Kongo Kingdom by the early eighteenth century had become closely tied to the slave trade is complemented as well as modified in the case of Nicolas. If it is true that slaves remained "the real source of power" at the mid-nineteenth century, it is also true that the possession of European education had become more important as a factor of mobility and as a qualification for eligibility in leadership among the Kongo elite.
Nicolas' written protest that his royal relatives in Kongo were illiterate in Portuguese, whether or not it was true, suggested that he considered European education as a necessary prerequisite to leadership in a Kongo which had relations with Portuguese Angola. Nicolas' protest stated that, as a member of a traditional African elite, he felt a responsibility for protecting the interests of the people of Kongo, although this attitude was in conflict with his official position as a civil servant in the Portuguese administration in Ambriz. He thus set himself up as a guardian of his people's interests. It is not known how much of a following Nicolas had in Kongo; Brazilian Consul Sousa e Oliveira wrote that, although Nicolas had"some Partisans" in Kongo Kingdom in 1860, he represented only one faction. If he sought to assert his role as prince of a "free foreign state, " then he could not continue to hold his position as an assimilado civil servant with the government, as the Portuguese authorities had warned him shortly before his death.
Whatever Nicolas' place in the pantheon of early Angolan protest and dissent, his life represented a peculiar mixture of the traditional and early modern. From the time of the publication of his protest letter the Portuguese have considered him what they call "a rebel." If he was a rebel, his rebellion had ambiguities. Although he employed traditional means from the Kongo past -- slave trade profits and letters of petition to European authorities -- to achieve what he wanted, he also used a new method -- publishing a letter in a newspaper. Nicolas' published protest letter represents perhaps the first written opposition to a stated Portuguese policy since the letters from kings of Kongo to Lisbon and the Vatican in the sixteenth century. Since it was published, it went beyond the traditional disputations of earlier private Portuguese-Kongo correspondence. When Nicolas wrote that the "national independence" of Kongo Kingdom was "well recognized by history and by the very Government of His Most Faithful Majesty, " he used historical arguments to establish an independent status for his kingdom, although "national independence" was a non- traditional phrase. Yet his protests failed to make the Portuguese renounce their policy or to replace Pedro V. The repercussions from Nicolas' death, however, did far more to undermine the Portuguese position than did his letters.
The tragic Prince Nicolas affair illustrates two levels of consciousness in the area north of Luanda: among the Kongo Kingdom elite there endured a consciousness of special privilege and sovereignty, originally articulated in the six-teenth-century experiment, and thereafter doggedly preserved by succeeding generations; among the African peoples north of Luanda was a consciousness of independence which would lead them to oppose Portuguese expansion and authority and to condemn and punish any leader they considered to be inimical to their interests. Nicolas, like a number of deposed Kongo kings and princes before and since his time, apparently was a victim of this process.
In 1860 Angola none of the parties involved, including the Portuguese, was certain of the durability of Portuguese presence. Whether or not he was encouraged by Brazilian and British pressures, Nicolas, by his protest, revealed both Portuguese weakness and the expanding consciousness of the educated and rootless assimilado elite. This Kongo elite was a living reminder to its Portuguese patrons that a little education could be dangerous, especially in men with leadership qualities. Indeed, it was feared by some Portuguese officials that with proper leadership the Kongo Kingdom could become more than just a puppet state of Angola. Prince Nicolas' "very liberal education," and his protest, however fleeting, became new factors in the status of Kongo and in the Kongo elite's quest for power and prestige.
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quote:Originally posted by Mike111: Ya, that's really great research lioness. You found mention of a Prince Nicolas in a 1972 book about Africa and voila, you proved that the above picture of a Holy Roman Prince was in fact the African Prince Nicolas. Damn it you're a genius lioness.
And there I am, researching clothing, Jewelry, and every damn thing, trying to figure it out. When all I had to do was read the book and assume that the picture went with the book - silly me.
The 1972 book reference was for the text not the picture. I don't know the original source of this picture.
But what I'm reacting to is your dishonesty and fact faking.
You are saying you are "trying to figure it out"
yet you have a caption already saying that it's laughable to call this person a prince of Kongo
So you make up stuff put it up like it's fact and yet are still "trying to figure it out" That's the wrong way of doing things, it's backwards, like executing somebody and having the trial after they're dead.
It would be reasonable to say the source is not verified.
But saying that calling him an African prince is laughable means that because of his European clothes he could not be an African and that is a lie
We have been over this before.
^^ this is proof that Congolese kings wore European royal clothes.
period end of story, the point is made
Now the fact that he looks pathetic here is irrelevant. One can't tell the quality of the robe here. You tried to imply in an old thread that because this particular King of Kongo in 1892 looks like his clothes are not as fine in quality as this illustration of Prince Nicholau Dom Nicolau, prince of Kongo (Circa. 1830-1860), that therfore all Kings of Kongo had shabby psuedo royal clothes Buty you don't know the quality of that robe and there is no reason that they couldn't have different circumstances and therefore different qualities of clothing.
This photo in fact proves a more general point >
Kings of the Kongo did indeed wear European clothing.
period end of story.
Therefore the picture may not be source but the fact that an African prince could be wearing European clothing and that type of cross he's wearing is not laughable.
To say it's laughable is what is a lie not that it is unsourced.
It's is just an unsorted picture wearing clothes that fit properly in historical context.
But you made up lies that if he wore this cross he would be killed.
So in actuality you "trying to figure it out" but at the same time you are telling people the fact that that an African prince at that time wearing fancy European clothes and the type of cross he's wearing is laughable. But it was obvious you did not research Christianity in the Kongo at that time to And you put a caption on the photo suggesting it's laughably to think this person was an African
you are laughable
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ROYALTY OF ONE COUNTRY DO NOT WEAR THE ICONS AND TRAPPINGS OF ANOTHER COUNTRY.
That mimicking African is wearing genetic none specific trappings of European royalty.
In the case of the German crosses worn by the British, the current British royalty ARE Germans!
^^^ MIke this is pur garbage
You are the idiot you simply haven't done rudimentary research on the Portugese in West Africa so your ignorent remarks have no context. These Kings were puppets of the Portugese to an extent, with littel real power >> and were representing conversion to Christianity. There were some uprisings however and Prince Nicolau rebellled at a certain point with letters of protest
The early respect shown by the portuguese for the Africans whom they met on the Kongo coast provides a startling contrast to the attitude of Europeans in the later nineteenth century towards the peoples of the Kongo interior. The portuguese appeared to have no colour prejudice and at the very beginning their attitude to the Kongo citizens tended towards assimilation. They did not doubt that the Africans could become portuguese in externals, and the Kongo Authorities seemed ready enough to conform. Four hostages were taken to portugal by Diego Cam as surety for the men whom he had sent on a mission to Mbanza Kongo, the capital of the Kingdom of Kongo. During their year in Lisbon they were treated as honoured guests, they learned to speak and write portuguese, and the Christian faith was explained to them. When they returned to the Kongo they wore portuguese dress, but the Africans noticed at once that it differed from that of the crew of the boat which brought them home; the four hostages were members of the Kongo nobility, and in Portugal they had been treated as such.
The rich gold mines at Sofala (now a port of Mozambique) attracted the Portuguese to the East Coast of Africa. They used intermarriage with the Africans as a means of gaining favor and pushing into the interior of Africa. In turn, the Africans gradually lost their anti-Christian hostilities and gave in to being converted to Christianity. And thus Christianity was introduced into the Kongo before 1491. The Mani Sogno was the first Kongo nobleman to embrace the Christian faith. The Moslems, coming into the Congo from the East Coast, prevailed upon the Africans to resist being converted to Christianity, telling them that Christianity was a subtle method used by the Portuguese to take over their country. This warning notwithstanding, Christianity continued to spread in the Kongo.
In 1513, Henrique, son of Dom Affonso, then King of the Congo, was sent to Lisbon and to Rome to study theology. In 1520, Pope Leo X appointed Henrique Bishop of Utica and Vicar-apostolic of the Congo. Unfortunately, Henrique died before he could return to the Congo. He was Rome's first Central African bishop. The royal archives of Portugal still hold the records reflecting the ceremonial respect that was paid to this Christian son of an African king and queen.
In the years that followed, Portuguese evangelization of the Congo continued. The Holy See received ambassadors from and sent legates to the Congo. In 1561, Father Dom Goncalo da Silvera baptized the Emperor of the Court of Monomotapa.
The peaceful relations between the Africans and the Portuguese were eventually disrupted by the rising European lust for slaves and gold. It was from N'Gola (Angola) and the Kongo that the Portuguese New World was to derive its greatest source of slaves. In 1647, Salvador Correia of Brazil organized an expedition of fifteen ships for the purpose of reconquering Angola, which had been under Dutch rule for eight years. This event might be considered go be one of the earliest political interventions of the New World in the Affairs of the Old.
Portuguese domination founded on the dire necessities of the slave trade persisted in Angola. After a period of relative splendor, the Christian Kingdom of the Congo began to weaken and was practically destroyed by European fortune hunters, pseudo-missionaries and other kinds of free-booters. By 1688, the entire Congo region was in chaos. By the end of the seventeenth century European priests had declared open war on the non-Christian population of the Kongo. They were attempting to dominate Congolese courts and had ordered the execution of Congolese ancestral priests and indigenous doctors. Now the Congolese Christians were pathetic pawns of the hands of unscrupulous European priests, soldiers, merchants and other renegade pretenders, mere parish priests from Europe were ordering Congolese kings from their thrones.
Soon treachery, robbery and executions compounded the chaos in the Kongo. Violence became the order of the day as various assortments of European mercenaries vied for control of this rich area of Africa. In the ensuing struggle many of the Christian churches built by the Portuguese were destroyed. The Dutch, still feeling the humiliation of the decline of their influence in N'Gola (Angola), came into the Congo and systematically removed all traces of the once prevailing Portuguese power.
By 1820 Arab slave traders had penetrated the Kongo from Zanzibar and through Tanganyika. Soon after their arrival their slave raids were decimating the population. The European rediscovery of the Kongo and neighboring territories began in the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1858, two Englishmen, Burton and Spoke, discovered Lakes Tanganyka and Victoria, approaching them from the shores of the Indian Ocean. The Scotch Protestant missionary, Livingstone, explored the regions of the big lakes and in 1871, Livingstone and Stanley met on the shore of Lake Tanganyika. From 1874 to 1877, Henry Morton Stanley crossed Africa from east to west and discovered the Kongo River.
The Portuguese recognized the Manikongo King, but not Alteza (Highness). (See the alternative attempt of Alvaro III.) So for them the King of Kongo was an inferior, client King. Other Europeans did not accept the title at all.
Surely the Portuguese were right to the letter. A sovereign Kingdom has got the Crown or the Title originally either from (the/an) Emperor, or from the Pope. In the first case the vassalage was tangible, in the second intangible. France was exceptional, but Louis I (Chlodwig), the Meroving, got the sacred balsam (crism) from the Pope, or rather, from Heaven.
The Manikongo did not get crown from the Emperor or from the Pope. A King cannot create a sovereign king. So the Portuguese considered the Manikongo a Senhor, i.e. a Lord, even if the greatest Senhor of Central Africa.
True, they called the state Kingdom, and the Manikongo King. Instead of complicated argumentations, read the classical geographic work: Duarte Lopes & Filippo Pigafetta: Relacao do Reino de Congo e das terras circumvizinhas (1591). The name of the country is always Kongo Kingdom, the title of the Manikongo is always King there. However, when the authors describe the history of the previous century, the relation of the 2 kings (the Portuguese and the Congolese) is always analogous with that of the Emperor and a King of the Empire.
And in the XIXth century, when European powers finally cut up the map of Africa among themselves, nobody takes seriously the virtual rights of a Christian King without troops.
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Lioness - Compare the following Congolese royalty in look, dress, and bearing; and tell me of the similarities with the young prince above. (After 1880)
Embassy of the king of Kongo, Angola Unknown photographer c. 1895, postcard, collotype Published by Casa Novecentos, Loanda, Angola, c. 1906 Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives National Museum of African Art Smithsonian Institution
Kongo chief of Nemlâd, near Banana, Lower Congo, Congo Free State Unknown photographer c. 1892, postcard, collotype Published by Nels, Brussels, c.1888 Postmarked 1899 Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives National Museum of African Art Smithsonian Institution
King Makoko of Téké (center left carried on chair) in procession to Brazzavile with French colonials, circa 1905.
quote:Originally posted by TheAfricaTNSY: The Portuguese gave him those clothes, he was a collaborationist and introduced mass slavery in the zone, starting kidnapping the people of the neighbouring kingdoms to feed the hunger of slaves of the Portuguese.
Thanks for the Info.
Really puts in perspective, How uncle toms have devastated The Continent .
Smile in there Face and they ready to kill there brothers for a cup of tea.
European imperialists (in this case France and Belgium) named not one, but 2 countries with the name of that collaborationist kingdom. They are really grateful to it.
Republic of Congo = should be named Loango, since it was the most powerful kingdom there.
Democratic Republic of Congo = there were too many kingdoms there, a new name should be used (something diffrent from Zaire, since it remembers the bloody dictator Mobutu)
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quote:Originally posted by Mike111: [QB] Lioness - Compare the following Congolese royalty in look, dress, and bearing; and tell me of the similarities with the young prince above. (After 1880)
Embassy of the king of Kongo, Angola Unknown photographer c. 1895, postcard, collotype Published by Casa Novecentos, Loanda, Angola, c. 1906 Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives National Museum of African Art Smithsonian Institution
more proof that some employees of the Congolese government dressed in European garb
The idea that they would have to be dressed as finely as a prince is a stupid red herring, please, you are grasping as straws now
^^^ this is a young African man
now deal with ths situation instead of denying it
Can you deal with it or is it too much to handle
he was a client of Portugese colonialists and missionaries who later spoke up for the rights of his people
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posted
King of Kuba (located in Democratic Republic of Congo) in full cerimonial dress, everything is local and comes from the kingdom, from the crown to the sword. What the prince of Congo is wearing is half European half Congolese, since it was a collaborationist kingdom.
quote:Originally posted by TheAfricaTNSY: What the prince of Congo is wearing is half European half Congolese, since it was a collaborationist kingdom.
Which parts are Congolese?
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quote:Originally posted by TheAfricaTNSY: What the prince of Congo is wearing is half European half Congolese, since it was a collaborationist kingdom.
Which parts are Congolese?
Now that I look closer only the way he holds that cloth that he uses as a skirt come from local royal traditions, but the textures on it are European.
A prince with no shame and no pride, a complete sellout.
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quote:Originally posted by TheAfricaTNSY: Now that I look closer only the way he holds that cloth that he uses as a skirt come from local royal traditions, but the textures on it are European. A prince with no shame and no pride, a complete sellout.
So all of that analysis and comparing that I did was a waste of time for you eh?
You knew going in what it was, and you were not going to let logic and evidence get in the way of you knowing what you know.
If I hadn't forced you to actually think about it - What then?
You're African, aren't you?
BTW - What's African about the way he holds his Sash?
Lara and genius. Fragment. Genius at the altar and flutist.
Fresco from Pompeii (insula VIII, 2, larary). Fourth style. 69-79. Inv. Number 8905. Naples, National Archaeological Museum.
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the Teutonic Order was a German medieval military order, and became in modern times a purely religious Catholic order. It was formed to aid Christians on their pilgrimages to the Holy Land and to establish hospitals. Its members have commonly been known as the Teutonic Knights, since they also served as a crusading military order in the Middle Ages. The military membership was always small, with volunteers and mercenaries augmenting the force as needed.
Formed at the end of the 12th century in Acre, in the Levant, the medieval Order played an important role in Outremer, controlling the port tolls of Acre. After Christian forces were defeated in the Middle East, the Order moved to Transylvania in 1211 to help defend the South-Eastern borders of the Kingdom of Hungary against the Kipchaks (TURKS). The Knights were expelled by force of arms by king Andrew II of Hungary in 1225, after allegedly attempting to place themselves under Papal instead of the original Hungarian sovereignty.
In 1230, following the Golden Bull of Rimini, Grand Master Hermann von Salza and Duke Konrad I of Masovia launched the Prussian Crusade, a joint invasion of Prussia intended to Christianize the Baltic Old Prussians. The Knights had quickly taken steps against their Polish hosts and with the Emperor's support had changed the status of Chełmno Land (also Ziemia Chelminska or Kulmerland), where they were invited by the Polish prince, into their own property. Starting from Chełmno Land the Order created the independent Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights adding continuously the conquered Prussian's territory, and subsequently conquered Livonia. The Kings of Poland accused the Order of holding lands rightfully theirs, specifically Chełmno Land and the Polish Kingdom's lands conquered later, such as Pomerelia (also Pomorze Gdańskie or Pomerania), Kujawy, Dobrzyń Land etc..
The Order lost its main purpose in Europe with the Christianization of Lithuania. The Order initiated numerous campaigns against its Christian neighbours, the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Novgorod Republic (after assimilating the Livonian Order). The Teutonic Knights had a strong economic base, hired mercenaries from throughout Europe to augment their feudal levies, and became a naval power in the Baltic Sea. In 1410, a Polish-Lithuanian army decisively defeated the Order and broke its military power at the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg).
In 1515, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I made a marriage alliance with Sigismund I of Poland-Lithuania. Thereafter the Empire did not support the Order against Poland. In 1525, Grand Master Albert of Brandenburg resigned and converted to Lutheranism, becoming Duke of Prussia as a vassal of Poland. Soon after, the Order lost Livonia and its holdings in the Protestant areas of Germany.
The Order kept its considerable holdings in Catholic areas of Germany until 1809, when Napoleon Bonaparte ordered its dissolution and the Order lost its last secular holdings. The Order continued to exist as a charitable and ceremonial body. It was outlawed by Adolf Hitler in 1938 but re-established in 1945. Today it operates primarily with charitable aims in Central Europe.
The Knights wore white surcoats with a black cross. A cross pattée was sometimes used as their coat of arms; this image was later used for military decoration and insignia by the Kingdom of Prussia and Germany as the Iron Cross and Pour le Mérite. The motto of the Order was: "Helfen, Wehren, Heilen" ("Help, Defend, Heal").
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^^^^ TheAfricaTNSY this is from Mike's black history website
This is the complete painting. Below are some close up views of it Unknown Artist, Netherlands. Chafariz d’el Rey in the Alfama District (View of a Square with the Kings Fountain in Lisbon), ca. 1570-88.
oil on panel.
The artist depicted at least half a dozen Jewish men — the women’s religious identities are more difficult to discern — including two Jewish policemen hauling away a black man who appears, according to the wall text, to be “drunk and sheepish.” The latter figure and several other Africans explain the painting’s appearance in the exhibit “Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe,” which was at the Walters Museum in Baltimore.
Paintings of everyday life were popular in Flanders but not in Portugal, so the anonymous painter was probably a Flemish visitor inspired by the urban scene, according to Spicer. The painting is not only unprecedented for its portrayal of so many Jews — who have long beards, flat berets and yellow circles affixed to their clothes, per Charles V’s ruling — in the 1500s, but also for its depiction of so many African figures. Jews and blacks lived in coterminous neighborhoods at the port, which was considered less desirable real estate. One black man carrying a water jug on his head in the 16th-century painting wears chains, which were typically attached to a slave who tried to run away.
Viewers who read the wall texts at the Walters learn that though Africans were sold as slaves to Europe, their children were free. That’s why many of the African figures in the 16th-century painting are identifiable by their capes as free men. One — who may be João de Sá Panasco, who worked his way up from slave and jester to gentleman — is shown riding a horse and wearing the symbol of the Order of St. James.
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^^^ Mike because of his poor research and attempts at changing history has written a yellow caption about this figure at the top of this post It says>
"Appears to be the King of Portugal" --Mike111
^^^ totally ridiculous, as if these Portugese pioneers of the Trans Arlantic slave trade and the king himself was black. stop the madness
This is the type of clowing and tom foolery that Mike is promoting on his website
A Social History of Black Slaves and Freedmen in Portugal, 1441-1555 By A. C. de C. M. Saunders
____________________
Courts, Blacks at Early Modern European Aristocratic’, Encyclopaedia of Blacks in European History and Culture (2008),Vol. I, pp. 163-166.
People of African origin or descent were present at most European royal and aristocratic courts during the early modern period, where they performed a variety of roles ranging from stable hand to prince. Africans had long been part of court culture, but numbers increased as a result of European involvement in the slave trade to the Americas from the fifteenth century onward. Africans were not only a source of cheap labour, but also functioned as exotic symbols of power and wealth.
Europeans had employed black musicians and entertainers at court since at least 1194, when Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI (1165-1197) was accompanied by turbaned black trumpeters on his triumphal entry into Sicily. In 1470 a “black slave called Martino” was purchased to be the trumpeter on board the Neopolitan royal ship Barcha. Henry VII of England employed a black trumpeter named John Blanke, who was paid 8d a day in 1507. Henry VIII retained Blanke’s services. The Westminster Tournament Roll of 1511, which commemorates the celebrations that marked the birth of a short-lived son to Henry VIII and Katharine of Aragon, depicts a black trumpeter believed to be Blanke.
Elizabeth I had a “Lytle black a more” boy at her court and Anthonie Vause, a black trumpeter, was employed at the Tower of London in 1618. A Moorish “taubronar” or drummer devised a dance with 12 performers in black and white costumes for the Shrove Tuesday celebrations at the court of James IV of Scotland (1473-1513) in 1505. Teodosio I, Duke of Bragança (1510-1563) had ten black musicians, who played the charamela (a wind-instrument). A 1555 list of galley slaves belonging to Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519-1574) of Florence included a moro negro described as a trumpeter. In 1713, Frederick William I, later king of Prussia, asked for “several black boys aged between 13 and 15, all well-shaped” to be trained as musicians for his military regiments.
Blacks were often employed in royal and aristocratic stables. In 1507 the Duke of Medina Sidonia had seven black slaves working in his stables in Seville. Don Antonio, Prior of Crato (1531-1595) had a Moor named Antonio Luis working in his stable in Evora, brought from Tangiers, where he had been governor. Teodosio I of Bragança had 20 black stable boys. Blacks are often depicted handling horses in portraits, such as Daniel Mytens, King Charles and Queen Henrietta Maria Departing for the Chase (c.1630-32). Blacks were often excellent horsemen, such as the ‘Mour’ described in a letter from Lady Home to Mary of Guise in 1549 as being “as scharp a man as rydis.”
Blacks were also employed in the kitchen. King Joao III (1502-1557) gave his bride Catherine of Austria (1507-1578) a black pastry chef and confectioner named Domingos de Frorenca as a wedding present in 1526. They also had a black cook named Manuel. ‘James the Blackamoor’ was cook in the household of the Earl of Bath in Devon from 1639 to 1646.
The wealthiest aristocrats had the largest numbers of black slaves. Cardinal Luigi d’Este (1538-1586) had 80 slaves in his villa at Tivoli outside Rome. When they rebelled in 1580, he bought another 50. Teodosio I of Bragança owned 36 slaves: the Bragança were the most powerful noble family in Portugal, and eventually became her kings in the seventeenth century. Catherine of Austria, queen of Portugal from 1526 to 1557, was granted a yearly number of slaves from the customs houses. There were several blacks at the court of Louis XIV (1643-1715), including one presented to Queen Marie Therese in 1663. In 1680 Frederick William of Brandenberg established a Prussian outpost on the Gold Coast so that he could adorn his court with a few ‘handsome and well-built’ African men.
As a further display of wealth, black attendants were decked in rich clothes and jewellery. In 1577, Elizabeth I of England bought a “Garcon coate of white Taffeta, cut and lined with tincel, striped down with gold and silver…pointed with pynts and ribands” for her “lytle Blackamore.” In 1491 Isabella D’Este asked Giorgio Brognolo, her agent in Venice, to obtain “una moreta” between 1 ½ and 4 years old, and “as black as possible”. Darker skin was preferred, for it contrasted effectually with the diamond or pearl earrings with which the Africans would be adorned. It also set off the fair skin so prized by aristocratic women as depicted in portraits, where it was increasingly fashionable for a lady to be shown with a black attendant.
Some blacks took advantage of the opportunities available at court to advance themselves, either through education or military pursuits. João de Sa Panasco (fl.1524-1567), who began as a court jester in Lisbon, went on to become a gentleman of the household, king’s valet, a soldier who participated in Charles V’s campaign in North Africa in 1535 and finally member of the prestigious Order of Santiago.The Moor depicted by Jan Mostaert in a portrait (c.1525-30) seems to have reached a high status at the court of Margaret of Austria at Malines. The famous scholar Juan Latino (d.1590) grew up in the household of the Duke of Sessa in Granada, where he accompanied his young master to daily grammar classes, and eventually became a published author and lecturer at the University of Granada. Anton Wilhelm Amo, baptised in 1707 at Salzthal Castle, the home of the Duke of Wolfenbuttel, was to become a philosopher, with degrees from Universities of Halle and Wittenberg. Abraham Hannibal came to the court of Tsar Peter I (1672-1725) in Moscow in 1705 having been purchased by the Russian ambassador in Istanbul. He became a military engineer and major general. His great-grandson was Alexander Pushkin.
Not all blacks at European courts were purchased slaves. Visitors and ambassadors from Ethiopia and Congo were not uncommon. In 1488, Senegalese Prince “Bemoim” visited King Joao II in Lisbon. In 1491, Ercole d’Este of Ferrara began the practice of washing the feet of “religiosi indiani”, which were probably Ethiopian monks on their way to Rome as pilgrims. Some “blak More freirs” or friars were James IV’s guests at the Scottish court in 1508. In 1544 Dom Henrique, nephew of the King of Congo, visited Lisbon. Pope Leo X later consecrated him as a Bishop. A Morrocan embassy visited England in 1600. From 1652 to 1658, Abba Gregoryus, an Ethiopian priest, stayed at the court of Ernest, Duke of Saxony in Saxe-Gotha, where he tutored German scholar Job Lludolf in the languages of Ge’ez and Amharic.
One man of African descent actually ruled an early modern court. Alessandro de’Medici (1510-1537), the illegitimate son of a black woman, Simonetta da Colle Vecchio, became the first hereditary duke of Florence. Many European Royal Houses can trace their descent back to him.
posted
The defeat of Blacks during the Thirty Years Wars, (which were actually "Race" wars that modern Albinos call "Religious" Wars), was the deciding factor in the loss of Europe to the Albino people. Actually Martin Luther, Calvin, and other Albinos, created the Protestant sect of Christianity as a way to focus European Albinos into a common cause force. Unfortunately many Blacks, including royalty, fell for their Bullsh1t, and in fact aided in the defeat of Europe's Blacks.
Excerpt from:
Teutonic Knights: Their Organization And History Author: Woodhouse, F. C.
Casimir, King of Poland, who had long had hostile intentions against the order, secretly threw all his weight into the cause of the malcontents, who made such way that the grand master was forced to retire to Marienberg, his
capital, where he was soon closely besieged. Casimir now openly declared war, and laid claim to the dominions of the knights in Prussia and Pomerania, formally annexing them to the kingdom of Poland. The grand master sent petitions for aid to the neighboring princes, but without success. The kings of Denmark and Sweden excused themselves on account of the distance of their dominions from the seat of war. Ladislaus, King of Bohemia and Hungary, was about to marry his sister to Casimir, and the religious dissensions of Bohemia and the attacks of the Turks upon Hungary fully occupied his attention and demanded the employment of all his troops and treasure; and finally the capture of Constantinople by Mahomet at this very time (1458) seemed to paralyze the energies of the European powers.
The grand master, Louis d'Erlichshausen, thus found himself deserted in his time of need. He did what he could by raising a considerable body of mercenaries, and with these, his knights, and the regular troops of the order, he defended himself with courage and wonderful endurance, so that he not only succeeded in holding the city, but recovered several other towns that had revolted.
But his resources were unequal to the demands made upon them, his enemy overwhelmed him with numbers, his own soldiers clamored for their pay long overdue, and there was no prospect of aid from without. There was nothing left, therefore, to him but to make the best terms he could. He adopted the somewhat singular plan of making over Marienberg and what remained of the dominions of the order to the chiefs who had given him aid, in payment for their services, and he himself, with his knights and troops, retired to Koenigsberg, which then became the capital of the order. Marienberg soon afterward came into the hands of Casimir; but the knights again captured it, and again lost it, 1460.
War continued year after year between Poland and the knights, the general result of which was that the latter were defeated and lost one town after another, till, in 1466, a peace was concluded, by the terms of which the knights ceded to Poland almost all the western part of their dominions, retaining only a part of Eastern Prussia, with Koenigsberg for their capital, the grand master acknowledging himself the vassal of the King of Poland, with the title of Prince and Councillor of the kingdom. In 1497 the order lost its possessions in Sicily through the influence of the Pope and the King of Aragon, who combined to deprive it of them. It still retained a house at Venice, and some other property in Lombardy.
In 1511 Albert de Brandenberg was elected grand master. He made strenuous efforts to procure the independence of the order, and solicited the aid of the Emperor to free it from the authority of Poland, but without success. The grand master refused the customary homage to the King of Poland, and, after fruitless negotiations, war was once more declared, which continued till 1521, when peace was concluded; one of the results of which was the separation of Livonia from the dominion of the order, and its erection into an independent state.
All this time the doctrines of Luther had been making progress and spreading among all classes in Prussia and Germany. In 1522 the grand master went to Nuremberg to consult with the Lutherans there, and shortly afterward he visited Luther himself at Wittenberg. Luther's advice was decided and trenchant. He poured contempt upon the rules of the order, and advised Albert to break away from it and marry. Melancthon supported Luther's counsels.
Shortly after, Luther wrote a vigorous letter to the knights of the order, in which he maintained that it was of no use to God or man. He urged all the members to break their vow of celibacy and to marry, saying that it was impossible for human nature to be chaste in any other way, and that God's law, which commanded man to increase and multiply, was older than the decrees of councils and the vows of religious orders. At the request of the grand master he also sent missionaries into Prussia to preach the reformed doctrines. One or two bishops and many of the clergy accepted them, and they spread rapidly among the people. Services began to be said in the vulgar tongue, and images and other ornaments were pulled down in the churches, especially in the country districts.
In 1525 Albert met the King of Poland at Cracow, and formally resigned his office as grand master of the Teutonic order, making over his dominions to the King, and receiving from him in return the title of hereditary Duke of Prussia.
Shortly afterward he followed Luther's advice, and married the princess Dorothea of Denmark. Many of the knights followed his example. The annals and archives of the order were transferred to the custody of the King of Poland, and were lost or destroyed during the troubles that subsequently came upon that kingdom.
A considerable number of the knights refused to change their religion and abandon their order, and in 1527 assembled in chapter at Mergentheim to consult as to their plans for the future. They elected Walter de Cronberg grand master, whose appointment was ratified by the Emperor, Charles V. In the religious wars that followed, the knights fought on the side of the Emperor, against the Protestants. In 1595 the commandery of Venice was sold to the Patriarch and was converted into a diocesan seminary; and in 1637 the commandery of Utrecht was lost to the order. In 1631 Mergentheim was taken by the Swedes under General Horn.
In the war against the Turks during this period some of the knights, true to the ancient principles of their order, took part on the Christian side, both in Hungary and in the Mediterranean. In the wars of Louis XIV, the order lost many of its remaining commanderies, and by an edict of the King, in 1672, the separate existence of the order was abolished in his dominions, and its possessions were conferred on the Order of St. Lazarus. When Prussia was erected into a kingdom, in 1701, the order issued a solemn protest against the act, asserting its ancient rights over that country. The order maintained its existence in an enfeebled condition till 1809, when it was formally abolished by Napoleon. In 1840 Austria instituted an honorary order called by the same name, and in 1852 Prussia revived it under the designation of the Order of St. John.
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^Lioness - It appears that it's only Africans on the board right now, and as you know, this stuff just goes right over their heads. So you're on your own, your lies will go unanswered - bye.
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quote:Originally posted by Mike111: The defeat of Blacks during the Thirty Years Wars, (which were actually "Race" wars that modern Albinos call "Religious" Wars), was the deciding factor in the loss of Europe to the Albino people. Actually Martin Luther, Calvin, and other Albinos, created the Protestant sect of Christianity as a way to focus European Albinos into a common cause force. Unfortunately many Blacks, including royalty, fell for their Bullsh1t, and in fact aided in the defeat of Europe's Blacks.
Excerpt from:
Teutonic Knights: Their Organization And History Author: Woodhouse, F. C.
quote:Originally posted by the lioness: Death of Ulrich von Jungingen in battle of Grunwald 1410 part of Battle of Grunwald 1410 by Jan Matejko (1838-1893):
Closeup of above painting of Ulrich von Jungingen 1878 by Jan Matejko.
Painted 468 years after Ulrich von Jungingen's death in 1410.
But Mike will leave his poorer quality version where it accidentally looks like he has a big afro
I already exposed this before yet he will leave it up on his website to fool and miseducate people because he's a chronic compulsive liar
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posted
Mike, that history is no more "his-story", that is "us in his-story", you are once again placing what Europeans did above of what all the entire world did.
Who is financing you? I'm sure there is someone behind all this madness and the thousands of internet trolls that incessantly repeat this distorted version of history.
I saw those pics, with the captions, all over the internet.
If only the same time you wasted distorting European history was placed in showing real African history...
quote:Originally posted by TheAfricaTNSY: Now that I look closer only the way he holds that cloth that he uses as a skirt come from local royal traditions, but the textures on it are European. A prince with no shame and no pride, a complete sellout.
So all of that analysis and comparing that I did was a waste of time for you eh?
You knew going in what it was, and you were not going to let logic and evidence get in the way of you knowing what you know.
If I hadn't forced you to actually think about it - What then?
You're African, aren't you?
BTW - What's African about the way he holds his Sash?
Lara and genius. Fragment. Genius at the altar and flutist.
Fresco from Pompeii (insula VIII, 2, larary). Fourth style. 69-79. Inv. Number 8905. Naples, National Archaeological Museum.
We are dealing with 19th century Europe clown
find a 19th century European royal holding a larged bunched up cloth like that at theigh level
The hat/crown, I'm not sure about the pom pom type thing Could be European or only sem- European (not the cross emblems the top part. Again it has to be of the time period
This is just for curiosity at this point. His clothing doesn't have to be African in any way in order for him to be a Kingdom of Kongo royal, client of the Portugese -an African person
Posts: 42919 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by TheAfricaTNSY: Mike, that history is no more "his-story", that is "us in his-story", you are once again placing what Europeans did above of what all the entire world did.
Who is financing you? I'm sure there is someone behind all this madness and the thousands of internet trolls that incessantly repeat this distorted version of history.
I saw those pics, with the captions, all over the internet.
If only the same time you wasted distorting European history was placed in showing real African history...
So then, until the transatlantic Slave trade, the only place where Blacks resided was in Africa.
I know a few Africans, though they have a tendency to be "Hardheaded" I do not consider them to be stupid.
What you have just said "IS" stupid, it reminds me of what an Albino mole would say to confuse ignorant Blacks - very similar to what lamin does.
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