Portuguese Reach the Kongo

1483

Diogo Cao's caravel entered the mouth of the Congo River and exchanged gifts with envoys of the Manikongo. Within a few years the Kongo king would request missionaries, Portuguese books, and Portuguese wives for his nobility. Africa and Europe entered one of the earliest, and strangest, transatlantic diplomatic relationships. The Kongo kingdom's sophisticated political structure impressed Portuguese observers and complicated their assumptions about African societies.