Battle of mbwila

Battle of Mbwila
Date 30 October 1665 Location Mbwila, (modern Angola) Result Decisive Portuguese victory
Belligerents
Kingdom of Kongo	Portugal
Commanders and leaders
King António I of Kongo †	Captain Luís Lopes de Sequeira
Strength
21,900 - 29,000 infantry	14,150 - 14,500 infantry 2 artillery pieces
Casualties and losses
5,000 men killed or captured including the King, his two sons, his two nephews, four governors, various court officials, 95 title holders and 400 other nobles	Unknown

At the Battle of Mbwila (or Battle of Ambuila or Battle of Ulanga) on October 29, 1665, Portuguese forces defeated the forces of the Kingdom of Kongo and decapitated king António I of Kongo, also called Nvita a Nkanga.

Although Kongo and Portugal had been trading partners and participated in a cultural exchange during the sixteenth century, the establishment of the Portuguese colony of Angola in 1575 put pressure on that relationship. Kongo initially assisted Portugal in Angola, sending an army to rescue the Portuguese governor Paulo Dias de Novais when his war against the nearby African kingdom of Ndongo failed in 1579. But subsequently as Portugal became stronger it began to press harder, and in 1622 severed even the cautiously friendly relationship of the earlier period when a large Portuguese army invaded southern Kongo and defeated the local forces at the Battle of Mbumbi. Pedro II, king of Kongo at the time, responded by personally leading a force at the battle of Mbamba crushing the invasion. He then wrote to the Dutch Estates General, proposing an alliance with the Dutch to drive the Portuguese out of Angola altogether. This alliance did not finally come to fruition until 1641 when Dutch forces took Luanda and were joined by an army from Kongo, forcing the Portuguese to withdraw into the interior. However, they were not able to finish the Portuguese, and as a result the Portuguese eventually forced the Dutch out in 1648.

In the years following the Dutch withdrawal, Angolan governors sought to obtain revenge against Kongo and to support the slave trade with a highly aggressive policy. Included in this policy were attacks on the zone of small, semi-independent states called Dembos that separated Angola from Kongo. Both Kongo and Angola claimed authority over the Dembos. King António I, an aggressive monarch in his own right, was negotiating with Spain to renew an anti-Portuguese alliance, and also sent ambassadors into the Dembos areas to persuade them to join Kongo against the Portuguese, promising Spanish aid. In 1665, one of these small kingdoms, Mbwila, underwent a succession struggle and the various factions appealed to Kongo and Angola for aid. Both sides responded with armies.

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