:ans, and Africans in the Atlantic World

lings, being bound to small boards, were cut,niserably massacred in a manner to move a: thrown into the river, and when the fathers:o save them, the soldiers would not let them3Oth parents and children drown — childrenige, and also some old and decrepit persons.; onslaught, and concealed themselves in thehen it was morning, came out to beg a pieceitted to warm themselves, were murdered into the fire or the water. Some came to ourt their hands, some with their legs cut off, andIs in their arms, and others had such horriblerse than they were could never happen. Andes, as also many of our own people, did not.t they ha4 been attacked by a party of othertfter this exploit, the soldiers were rewardedrector Kieft thanked them by taking them byng them. At another place, on the same night,Coder's plantation, forty Indians were in thetheir sleep, and massacred there in the same

>f Alva in the Netherlands ever do anything1 a disgrace to our nation, who have so gener-therland as the Prince of Orange, who has al-•ars to spill as little blood as possible. As soonI that the Swannekens had so treated them, allId surprise on the farmlands, they killed; but: they have ever permitted women or childrenall the houses, farms, barns, grain, haystacks,they could get hold of. So there was an open

They also burnt my farm, cattle, corn, barn,e tobacco. My people saved themselves in thei, which was made with embrasures, throughmselves. Whilst my people were in alarm the:d to escape from the fort in the night came: Indians that I was a good chief, that I hadt, and that the killing of the Indians took place:n they all cried out together to my people thatem; that if they had not destroyed my cattler burn my house; that they would let my littleicy wished to get the copper kettle, in order toows; but hearing now that it had been done•f all went away, and left my house unbesieged.lad destroyed so many farms and men in re-vent to Governor Willem Kieft, and asked him

Mbemba / Appeal to the King of Portugal

if it was not as I had said it would be, that he would only effect thespilling of Christian blood. Who would now compensate us for ourlosses? But he gave me no answer. He said he wondered that no Indianscame to the fort. I told him that I did not wonder at it; "why should theIndians come here where you have so treated them?"

NZINGA MBEMBA

Appeal to the King of Portugal

Europeans were unable to conquer Africa as they did the Americasuntil the end of the~nineteenth century. Rivers that fell steeply to thesea, military defenses, and diseases like malaria proved insurmount-able to Europeans before the age of the steamship, the machine gun,and quinine pills. Before the last half of the nineteenth century, Euro-peans had to be content with alliances with African kings and rulers.The Portuguese had been the first to meet Africans in the towns andvillages along the Atlantic coast, and they became the first Europeanmissionaries and trading partners.

Nzinga Mbemba, whose Christian name was Affonso, was king of thewest African state of Congo (comprising what is today parts of Angola aswell as the two Congo states) from about 1506 to 1543. He succeeded hisfather, King Nzinga a Kuwu who, shortly after their first Portuguese con-tact in 1483, sent officials to Lisbon to learn European ways. In 1491 fa-ther and son were baptized, and Portuguese priests, merchants, artisans,and soldiers were provided with a coastal settlement.

What exactly is the complaint of the King of Congo? What seemsto be the impact of Portuguese traders (factors) in the Congo? Whatdoes King Affonso want the King of Portugal to do?

Thinking Historically

This selection offers an opportunity to compare European expansionin the Americas and Africa. Portuguese contact with Nzinga Mbemba

Basil Davidson, The African Past (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1964), 191-94.

5.

8.

74 Europeans, Americans, and Africans in the Atlantic World

of the Congo was roughly contemporaneous with the Spanish expedi-tion to Mexico. What differences do you see between these two casesof early European expansion? Can you think of any reasons thatCongo kings converted to Christianity while Mexican kings did not?

Compare the European treatment of Africans with their treatmentof Native Americans. Why did Europeans enslave Africans and not,for the most part, American Indians?

Sir, Your Highness [of Portugal] should know how our Kingdom isbeing lost in so many ways that it is convenient to provide for the nec-essary remedy, since this is caused by the excessive freedom given byyour factors and officials to the men and merchants who are allowedto come to this Kingdom to set up shops with goods and many thingswhich have been prohibited by us, and which they spread throughoutour Kingdoms and Domains in such an abundance that many of ourvassals, whom we had in obedience, do not comply because they havethe things in greater abundance than we ourselves; and it was withthese things that we had them content and subjected under our vas-salage and jurisdiction, so it is doing a great harm not only to the ser-vice of God, but to the security and peace of our Kingdoms and Stateas well.

And we cannot reckon how great the damage is, since the men-tioned merchants are taking every day our natives, sons of the land andthe sons of our noblemen and vassals and our relatives, because thethieves and men of bad conscience grab them wishing to have thethings and wares of this Kingdom which they are ambitious of; theygrab them and get them to be sold; and so great, Sir, is the corruptionand licentiousness that our country is being completely depopulated,and Your Highness should not agree with this nor accept it as in yourservice. And to avoid it we need from those [your] Kingdoms no morethan some priests and a few people to teach in schools, and no othergoods except wine and flour for the holy sacrament. That is why webeg of Your Highness to help and assist us in this matter, commandingyour factors that they should not send here either merchants or wares,because it is our will that in these Kingdoms there should not be anytrade of slaves nor outlet for them.1 Concerning what is referred above,again we beg of Your Highness to agree with it, since otherwise wecannot remedy such an obvious damage. Pray Our Lord in His mercyto have Your Highness under His guard and let you do for ever thethings of His service. I kiss your hands many times.

• Emphasis in the original.

Mbemba / Appeal to the King of Portugal 75

At our town of Congo, written on the sixth day of July.Joao Teixeira did it in 1526.The King. Dom Affonso.[On the back of this letter the following can be read:To the most powerful and excellent prince Dom Joao, King our

Brother.]

Moreover, Sir, in our Kingdoms there is another great inconve-nience which is of little service to God, and this is that many of ourpeople [naturaes], keenly desirous as they are of the wares and things ofyour Kingdoms, which are brought here by your people, and in orderto satisfy their voracious appetite, seize many of our people, freed andexempt men; and very often it happens that they kidnap even noblemenand the sons of noblemen, and our relatives, and take them to be soldto the white men who are in our Kingdoms; and for this purpose theyhave concealed them; and others are brought during the night so thatthey might not be recognized.

And as soon as they are taken by the white men they are immedi-ately ironed and branded with fire, and when they are carried to be em-barked, if they are caught by our guards' men the whites allege thatthey have bought them but they cannot say from whom, so that it isour duty to do justice and to restore to the freemen their freedom, but itcannot be done if your subjects feel offended, as they claim to be.

And to avoid such a great evil we passed a law so that any whiteman living in our Kingdoms and wanting to purchase goods in any wayshould first inform three of our noblemen and officials of our courtwhom we rely upon in this matter, and these are Dom Pedro Mani-panza and Dom Manuel Manissaba, our chief usher, and Gonc.alo Piresour chief freighter, who should investigate if the mentioned goods arecaptives or free men, and if cleared by them there will be no furtherdoubt nor embargo for them to be taken and embarked. But if thewhite men do not comply with it they will lose the aforementionedgoods. And if we do them this favor and concession it is for the partYour Highness has in it, since we know that it is in your service toothat these goods are taken from our Kingdom, otherwise we should notconsent to this. . . .

Sir, Your Highness has been kind enough to write to us saying thatwe should ask in our letters for anything we need, and that we shall beprovided with everything, and as the peace and the health of our King-dom depend on us, and as there are among us old folks and people whohave lived for many days, it happens that we have continuously manyand different diseases which put us very often in such a weakness thatwe reach almost the last extreme; and the same happens to our children,relatives, and natives owing to the lack in this country of physicians

US HistoryChapter 15 Reading Quiz

• world was NOT a source of immigrants Cfl

C. Ireland and GermanyD. India and Southern Africa

•oast of the US was:C. Paris IslandD. Roger's Island

ntry as a "melting pot", they: ipressure" environment which would test im'lerica was a "land of gold" where all woulds a mix of races and nationalities blended tcbeing destroyed and "melted" by waves of

s to limit the numbers of an unpopular etlin

C. Jewish Segregation ActD. No More Italians Act

favoritism towards "Native" Americans.i>:. C. Nativism

D. Gerrymandering

immigrants into the dominant culture of the]C. Americanization Movement

!• D. Melting Pot Initiative

^ ' " •''•'.-•': • > • ' • ' • • ' I Iem facing the residents of American cities i| ji ;i ' . . . . • : . . . ' • . • • •'- : I | | |my cities.(very high.

?ded and poorly built cities.tothe suburbs.\\' " '•. ' • ' , . . . ' ' • • . ; ' " ;, :J

apartment buildings often inhabited by the;• C. Insulae

76 Europeans, Americans, and Africans in the Atlantic World

and surgeons who might know how to cure properly such diseases.And as we have got neither dispensaries nor drugs which might help usin this forlornness, many of those who had been already confirmedand instructed in the holy faith of Our Lord Jesus Christ perish anddie; and the rest of the people in their majority cure themselves withherbs and breads and other ancient methods, so that they put all theirfaith in the mentioned herbs and ceremonies if they live, and believethat they are saved if they die; and this is not much in the service ofGod.

And to avoid such a great error and inconvenience, since it is fromGod in the first place and then from your Kingdoms and from YourHighness that all the good and drugs and medicines have come to saveus, we beg of you to be agreeable and kind enough to send us twophysicians and two apothecaries and one surgeon, so that they maycome with their drug-stores and all the necessary things to stay in ourkingdoms, because we are in extreme need of them all and each ofthem. We shall do them all good and shall benefit them by all means,since they are sent by Your Highness, whom we thank for your work intheir coming. We beg of Your Highness as a great favor to do this forus, because besides being good in itself it is in the service of God as wehave said above.

WILLEM BOSMAN

Slave Trader

Willem Bosnian was the chief agent of the Dutch West India Com-pany on the African coast. Here, in a letter to a friend in Holland, heexplains how slaves were bought to Whydah, an English fort on thecoast of Dahomey (between the Gold Coast of Ghana and the slavecoast of Nigeria). Bosman discusses various ways in which he receivedslaves. What were these ways? Which does he seem to prefer?

. Shanties

Willem Bosman, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea, Divided into theGold, Slave, and the Ivory Coasts, trans, from Dutch, 2nd ed. (London: 1721), 339-45.

. , : ' • • ' • '.'•

Th

Compare Bosnian's descrijMbemba in the precedingferences? Are they due to Ethe Congo and Dahomey, i1700?

The author, a DutchnDutch slave ships and thosdence for his claims?

1 he first business of one of[Whydah], is to satisfy thewhich amounts to about agoods must yield there. Afteris published throughout the ^

But yet before we can deaking's whole stock of slaves aone fourth higher than ordimwith all his subjects, of whalstock of slaves, the factor muinhabitants with goods to thecommodities they send into tlslaves at all markets, and thacountry. For you ought to be iin the same manner as those c

Not a few in our countrychildren, men their wives, athink so, do deceive themselvcount but that of necessity, cthat are offered to us, are prtors as their booty.

When these slaves come iand when we treat concerningether in a large plain; wheithey are thoroughly examinenaked, both men and womenThose that are approved as £faulty are set by as invalids,such as are above five and thlegs, or feet; have lost a toot!eyes; as well as all those whiper, or several other diseases.