Seven Kingdoms of Kongo dia Nlaza
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This polity or region was first mentioned in texts of the Kingdom of Kongo
in the late sixteenth century, although it probably existed much earlier. It was only then being incorporated into Kongo, through the kingdom's eastern province of Mbata. It is unclear what the seven kingdoms were, though perhaps they included Kundi and Okanga. Presumably these kingdoms represented an alliance of several smaller polities, though the sources of the time tell us nothing about it.
The seven kingdoms are also called "momboares" in the seventeenth century text of the Portuguese Jesuit Priest, Mateus Cardoso, which offers an extensive description of the region. The term momboares certainly derives from the Kikongo work mbwadi, meaning seven. Cardoso noted that the region was famous in his day for the large amount of cloth that it produced, some of which was exported to the Portuguese colonial city of Luanda (Angola). Reports of the early seventeenth century suggest that the Seven Kingdoms exported as much as 100,000 meters of cloth annually to that market alone, suggesting that its total production must have been several times higher, putting in on a par with other major textile centers in the world, including areas of equivalent size in Europe and India.
Kingdom of Kongo
The Kingdom of Kongo was an African kingdom located in west central Africa in what are now northern Angola, Cabinda, the Republic of the Congo, and the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
in the late sixteenth century, although it probably existed much earlier. It was only then being incorporated into Kongo, through the kingdom's eastern province of Mbata. It is unclear what the seven kingdoms were, though perhaps they included Kundi and Okanga. Presumably these kingdoms represented an alliance of several smaller polities, though the sources of the time tell us nothing about it.
The seven kingdoms are also called "momboares" in the seventeenth century text of the Portuguese Jesuit Priest, Mateus Cardoso, which offers an extensive description of the region. The term momboares certainly derives from the Kikongo work mbwadi, meaning seven. Cardoso noted that the region was famous in his day for the large amount of cloth that it produced, some of which was exported to the Portuguese colonial city of Luanda (Angola). Reports of the early seventeenth century suggest that the Seven Kingdoms exported as much as 100,000 meters of cloth annually to that market alone, suggesting that its total production must have been several times higher, putting in on a par with other major textile centers in the world, including areas of equivalent size in Europe and India.